Bodie Hodge one of the creotard superstars at Answers in Genesis posted this self righteous screed about lying. Essentially he is saying that the people who lied to protect the Jews in Nazi Germany were sinning against God and it would have been better to tell the truth and let the Jews be murdered than sin by lying.
Apparently he forgot to check with the actual Bible.
In Joshua we see that this sort of lie is perfectly fine with the dictates of the Christian deity.
Joshua 2:4-6
And the woman [Rahab] took the two men and hid them and said thus: There came men unto me, but I wist not whence they were; and it came to pass about the time of shutting of the gate, when it was dark that the men went out; whither the men went I wot not; pursue after them quickly, for ye shall overtake them. But she had brought them up to the roof of the house and hid them with the stalks of flax.
James supports this by saying
James 2:25
Was not Rahab, the harlot, justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?.
Seems pretty clear right? Of course in another article the creotard addresses this. Claiming that
"The first thing that needs to be pointed out is that nowhere in this verse is any inclination of Rahab being praised for lying about the spies. Also in Hebrews 11:31, Rahab’s faith was praised for receiving the spies in peace. But again, there was no praise for lying. Rahab was not righteous for lying but for her other deeds:"
This of course ignores the fact that (A)Rahab did lie and lying was implicitly part of the action for which she was praised, and (B) If Rahab had not lied the spie would have been killed and she could not have helped them or done anything praiseworthy, and (C) Why would James have used the word Justified in his statement or even mentioned it at all if he was not condoning her actions.
This Bodie character is one of the many Christians who don't care what the Bible actually says only how they can twist and mangle it to support whatever premise they wants it to support. Having studied the Bible in great detail I can say it is not subtle or mysterious requiring great interpretation as the founders of Catholocism would have you believe. As the early protestants noticed it is a very straightforward document. While I see it as a collection of myths and legends, I also see that it says exactly what it means. Interpretation is a device used to manipulate the text into a tool for controlling the followers of the religion, not to enlighten or educate. People like Bodie don't care about their god, they regard themselves as god and want everyone to follow their own version of divine command.
Bodie continues by trotting out the ninth commandment:
"Lying is a breach of the Ninth Commandment and is never condoned by God, regardless of who does the lying or what the circumstances might be. There is no such thing as a “righteous lie.”"
This is another dishonest mangling of the Bible. The ninth commandment states:
"Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor" this is from the first ten commandments written by God which Moses broke.
Or
You shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor in the second set written by Moses.
Who did Rahab bear false witness against? No one. She lied in order to save lives but she didn't lie against anyone. She lied about the direction two men traveled. This is surely a lie but by what mangling of language is it a false witness against someone. She is not bearing false witness against the people she lies about she is lying for their benefit, and the people she is against are not the ones she is bearing false witness about.
Other scriptures such as Exodus 23:1,Leviticus 6:2-4,Proverbs 24:28, and Luke 3:14 all address deception but all in the context of bearing false witness or making false oaths. None adequately address the actions of Rahab or the actions of those who helped the Jews avoid Nazi death camps.
There are some verses such as Revelation 21:8 and Revelation 21:27 which broadly condemn lying yet considering the words of James does it follow that Christians should abet every murderer and sadist simply to avoid deceiving them. I am sure there are many Christians who like Bodie are so self centered that they would place their personal purity above the lives of even millions. I am glad I am not one of them.
Here is morality according to me an atheist. If it were true that lying would net me eternal damnation in some magical bad place and if a group of people were fleeing murderers and I needed to lie to save them I would do so without hesitation. How could it be moral for me to put my own self interest in avoiding damnation above my duty to protect my fellow man from harm. If a man were robbing a bank I was in and was going to execute some hostages should I stay hidden behind a desk where I am safe? or should I rush out and try to stop him even at the cost of my own life? I say the second. According to Bodie a good Christian should pick the first. If a madman tells me I can pick someone to be tortured but if I refuse he will torture me, do I condemn my neighbor to death by torture? or do I man up and say take me? I choose the second, however according to Bodie Christian doctrine says take the first.
So in summary there is no good case that lying to protect the Jews from the Nazis was a sin according to his mythology, and further even if it were, only a vile and disgusting creature would condemn others out of his selfish need to protect his own purity.
it’s an older meme sir, but it checks out
6 days ago
10 comments:
Excellent post Ryk. I don't have time to respond right now.
This is an excerpt from a post of mine.
"Do not lie."
There is no difference between a little white lie or a big fat one. They are all lies! Lies have a snowball effect. You need to keep lying and then you get confused and forget your lies and have to make up new ones. Only the truth can stop that abominable snowball of lies! You might fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool God any of the time. It will all be exposed before the God whom we must give an account to in the end.
