Emerson, what you’re overlooking is the fact that, because God and how for the and or since however not nevertheless the and, for the an despite but for.
Turek is definitely one of my least favorite mainstream Christian apologists. He's smug, doesn't actually address the issues, and seems to be incredibly intellectually dishonest. I'm a Christian myself now, and I have my own explanations of the issue in this video (a combination of Progressive Revelation as well as a willingness to admit that the human authors of the Bible could include errors in the text even if God's inspiration is still there and His purposes for the Bible are still fulfilled even if veiled), but Turek and other apologists that seem to be unwilling to reflect on their answers or adequate address the questions at all, those apologists did not do anything to help me along the way to becoming a Christian again. These types of apologists are little more than a source of frustration for me, especially since they dominate the online spaces, resulting in people having to really search for the more thoughtful stuff.
Excellent points, I just want to add my main problem with the argument. Think of all of the mind-boggling miracles that the ancient Israelites witnessed in Exodus through the books of Samuel. The Ten Plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, mana from the sky, pillars of smoke and fire, the walls of Jericho, etc. I'm supposed to accept that the ancient Israelites could handle seeing all of this, but they wouldn't have been able to handle being told that it's an abomination for people to own other people? Or that we should discriminate between combatants and non-combatants in war? THAT would've been too much of a paradigm shift? THAT'S what would've broken their minds? If the parent analogy is the best that Jews and Christians have to offer on this issue then I'm comfortable disbelieving in the Bible.
It's ridiculous. To think that a god is willing to declare that bestiality, homosexuality and child sacrifice (to Molech) is forbidden but doesn't have to balls to forbid slavery is absolutely mind boggling.
@Ejaezy The reason slavery is submission to higher authority. What God intended for slavery is not the same as how man uses slavery. What God offers in slavery is blessings like peace, prosperity, ect. Mans sinfulness has corrupted the use of slavery in what we have been taught.
The immorality of God in the OT is what led to my first crisis of faith. A mere 20 years later I was an atheist. Seems you followed it up faster than I did.
Same. The immorality of Yahweh (specifically regarding slavery) inspired some of the initial skepticism that eventually led to my deconversion. Pretty weird that God never condemned owning other people as property in his perfect, inerrant, and rather lengthy book. th-cam.com/video/FXklhcQ41KQ/w-d-xo.html
The problem is applying a Christian morality to a people in a completely different environment, with no law, no protection and no moral framework we share today. Also, God is above the morality we have. He actually is the moral-law giver, so he can define a morality distinct to us. This can be easily understood because we have a limited capacity to understand all the variables, past, current and future ones. Since we cannot understand all the implications of actions of men, let anole God’s, analyzing God by the same morality does not make sense. You will never know if God is good or bad using a consequentialist moral framework when it is impossible to know the consequences of everything God does. Only God can see all (omniscience), thus He is the only one who can say whether His acts were good or bad.
@@heroicacts5218 I think that this line of reasoning, if followed, also removes reasons to believe that the biblical God is true. I know WLC "gets out of" the Euthepho dilemma by saying that God is the model of goodness, if that is true, then he cannot be exempt from moral law as he simply IS moral law, a template cannot be exceptional. Additionally, if God exists and finds genocide moral, then we have no reason to believe that the Bible contains truth, as he may have his reasons to lie.
@@heroicacts5218you could flip everything you’re saying into “evil God had reasons to do good things to allow more evil” and the logic would still follow. This also completely ignores any kind of self-reflection and other possible moral theories. Which, there are plenty of. Most metaethicists agree that you can have objective morality without gods. If morality is defined by God’s essence, then, given God’s omniscience trait, morality is completely arbitrary. This is because his actions wildly contradict one and other. The word “standard” completely loses all meaning. The fact that God would give us moral intuitions while performing actions and allowing things that grind against those intuitions completely undermines any connection we supposedly have with God. And if God claims to be in line with some outside goodness, then, morality is separate and possibly more fundamental than God.
One of the most troubling implications of Christian apologetics - If you can somehow explain away atrocities like slavery and genocide what can't you explain away?
I'd like your thoughts, but I think that just as there are multiple visions of Yahweh in the OT, there are multiple visions of Jesus in the NT. Even though Jesus says things that are generally a big step up from the OT, we're his teachings best understood as provisional ethics in light of his imminent return to punish evildoers? Ie don't get revenge, God will get revenge for you in the end if they don't repent. Different Gospel authors might have emphasized different things depending on their message. And Book of Revelation Jesus is out for his pound of flesh it seems.
