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?

night free will is a strange ability to bestow on mere fallible accident prone mortals. Does god have free will? I find the whole free will argument akin to the logic of filling one enclosure of a zoo with all the animals and blaming the animals when they don't all play nicely, And then saying the person who decided to put all the animals together wise??

Do all animals have free will? If so why hold us accountable for our mistakes and not the other animals?

night he forced his will on me seeing as I wasn't asked if I wanted to be created and now either choose to be tortured eternally or worship a barbaric and invisible god.

I'm not at all sure we really do have free will anyway, it just feels like it. The scientific evidence is increasingly against it. However, its probably best to carry on acting as though we do have free will.

Why is the evidence increasingly against it, Grimma?

The analogy about the animals is interesting, hih. I always view God and the whole 'free will' thing as a bit like us and our dcs:

We long for children (many of us) because there is an inherent something in us, a need to reproduce, a need for community and for relationship and for love. We know that our children will experience suffering and that they will often not go the way we would wish them to, and also know that they may go against us entirely. But we still decide to bring our children into the world. We love them and long to protect them. We do all we can. But we have still brought them into this world full of pain and evil and suffering. We also know it's a world of joy and love and laughter and long for our children to experience only that side.

Now, we would not want our children to be programmed to automatically do all we say and have no mind of their own We would not want them to not have any choice but to love us and to go the way we feel is best. We want them to be independent, we long for them to find their own way and to be happy. How could they be that way if we had tied an invisible rope around them to us meaning they were, in effect, our puppet?

I believe God is like that. God is a God of relationship. I believe God's original creation of people, however that took place, was due to God's longing for relationship and community, and that is why we, in God's image, yearn for good community. God could either create people to be automatically tuned to loving God and doing all positive actions, or to have their own choice whether to do so or not. God, like a good parent, longed for creation to have that choice. How could they really love God without choice, how could they be happy and who they were meant to be without choice?

In some senses, if you were going to argue that God is a tyrant, creating and then leaving people to it like animals in the same cage, you could say that people who choose to bring innocent children into this screwed up world are equally tyrannical. How could you bring that new life into a place which will screw them up and cause so much pain?

But we do, because we are made to love, and God did, because God loved.

GlassofRose you say 'I find this show of "love" to complete contradict love. To me it conveys that people are unimportant, disposable, pawns in a soap opera. Even if that kind of god existed, I can't for the life of me think why anyone would bother to worship someone who values them so little. '

Me too. I wouldn't bother.

But the God I worship values each person, knows the number of hairs on our heads, knew us in the womb. There is no such thing as disposable in God's sight. That's why I don't believe in 'the testing of the righteous' as an explanation of Job. An allegory, a reminder that all people, righteous or not, go through shit, and that in the end, the explanation cannot be that 'they sinned' or 'they did good'. Only that the world is screwed and fallen, and God is God, and loves every single person fiercely.

We long for children (many of us) because there is an inherent something in us, a need to reproduce, a need for community and for relationship and for love. We know that our children will experience suffering and that they will often not go the way we would wish them to, and also know that they may go against us entirely. But we still decide to bring our children into the world. We love them and long to protect them. We do all we can. But we have still brought them into this world full of pain and evil and suffering.

Yes of course, and if our children displease us or don't obey our rules (which no one can agree on anyway), we damn them to an eternity of suffering, wailing and gnashing of teeth when they die.

The Gods forbid our children should turn out gay.......

madhair did god value the legions of men women and children he ordered the deaths of in the OT?

The analogy of parent and child doesn't work because if my children reject me I have not set up a system whereby they will be punished for eternity.

We are social animals. That's why we seek relationships. If it's gods spirit in us that makes it possible for us to want connections with those around us then there is gods spirit in other animals and not just us.

I'm sure God really values all the people who die from the parasites that He created, too.

Romans 9 v 10-23

Nor is that all;something similar happened to Rebecca,when she had conceived children by one husband, our ancestor Isaac. Even before they had been born or had done anything good or bad [so that God's purpose of election might continue, not by works but by his call] she was told,"the elder shall serve the younger". As it is written 'I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau'.
What then are we to say? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! For he says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion'.
So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh,'I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you,so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.' So then,he has mercy on whomsoever he chooses,and he hardens the heart of whomsoever he chooses.
You will say to me then, 'Why then does he still find fault? For who can resist his will? But who indeed are you a human being,to argue with God? Will what is moulded say to the one who moulds it,'why have you made me like this'? Has the potter no right over the clay,to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use?What if God,desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power,has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction;and what if he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects of mercy,which he prepared beforehand for glory

(we are probably millions of years old, spiritually)

On what evidence do you base that 'probability'? (Given there's no evidence at all of any non-corporeal spirit you're going to have a hard time justifying that statement!)

But who indeed are you a human being,to argue with God? Will what is moulded say to the one who moulds it,'why have you made me like this'? Has the potter no right over the clay,to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use

I'm not a lump of clay. I am a person (who was apparently deliberately created) with free will. I won't stand to be told what or whom I can and cannot question, thanks ever so.

If God is so uppity or so capricious that His actions cannot stand up to moral scrutiny then I question whether He is worth worshipping at all. As aliens from other dimensions go, God seems ever so touchy.

His kingdom,his world.
You are here on earth,whether you like it or not.
You maybe have a choice about becoming a Christian,I dont know.

I went to a funeral this afternoon. The quite elderly man died suddenly.
None of us know when our time will come.

"The analogy of parent and child doesn't work because if my children reject me I have not set up a system whereby they will be punished for eternity."

I agree with headinhands about this.

and with snorbs on this
I
"I'm not a lump of clay. I am a person (who was apparently deliberately created) with free will. I won't stand to be told what or whom I can and cannot question, thanks ever so.

If God is so uppity or so capricious that His actions cannot stand up to moral scrutiny then I question whether He is worth worshipping at all. As aliens from other dimensions go, God seems ever so touchy."

There are far too many contradictions in explanations. You have free will but you will be punished for using it... I'll love you as long as you believe in me etc...

Hmmm. I was using the parent/child analogy to express something of what I believe about what 'free will' means, though it's by no means ideal. It falls down when trying to explain God in fulness. When talking about 'hell' whatever that means Christians believe that God is a holy God, and by God's very nature unable to look upon 'sin' or rebellion against God. Therefore consequences are in place for choices we make - just like our children experience consequences for choices they make, natural consequences as well as any we as parents choose to impose. I would argue that separation from God is a natural consequence of rebellion, and that Jesus showed another way, and died so we can be united with God, in perfect relationship, once again.

I know this is all a cyclical argument though, and I'll never convince with words. Partly because I know I'd be using your same arguments if I was not a Christian, and muttering to myself about 'that mhd being far too inconsistent'. Tis the nature of faith again, and all that...I know. I know. Cognitive dissonance alert.

But I experience it as real, every day, in so many situations, and in so many people. I cannot deny it to myself, even having gone down that road a couple of times. I just can't.

I don't entirely reject the idea of god, I do reject the abrahamic scriptures though.

re GlassOfRose post.
Then GlassOfRose,headinhands and snorbs wont enter the kingdom of heaven.
If you dont believe in it,it doesnt matter....does it?

That's only your view.

I don't believe that if there is a god, he/she would reject a perfectly nice person who lived a good life for not believing in him/her.

Ahhhhh, best x post I have ever done
You dont entirely reject it, Halleluyah
I am so so pleased

Amillion - that post actually reminds me of the 5 year olds in my old class who use to tell each other they were going to hell...

Whuch of the posts? We are very x posting here