The Book of Job

[Machadaynu]

I mentioned my thoughts on The Book of Job in the 'Back to Church' thread, and it was suggested that I start a new thread about it. So here it is.

The story of the book of Job is (to quote myself from the other thread):

God is chatting to Satan and mentions how Job is his best follower and would never lose faith. Satan essentially has a bet with God that Job would turn on God if his life wasn't so great. God, for some reason, accepts this deal with the proviso that Satan doesn't kill Job. It's not explained why God is chewing the fat with Satan rather than, say, destroying him completely, what with God being omnipotent and Satan being pure evil.

Anyway, Satan sends all sorts of illness to Job, kills all his animals, destroys his farm and kills his entire family. God, being omniscient, knew this would happen when he took on the bet - he knew Job would suffer, and he knew Job would remain true to him. Quite why he needed to prove this to Satan (pure evil, remember) is something of a mystery.

In the end God gives Job twice as many animals as before, and 10 new children, including 3 daughters that were prettier than the ones God allowed Satan to kill.

Christians see this as a story of how faith is rewarded (even if you're only suffering because God is trying to prove a point to Satan) I see it as a story of how God will use us as he sees fit, is insecure and vain and is apparently either unable, or unwilling, to resist being influenced by Satan.

I contrast God's treatment of Job, his wife and children - all "God's children" used as pawns in a game, and suffering terribly for it - and wonder what we'd make of a human father treating his children in such a way. I expect the MN opinion would be rather damning to say the least. Yet when God does it, it becomes an inspiring story, and God is love, apparently.

Christians, I am told, see the book as a lesson in why the righteous suffer. The answer, it seems, is that their all-loving, all-powerful, all-knowing, benevolent holy father is sometimes prone to abandoning people to the worst excesses of Satan to try and prove some kind of point to God knows who.

Seems odd to me. God does not show love in that story. God shows himself to be deeply unpleasant. Or not God.

What are your views on Job?

I'm not saying my morals are higher than anyone else's. What you are saying Thistledew is rational, but personally I find it hard to follow God and be entirely rational. When it comes to really bad things happening, is it possible to reason why, beyond the practical that is?

I do think about why something has happened on a practical level, but trying to evaluate why that person deserved it over that person is virtually impossible. You just have to have faith.

I'm sorry - I can't really argue with you. I'm not theologically expert enough; you'll just have to accept that however horrible it seems God is and however irrational my arguments for trusting in him may seem to you, I just believe in him.

I just don't think people should make a habit of questioning why God made XYZ happen if they believe. I think that's what faith is about.

You're right thats what faith is about for some... and one of the reasons I think faith is a bad thing. It can lead people to accept (or in some cases, do) the unacceptable, if they believe it's Gods will.

personally I find it hard to follow God and be entirely rational.
Thats honest anyway!

Thanks for your response EugenesAxe. I do find it interesting that when I speak to people of faith on an one to one level, almost no-one claims that they hold a superior moral view, but that Religions as institutions do claim to hold 'the answers', that it would be better if more people converted to their beliefs, and that people who do not agree with their beliefs are lacking in a moral compass.

One thing that is liberating about not having a faith is that you don't even have to think about whether one person is more or less deserving than another of good/bad luck. It is easy to accept that good/bad things happen more or less at random, and that there is no hierarchy of 'deservingness' that determines it.

I don't really understand that last para thistle. Who thinks about whether someone 'deserves' good/bad luck or not? what sort of compass is there that would determine who does or doesn't 'deserve' good/bad luck? Nobody 'deserves' anything. Things happen. I have a faith and it doesn't occur to me to decide, or think about, who does and doesn't 'deserve' good/bad luck. If someone does good/bad things, there may be a childish desire for that person to get their 'reward' for what they've done but it's exactly that: childish. There isn't a points system going on anywhere.

As I understand it, it is a fairly common Christian belief that God does a fair amount of smiting of those he feels deserve it. Someone up-thread mentioned the Boscastle floods in this context.