After the argument of how things were then, we have to understand two other arguments: what was the intent of the genocide and how God can take life. 1. Intent: considering that God needs to establish a complete community to start the rescue of human race from evil, this race needs to be allocated somewhere. The “genocide” of the canaanites does not differ from the elimination of the same jews during the three jewish revolts in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. The rationale is: if a group of people is doing something that is detrimental to God and God’s plan, in order to move forward with the human rescue plan those people will perish. This is only a problem if you do not believe in afterlife, the point of the next topic (continues..)
The problem of YHWH as violent warrior God is such an old and obvious question. Apologists have been writing books attempting to explain away the atrocities of the Old Testament for decades, and they'll continue to write books for decades to come because no one can find a satisfying answer.
Malachi 3:6 says that God does not change, but the god of the Old Testament is definitely NOT the god of the New Testament. That's not to say that Jesus is perfectly benevolent, because he isn't (Mark 4:12 shows that Jesus was only interested in his disciples becoming saved).
I think Turek makes a lot of good arguments, but agree on his attitude and demeanor. I don't have any great answers, but here are 2 points to consider. 1) Jesus and YAHWEH of the OT aren't interchangeably the same person in every way. Throughout history God shows both deadly wrath and undeserved mercy. The latter cannot be understood without the former. 2) God's judgement is serious. God actually did show the Canaanites patience and mercy in Abraham's time when He told Abraham that his wrath "wasn't full". Judgement has serious consequences not only to the individual, but to all society and innocents. I agree that there are some hard things to deal with it. As a Christian I give the benefit of the doubt to a great cultural divide between then and now. Hope this is helpful.
Okay but there are other ways to fix the problem that don't involve genocide. If God can command people to commit atrocities then He could've been the one who ordered the genocide in Bethlehem or in Nazi Germany. Any God who could do that to humans is something we need protection from. Not something to be praying to.
Thanks for the moral equivocation that has always characterized Christianity, from the persecution of "witches" and heretics, the Crusades, the wars between Catholicism and Protestantism, down to the Nazi Wehrmacht, with "Gott mit uns" (God with us) on their belt buckles. You don't need to come into YT comments to explain how easily your religion can be used to justify any atrocity that you're up for at the moment. We already know.
“Push” and “Pull” are seemingly at odds with each other, yet are intrinsically related. If God is all-compassing, perfect, merciful, and just, wouldn’t there have to be mechanisms to display such traits? You can’t be perfectly just if you don’t punish sin (imperfection), and you can’t be perfectly merciful if you don’t provide a path to redemption and perfection. Yahweh and Yeshua reconcile and complete each other.
Considering the historical observation of Jaspers and Armstrong on the Axial age of coevolution of human society, moral philosophy and religion around the world from 800-300 BC, there may some truth to the developing child analogy.
Old Testament and all difficulties with it is not so much on how God changes, but how the environment surrounding the jews were at the time. The brutality of the world at that point does not square with the morals after Christ. The “genocide” can only be understood as genocide in a current Christian moral framework. The rules in Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy are an improvement to what was done at the time, but does not completely align with what Jesus brings (continues…)
Was the world during the Roman Empire, the Medieval period, or heck the 20th century, less blood stained than the time of the Bible? I fail to see their world as more brutal, at least not in terms of the kind of violence.
Some of these comments though... "It was a different time and culture"; "It was necessary for mankind to be saved"; "God decides what's moral, not you" If you think God couldn't design miracles/the world such that "the path to salvation" could be preserved without demanding enslavement, rape, the killing of infants, etc. then there's something deeply wrong with your understanding of God, goodness, or most likely both. If there is some apologetic that can square this circle, I'm definitely not seeing it in these comments lol.
Malachi 3:6 For I am the LORD, I do not change; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. God, Jesus, and the father was in the old testament and the new testament, Jesus the Father and the holy Spirit are one.
i don't agree that there's much of a difference between the god of the new and old testament. the god of jesus is, after all, supposed to exterminate most of humanity at the end of history, and subject all but a tiny handful of souls in all of history to eternal conscious torment. nevertheless, apologist responses to problems like this are absurd.
Emerson, what you’re overlooking is the fact that, because God and how for the and or since however not nevertheless the and, for the an despite but for.
Thanks for the stroke. In hospital now :,)
Nahhh you got me😂
That's easy for you to say.
Turek is definitely one of my least favorite mainstream Christian apologists. He's smug, doesn't actually address the issues, and seems to be incredibly intellectually dishonest. I'm a Christian myself now, and I have my own explanations of the issue in this video (a combination of Progressive Revelation as well as a willingness to admit that the human authors of the Bible could include errors in the text even if God's inspiration is still there and His purposes for the Bible are still fulfilled even if veiled), but Turek and other apologists that seem to be unwilling to reflect on their answers or adequate address the questions at all, those apologists did not do anything to help me along the way to becoming a Christian again. These types of apologists are little more than a source of frustration for me, especially since they dominate the online spaces, resulting in people having to really search for the more thoughtful stuff.