Corrie Ten Boom's family hid Jews in their home and all wound up in concentration camps themselves. The guards came to their home. The Jews hid in a secret opening in the floor covered with a rug under the kitchen table. The guards asked, "Where are the Jews?" Corrie's sister said, "Under the table." She had such a strong conviction to tell the truth and God honored that. The guards didn't even check under the table, they left.~As for me, I probably would've lied.~
No! I would've lied in an instant in spite of my own conviction to be truthful before God.
In Corrie's sister's case it seems God would rather have us tell the truth. An in turn God would honor the truth with a way of escape. It's a trust issue. I'm quite sure she trusted God to handle things as she spoke the truth. And He did.
As for me- I don't know if my faith is that strong to believe that God would intervene. As I sit and wonder... I know that God is fully capable of doing anything. But when the rubber meets the road I suppose He'd have to deposit that sort of faith within me for me to be able to act upon it.
I believe a lie is a lie, period. No such thing as a little white lie or a big fat one. This would hold true for a an unrighteous lie or a righteous lie.
God cannot contradict Himself. Many pick apart the scriptures and accuse Him of doing so. It's only by divine revelation that you can understand the Words of God anyway.
Although your moral code would justify lying to save others you wouldn't be justified before God.
"There is a way to a man that seems right, but in the end it leads to death."
However if lying to save someone from death and torture would not be justified by God, then God is evil and cruel.
Now it is not a real being so it can not actually be evil. However it is a character and it has traits attributed to it and the more I know of those traits the harder time I have understanding why otherwise decent people would worship it.
It saddens me. You are not the only decent and normal person I know who is a Christian. In fact the majority of Christians I know are decent people. Not any more so than atheists or Muslims etc. but good, normal people.
There are of course screaming whackdoodles in every faith but Christians are no worse than others in that regard. I love many people who are Christian. Then they tell me about their beliefs and what they worship and it just gives me the creeps.
I have a hard time with the contradictions. On the one hand I have my friend who I know is a kind person, good friend, loving husband, devoted father, and brilliant intellect. On the other he worships this horrible and nonsensical religion.
One thing that I forgot to mention in my post that was pointed out in the comments on the blog Pharyngula is that the poster at AIG, Bodie left out the obvious solution. Simply tell the Nazis "I wont help you, Nazi filth" and die buying the Jews time to escape. That would not entail lying and might save the people you are supposed to protect. I would not do this because it is less likely to actually save the people. Had Bodie suggested this I would still have questioned his grasp of the bible but not his manhood.
He however didn't he said that people should have turned the Jews over because it was up to God to save them and he could be using their deaths for some purpose. Sounds like justification for cowardice to me.
I don't necessarily agree entirley with Bodie.
Like I said, I would lie in that situation. As deep as a conviction as I have to be honest, I do trip up and lie for much lesser things.
Did you ever try to focus on the good characteristics of God?
It seems as though the -supposed bad charactersitics of God- are your focus.
I know that my God is good.
Even in dealing with what my son went through. There were, in times of tragedy in the past, that God seemed to consume me with the reality of His goodness. He soooo convinced me, where deep cries unto deep.
However, with Adam's near death, I didn't have any feeling or consuming convincing of His goodness,by God. (Faith doesn't work by how I feel. Although God will at times use your emotions.)
All that I had to cling to was what He taught me about His goodness. I just need to go back to what I know to be true.
I would love to go through the Bible and give you several scriptures about the goodness of God. But I'm afraid that satan would snatch it all away from you and shift your focus to his lies instead.
You, however, can fight that and allow yourself to be teachable before God. You are in the middle of a battle for your soul. Try to pay attention to that. You have a choice Mr. Ryk. So what ya going to do. I wish you would just say, and actually choose Jesus.
That's how you can be true to yourself...with the truth.
There are no good attributes of God. That is why I can not focus on them. Even the doctrine central to the idea of God being good. Salvation through Christ is extremely evil.
It is a doctrine that those who are saved receive eternal reward regardless of the magnitude of their crimes and those who are not are tortured horribly for something as simple as not believing.
Of course many Christians will say you are not punished for not believing you are punished for your sins. However that is a cop out. The bible clearly states that no one can come to the father except through Jesus therefore even if someone never sinned at all they could not be saved unless they believed in Christ. Some even say that not believing is in itself a sin worthy of damnation.(based on scripture I disagree but that is a seperate topic) Further it is also a common Christian doctrine that no one is capable of being truly without sin and worthy of God. Therefore since we are created incapable of achieving salvation without believing we are therefore punished for not believing.
This is manifestly unjust and wicked. David Richard Berkowitz the serial killer better known as Son of Sam is a born again Christian now. One of his victims Stacy Moskowitz was a religious Jew. So according to Christian doctrine Berkowitz will be enjoying eternal bliss in the sight of God while Stacy fries in hell.