It wouldn't be 'smiting' because God doesn't do that. It would, if anything, be more along the lines of neglecting your body and eventually getting ill because of it ie a consequence. As has been illustrated, the casualties during the Boscastle floods were random. There are plenty of people who, if I let myself, I would like to reap a nasty consequence to things they have done but, at the end of the day, I can't know what went into the way they behaved - who they are, where they come from, what may have happened to them. Only God knows that and I don't want to be caught being their judge - self-preservation there, nothing to do with being good if I'm honest! My job is to take to God the things they have done that have either hurt me or hurt other people (we're talking the bad people here, or people who did bad things; same for the people who did good things) and have it out with him but ultimately leave the result, or consequences, up to him. I'm so glad I don't have to be judge and jury, I'd be crap at it and would probably be smiting left and right.

nb. I would also set boundaries around myself ie what I will and won't accept. Which has to do with me and not other people.

Marking place as I love Job and love talking about the Bible. :)

thistledew re Boscastle, I did post further down the thread explaining that the only people who were really smote in the Boscastle flood were some Christians.

springyhope - you say God doesn't do smiting? Well, he doesn't smite in the sense of killing with physical blows, but he does smite. For example, in 1 Samuel Ch5 verse 6, he smites the people of Ahsod with haemorrhoids
"But the hand of the LORD was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof."

He also killed the entire population of the earth minus Noah and family only 6 chapters in to the book. In Genesis 19 he kills Lot's wife. In Ch 28 he kills Onan for "spilling his seed" - thankfully for the continuation of the human race he's more lenient now. Despite his regret after killing everyone in the flood, by chapter 41 he sends a seven year long worldwide famine. And that's just Genesis, and it isn't even all the killings.

In Exodus he carries on where he left off, soon killing all the firstborn males in Egypt.

So the word 'smite' might not be attached to God that often, but the bible certainly describes him killing people just as dead as if he's been a smiting.

Ah, Holo - about time you showed up!

Deuteronomy 7:20 ... he uses hornets too, apparently.

Deut 7 isn't presented as allegory, but as the way the OT god would behave. Quite explicitly blessing those who obey him and destroying others....though in an expedient gradual way so that his chosen ones didn't get overrun by animals instead. If an earthly ruler laid out a policy statement like this we'd be appalled. Don't question God? Read that and how can you not do so?

In Deuteronomy 2 he killed a race of giants too:

"That also was accounted a land of giants: giants dwelt therein in old time; and the Ammonites call them Zamzummims; A people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; but the LORD destroyed them before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead: "

eugenesAxe said I expect Satan planting ideas of God's crapness in the minds of human beings and them taunting him about it either directly, or by being sinful, happens a lot.

And right here is where those who like to discuss these things hit a big massive roadblock. Because the minute we start asking questions which are uncomfortable or difficult, certain breeds of Christian just shut their minds and say "you're only saying that because Satan has planted the seed in your mind" or "you've been given those words to say by Satan in order to tempt me". There is no way that we can have any kind of rational discussion, because the minute certain breeds of Christian start having perfectly rational doubts about the so-called "word of God", they can dismiss those doubts as just put there by Satan.

True religion/belief can stand up to rational discussion and exploration, even if the answer is sometimes "I don't know but it makes me a better person and that is okay".

I was referring to the sorts of misfortunes that God apparently tests us with (as discussed earlier in this thread) not just to killing people dead.

If you believe that there are "results and consequences" from God as a result of your prayers, then unless you believe that your God is a capricious and arbitrary one, then you have to believe that those "results and consequences" are awarded along some kind of scale of 'just rewards'. How then can you escape the logic that some people are more deserving than others, even if you disavow responsibility for making that assessment by saying that God has?

I dont think most people go around thinking about who has good/bad luck?

As far as I am concerned, someone may have bad luck, but that thing may be a means for them to get to paradise.