Hahhaa
We got different experience.. frank is good mostly.
@@daddada2984 🤦♂️😂
Turek is a con artist.
@@daddada2984 hahaha really?
Preserving God's reputation comes first. Always. That one thing that apologists cannot compromise, may be the one thing that's compromised the most.
Of all of the big apologists, Frank's arguments have always been the laziest, and most poorly thought out.
He is not a big apologist. He, like most Christian apologists, is like a guy who is world famous in Nebraska.
Excellent points, I just want to add my main problem with the argument. Think of all of the mind-boggling miracles that the ancient Israelites witnessed in Exodus through the books of Samuel. The Ten Plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, mana from the sky, pillars of smoke and fire, the walls of Jericho, etc. I'm supposed to accept that the ancient Israelites could handle seeing all of this, but they wouldn't have been able to handle being told that it's an abomination for people to own other people? Or that we should discriminate between combatants and non-combatants in war? THAT would've been too much of a paradigm shift? THAT'S what would've broken their minds? If the parent analogy is the best that Jews and Christians have to offer on this issue then I'm comfortable disbelieving in the Bible.
It's ridiculous. To think that a god is willing to declare that bestiality, homosexuality and child sacrifice (to Molech) is forbidden but doesn't have to balls to forbid slavery is absolutely mind boggling.
@Ejaezy The reason slavery is submission to higher authority. What God intended for slavery is not the same as how man uses slavery. What God offers in slavery is blessings like peace, prosperity, ect. Mans sinfulness has corrupted the use of slavery in what we have been taught.
@@sportsfanforever100 Another Christian defending slavery. Christianity and fascism-- a match made in heaven.
The immorality of God in the OT is what led to my first crisis of faith. A mere 20 years later I was an atheist. Seems you followed it up faster than I did.
Same. The immorality of Yahweh (specifically regarding slavery) inspired some of the initial skepticism that eventually led to my deconversion. Pretty weird that God never condemned owning other people as property in his perfect, inerrant, and rather lengthy book. th-cam.com/video/FXklhcQ41KQ/w-d-xo.html
The problem is applying a Christian morality to a people in a completely different environment, with no law, no protection and no moral framework we share today. Also, God is above the morality we have. He actually is the moral-law giver, so he can define a morality distinct to us. This can be easily understood because we have a limited capacity to understand all the variables, past, current and future ones. Since we cannot understand all the implications of actions of men, let anole God’s, analyzing God by the same morality does not make sense. You will never know if God is good or bad using a consequentialist moral framework when it is impossible to know the consequences of everything God does. Only God can see all (omniscience), thus He is the only one who can say whether His acts were good or bad.
@@heroicacts5218 you aren't helping.
@@heroicacts5218 I think that this line of reasoning, if followed, also removes reasons to believe that the biblical God is true.
I know WLC "gets out of" the Euthepho dilemma by saying that God is the model of goodness, if that is true, then he cannot be exempt from moral law as he simply IS moral law, a template cannot be exceptional.
Additionally, if God exists and finds genocide moral, then we have no reason to believe that the Bible contains truth, as he may have his reasons to lie.
@@heroicacts5218you could flip everything you’re saying into “evil God had reasons to do good things to allow more evil” and the logic would still follow.
This also completely ignores any kind of self-reflection and other possible moral theories. Which, there are plenty of. Most metaethicists agree that you can have objective morality without gods.
If morality is defined by God’s essence, then, given God’s omniscience trait, morality is completely arbitrary. This is because his actions wildly contradict one and other. The word “standard” completely loses all meaning.
The fact that God would give us moral intuitions while performing actions and allowing things that grind against those intuitions completely undermines any connection we supposedly have with God.
And if God claims to be in line with some outside goodness, then, morality is separate and possibly more fundamental than God.
Apologetics are more of retention tools as opposed to a conversion tools.
Great video bro.
One of the most troubling implications of Christian apologetics - If you can somehow explain away atrocities like slavery and genocide what can't you explain away?
Yeah I mean if this is skeptical theism …
What the heck does “all loving” even mean at that point?
@@azophiit means: “uhhh… I give up. God is perfect, though.”
Hey recently found your channel
Am enjoying
If you are familiar, what's your opinion on Liz Jacksons pascals wager?
I'd like your thoughts, but I think that just as there are multiple visions of Yahweh in the OT, there are multiple visions of Jesus in the NT. Even though Jesus says things that are generally a big step up from the OT, we're his teachings best understood as provisional ethics in light of his imminent return to punish evildoers? Ie don't get revenge, God will get revenge for you in the end if they don't repent. Different Gospel authors might have emphasized different things depending on their message. And Book of Revelation Jesus is out for his pound of flesh it seems.