Salvation has nothing to do with good or even sin these are irrelevent. It is about sucking up to God. Read the bible for very long and you will see that is all it is about.
The old testament is all about God and his jealous temper tantrums because the Jews weren't properly sucking up. The new testament is about telling people suck up or burn forever.
Even if I believed which I most assuredly don't, I wouldn't choose to worship it.
As to your experience with your son I can not even begin to relate. If I believed someone hurt my child for any reason, no matter the motive I would hate that person. If I believed in God and my child became gravely ill I would hate God. Obviously if there were an omnipotent being everything would be its fault. Every evil every harm would be because it willed it. That is what omnipotent means nothing can happen unless the omnipotent one allows it.
Also the argument that it serves a higher purpose is null. Omnipotent means you can accomplish anything anyway you want to. If you can do it with suffering you could also have done it without.
Likewise the argument that free will is important is null. Again if you are omnipotent you could create a being that has free will but no desire to perform certain actions.
In the end the final argument of most Christians is that it is all to glorify God. We are given the choice of sin so we can glorify God by choosing to serve him. People are made to suffer so God can be glorified by relieving suffering. etc. etc.
Any entity that would cause suffering for it's own glory is evil.
You are grossly incorrect about your knowledge, and mindsets toward my God.
God doesn't require "sucking up." Nor does He have temper tantrums.
He is self controlled and desires a loving relationship with you. A relationship more intimate than lovers.
You are simply stuck in thinking that you are right.
God's forgiveness is deeper than any sin. It's offered to all, even the son of Sam's of our world and to Stacy the Jew. It's everybody's choice to accept it or reject it.
I could choose to be bitter toward God and hate Him for allowing my son's tragedy. Trust me, Satan has made every opportunity to encourage me to do so. Fortunately, I can see his wicked endeavors and kick his face in (so to speak) with God's authority and tell him to back off! I can only go back to what I KNOW- God is good. It is not a cop out to say that He works all things out for good or that He has a plan. It's true. I can tell you of many instances of how God has turned what the enemy meant for evil into something good.
What happened to Adam is NOT God's fault although He could've prevented it. It was His will not to. That doesn't mean that He's to blame. Sin is. Freak bacteria is. Satan the one who bends over backwards to seek, kill and destroy is. Not God. You'd blame God (if you believed) because you don't know Him. You'd hold Him accountable if He is the claimed creator, in your unbelief. If you would only let Him prove Himself to you, then you'd see for yourself.
I can't see the big picture right now and I'm struggling with that, honestly. But again I resort to what He has already proven to me in times past.
I can wholeheartled say that it is through the deepest times of suffering that I was the closest with God. And in retrospect some of the things that I have endured I would do all over again because I have seen the good that has come out of it. I have even become thankful. Not for the situation per se, but the good that has come from it.
Truth be told we all our going to suffer in this life with or without God. I pray that during your times of suffering you find God's hand extended out to you. I pray that you find that right now!
I don't understand what you mean by this. Please elaborate....
You said- Likewise the argument that free will is important is null. Again if you are omnipotent you could create a being that has free will but no desire to perform certain actions.
I mean that if someone had no desire in them to do those things that your God calls evil but had the free will to do them then their would be free will but no sin.
For example I have the free will to paint myself purple jump off a building flapping my arm yelling I'm a purple fairy look at me fly.
I however have no desire to do that.
If people had no desire to hate or murder or lust then they would not. Free will wouldn't even be an issue. Since by definition an omnipotent being could create such people and chose not to. The omnipotent being is by definition responsible for sin. Using the Adam and Eve story to justify sin in the world is also void. They were created with the longing for knowledge(otherwise they could not have been tempted with it) but no knowledge of good and evil therefore they could not have known it was wrong to disobey God since such knowledge only came to them after they disobeyed and ate the fruit.
They were played, there was no real choice. It was like putting candy in front of a baby, saying don't put that in your mouth baby. Then when the baby puts the candy in its mouth, beating it to death. Then beating to death every other baby because the first one put the candy in its mouth.
You claim that god is controlled and does not have temper tantrums. There is no evidence of that in the bible. There is nothing in the bible but a litany of the rages of a blood thirsty storm god and his jealous lust for worship and sacrifice.
What evidence in scripture is there of God being controlled or even just. I have never seen any.
Hi Ryk,
I'm not avoiding you, just got a lot on my mind.
I'll try w/ God's help to convert you later. :0)
@Tracy
OK hope everything is alright
Yes, I'm alright. Thanks for asking. I am having problems with a friend that is requiring a lot of my time and energy. I really want to handle it the right way.
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