For example someone may loose their job and have little money but still give some of what they have to charity, and that action may be a means to go to paradise and worth more in the sight of God then one who has more money and gives more to charity.

One may have an illness or cancer, or may drown in a flood, or by falling masonry and it is not bad luck but good luck as due to it they may die with the status of a martyr.

It was narrated from Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: ?The martyrs are five: the one who dies of the plague, the one who dies of a stomach disease, the one who drowns, the one who is crushed beneath a falling wall, and the martyr who is killed for the sake of Allaah.?

So I dont think we can really say what is good or bad luck.

AS for who is deserving,there is a hadith whicj says something along the lines of "you may think someone is from the people of paradise but really they are from the people of the fire, and you may think someone is from the people of hel when really they are from the people of paradise"

also there is a hadith which demonstrates this
"Once a dog was going round the well and was about to die out of thirst. A prostitute of Banu Israel happened to see it. So she took off her leather sock and lowered it into the well. She drew out some water and gave the dog to drink. She was forgiven on account of her action".

So one may think a prostitute has low morals and is undeserving etc, but in fact Allah does not think she is undeserving of paradise.

If you believe that there are "results and consequences" from God as a result of your prayers

don't get the bold bit ?? When you pray, you're not scoring points, you're getting to know God relationally. That's the key reason for prayer.

I believe ritual prayer is a commandment and is the thing which sets apart believers and non believers.

It is an obligation, and a source of reward.

There are also other sources of rewards, like good deeds, smiling at people, moving stuff out of the road, breastfeeding, having sex with your husband/wife, lots and lots of things.

Intention plays a big part. Only god knows what is in peoples hearts. two people may stand next to each other and do the same prayer, but one will be more focused and the others mind will wonder etc.

So we cannot really judge who is more deserving as we dont know.

Obviously prayer is also a way to become closer to god, to contemplate, etc

There's a poem based on the story of the adultress and the dog here 'Mercys reward'.

Its the sort of ethic that works for religious and non-religious people - religious people will say, be merciful because Allah/God is merciful; atheists will say it because its natural justice. Not sure but maybe eastern religious will see it as part of karma.

Nailak - can I ask, how does Islam view asking Allah for things in prayer? In my limited understanding it seems to me that prayer is more about worshiping Allah and remembering our place in the world rather than the Christian version which often seems to be about entering into some sort of dialogue with God. I read something once about one of the Sufi saints talking about the postures adopted in prayer, and how when one kneels and presses their forehead into the sand it is a reminder that we are no more significant in this world than is a single grain of sand in the desert.

What you say is true. The ritual prayer is about worshipping Allah, and "saving our souls" so to speak, it is also a method for us to get closer to Him, feel connected to him.

As for asking for things in prayer, that is dua, which can be done anytime in any place, within the ritual prayer or out of it, there are duas in surahs which are recited in the ritual prayer (salaah), like in surah fatihah says guide me to the straight path etc, there is the dua of Musa as mentioned in Quran, that you can recite in prayers "(My Lord, I ask you to expand my breast, make my task easy, undo the knot in my tongue so that my speech will become comprehensible) (Moses? prayer)" which is a good dua for if you have a meeting or speaking etc, there are a lot of things like that.

The dialogue with God you mention I think is more comparable to dua (supplication) that we do anytime and any place, then it is to salaah (ritual prayer)

springyhope Fri 05-Oct-12 07:50:58
"My job is to take to God the things they have done that have either hurt me or hurt other people ... and have it out with him but ultimately leave the result, or consequences, up to him."

I read this as meaning that when you pray you expect that God will act in some way, and that those actions will have consequences outside of yourself. Do you believe that when you pray God will answer those prayers by making physical changes to the world, or by changing things for other people?

I like the poem thistle

When we make dua we believe there are a few options of consequences:

1. it is answered 2)it is answered later, as the time is not right 3)it is something you think is good for you but is not good for you, so Allah has something better for you.