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| I cry when you criticize my dad. |
I never could have imagined I'd see this argument:
A further, even more dangerous issue is that in a vast majority of key cases of alleged Bible issues and difficulties being raised to try to indict the God of the Bible as a "fictional" "bronze age tribal deity" and "genocidal moral monster," etc, the texts being snipped out of context come from the Old Testament or the Tanach, especially the Pentateuch or Torah.I see no anti-semitism whatsoever, even when one substitutes "God of the Jews" for "God of the Old Testament." Dawkins's point remains valid and true.
So, Dr Dawkins and co, kindly note: the direct implication of these anti-God, anti-Bible arguments, is that they are implicit attacks on Jews and Judaism, not just Christians and Christianity. Those who would make them, need to ask whether they would be willing to explicitly substitute terms directly accusing or challenging Jews, for those that accuse or challenge Christians.
“The God of theThe subtext of thinly veiled Anti-Semitism should be obvious, once we headline the reference to "The God of the Old Testament." Let's spell that out, a little more plainly: The God of theOld Testament[read: Jews] is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully . . . ” [Cf. Lennox- Dawkins debate, here. For a quick initial response to this sort of rhetoric, cf. CARM here and JPH of Tektonics here, here, here and here. Also cf. Vox Day's short book length critique of the new Atheists in a free to download format here. (Available from Amazon here.)]Old Testament[Jews].
Dr Dawkins, would you be willing to explicitly say that "the God of the Jews" is "jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully"?
Obviously not, or you would not have resorted to the sort of snide euphemism that allows you to pretend that it is only Bible-believing Christians who are in your cross-hairs.
If you want to talk anti-semitism: why are you calling the Hebrew Scriptures an "old" testament? To Jews, that testament is still operative and the Christian testament is false.
Anti-Yahweh isn't antisemitism because even Israel acknowledges there are Secular Jews who are Jewish by couture but not religion.
ReplyDeleteYou have the best name ever.
ReplyDeleteMr Tanner: you may wish to examine my response at F/N 3, here. KF
ReplyDeleteKF,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link. I read and considered what you wrote. I see no reason at all to change my position. Dawkins's assessment of the character "God" is very reasonable.
Plus, calling the Hebrew Scriptures "old," to mean 'outdated' or 'former' is--like it or not--insulting to the traditional Jewish view. In that view, the "proofs" of Christianity, and the "prophecies" that Jesus supposedly fulfilled tend to be mistranslations and stretches of the Hebrew (the suffering servant being particularly notable). In that view, too, the Christian re-reading of Scripture is demonstrably wrong.
Of course, I accept neither the interpretation of Judaism nor that of Christianity.