After the argument of how things were then, we have to understand two other arguments: what was the intent of the genocide and how God can take life.
1. Intent: considering that God needs to establish a complete community to start the rescue of human race from evil, this race needs to be allocated somewhere. The “genocide” of the canaanites does not differ from the elimination of the same jews during the three jewish revolts in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. The rationale is: if a group of people is doing something that is detrimental to God and God’s plan, in order to move forward with the human rescue plan those people will perish. This is only a problem if you do not believe in afterlife, the point of the next topic (continues..)
Your fan fiction sucks.
The problem of YHWH as violent warrior God is such an old and obvious question. Apologists have been writing books attempting to explain away the atrocities of the Old Testament for decades, and they'll continue to write books for decades to come because no one can find a satisfying answer.
Excellent commentary, in so many words the gods of the OT need forgiveness more than the humans murdered by the gods.
Malachi 3:6 says that God does not change, but the god of the Old Testament is definitely NOT the god of the New Testament. That's not to say that Jesus is perfectly benevolent, because he isn't (Mark 4:12 shows that Jesus was only interested in his disciples becoming saved).
I think Turek makes a lot of good arguments, but agree on his attitude and demeanor. I don't have any great answers, but here are 2 points to consider. 1) Jesus and YAHWEH of the OT aren't interchangeably the same person in every way. Throughout history God shows both deadly wrath and undeserved mercy. The latter cannot be understood without the former. 2) God's judgement is serious. God actually did show the Canaanites patience and mercy in Abraham's time when He told Abraham that his wrath "wasn't full". Judgement has serious consequences not only to the individual, but to all society and innocents.
I agree that there are some hard things to deal with it. As a Christian I give the benefit of the doubt to a great cultural divide between then and now. Hope this is helpful.
Okay but there are other ways to fix the problem that don't involve genocide. If God can command people to commit atrocities then He could've been the one who ordered the genocide in Bethlehem or in Nazi Germany. Any God who could do that to humans is something we need protection from. Not something to be praying to.
Thanks for the moral equivocation that has always characterized Christianity, from the persecution of "witches" and heretics, the Crusades, the wars between Catholicism and Protestantism, down to the Nazi Wehrmacht, with "Gott mit uns" (God with us) on their belt buckles. You don't need to come into YT comments to explain how easily your religion can be used to justify any atrocity that you're up for at the moment. We already know.
“Push” and “Pull” are seemingly at odds with each other, yet are intrinsically related. If God is all-compassing, perfect, merciful, and just, wouldn’t there have to be mechanisms to display such traits? You can’t be perfectly just if you don’t punish sin (imperfection), and you can’t be perfectly merciful if you don’t provide a path to redemption and perfection.
Yahweh and Yeshua reconcile and complete each other.
Considering the historical observation of Jaspers and Armstrong on the Axial age of coevolution of human society, moral philosophy and religion around the world from 800-300 BC, there may some truth to the developing child analogy.
He just answered you directly.. you can add a follow up, like why?
The old testament was written in long period of time.
New testament was only around 50 yrs timeline.
Old Testament and all difficulties with it is not so much on how God changes, but how the environment surrounding the jews were at the time. The brutality of the world at that point does not square with the morals after Christ. The “genocide” can only be understood as genocide in a current Christian moral framework. The rules in Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy are an improvement to what was done at the time, but does not completely align with what Jesus brings (continues…)
Was the world during the Roman Empire, the Medieval period, or heck the 20th century, less blood stained than the time of the Bible? I fail to see their world as more brutal, at least not in terms of the kind of violence.
Some of these comments though...
"It was a different time and culture"; "It was necessary for mankind to be saved"; "God decides what's moral, not you"
If you think God couldn't design miracles/the world such that "the path to salvation" could be preserved without demanding enslavement, rape, the killing of infants, etc. then there's something deeply wrong with your understanding of God, goodness, or most likely both.
If there is some apologetic that can square this circle, I'm definitely not seeing it in these comments lol.
Turkey may be smug and dismissive but he is also very loud
Malachi 3:6 For I am the LORD, I do not change; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. God, Jesus, and the father was in the old testament and the new testament, Jesus the Father and the holy Spirit are one.
I think you're completely wrong on this one brother. I'll explain why later and edit this comment.
lol
i don't agree that there's much of a difference between the god of the new and old testament. the god of jesus is, after all, supposed to exterminate most of humanity at the end of history, and subject all but a tiny handful of souls in all of history to eternal conscious torment.
nevertheless, apologist responses to problems like this are absurd.
Frank is the poor man's William Lane Craig
same rhetoric, same bs, different approach