God Doesn't Have a Body?
Farrell Till errancy@infidels.org
Tue, 01 Jun 1999 00:44:27 -0700 (00928241067, 2.2.32.19990601074427.008f6480@midwest.net)
At 08:34 PM 5/31/99 EDT, you wrote:
>In a message dated 5/30/99 1:24:21 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
>jftill@midwest.net writes:
>
>>
>> At 12:44 AM 5/29/99 EDT, you wrote:
>>
>> >> >RANDY
>> >> >
>> >> > No.(At least I don't think so. Since God doesn't have a body I'm
>> >> > not sure this question makes sense.)
>> >>
>> >> TILL
>> >> God doesn't have a body? Then how do you explain the following
>> >> passage?
>
> <snip passage>
>
>> >>
>> >> This passage is clearly teaching that Yahweh appeared to Abraham as
>> >> one of
>> >> three men on this occasion. You may quibble that the "man" who was
>> >> Yahweh
>> >> on this occasion was just a "manifestation," but that wouldn't help you
>> >> much. If Yahweh should appear as a man today and rape Hillary Clinton,
>> >> would this be an objectively moral act just because God was the "man"
>> >> doing it?
>> >>
>> >> Now does this question make more sense to you? Please try not to
>> >> dodge the issue this time.
>>
>> >RANDY
>> >
>> > My bad. Even without this reference Jesus in His incarnation makes "
>> > sense" of this question.
>>
>> TILL
>> We all make mistakes when we type too quickly and don't proofread, Randy.
>> Usually, readers can figure out what the writer meant, but I honestly don't
>> understand what you meant. The example that I cited showed that Yahweh, in
>> the company of two angels, clearly paid a visit to Abraham, who talked with
>> him and fed him. How could this have been done if God didn't have a body?
>
> RANDY
>
> The reference you quoted shows that God had taken a body at one point.
>
TILL
Well, you dodged the question again, didn't you? If God took a body at one
point, then he could take a body at another point, couldn't he? So if God
took a body and raped Hillary Clinton, would the rape be an objectively
moral act because God did it?
If you dodge this time, you're going into my e-mail filter.
>>
>> RANDY
>> >Which I did answer by the way (note my "No" above.) Just to be plain I'll
>> say it again. It would have been morally wrong for Jesus to have raped a
>> woman during His time on earth.
>> >
>>
>> TILL
>> If I understood you correctly, you said that, no, it wouldn't be
>objectively
>> moral for God to rape Hillary Clinton. Then you went on to say that you
>> didn't understand the question, because God doesn't have a body. I quoted
>> the Bible, which you claim is inerrant, to show you that God can (at least
>> on some occasions) have a body.
>>
>> But let's get back to your answer to the rape question. You are highly
>> inconsistent, because you have said that if God made life, God has the
>right
>> to take life. I'm tempted to be very crude here, but I'm going to resist
>> and allow your imagination to figure out what the ***** means. If God made
>> Hillary Clinton's *****, then why wouldn't God have the right to take some
>> of Hillary Clinton's *****?
>>
>> That is crude, but I'm trying to get you to see the absurdity of your logic.
>> On the one hand, you say that God can kill babies, because God gave babies
>> life, but then you say that even though God made Hillary Clinton, he would
>> not be morally entitled to rape Hillary Clinton. So you have taken the
>> position that an act isn't necessarily moral just because God does it, so
>> would you now explain to us why you think that killing babies isn't as bad
>> as raping women?
>
> RANDY
>
> That's not what I think. The reasoning here involves the reasons that rape
>is wrong. Among many other reasons that rape is wrong one of the reasons is
>that rape (and fornication) constitutes a lie.
TILL
Rape constitutes a lie? Well, why not? This dodge is no more stupid than
some of the others I have heard.
RANDY
>The act of sexual intercourse has
>and intrinsic significance and meaning, as do other acts of physical intimacy.
>It is, among other things, an expression of a singular and ultimate commitment
>between two people. For Jesus to have forced a woman to have engaged in
>this act with Him would have been wrong because the commitment represented
>by the act was not true.
>
TILL
Now, really, Randy, if a woman is being forcibly raped, I seriously doubt if
she would mistake this for an act of intimacy. Aren't you biblicists ever
embarrassed by any of the sheer silliness that you resort to in order to
defend this ludicrous belief in biblical inerrancy?
At any rate, let's assume that rape is an act of lying. <snicker, snicker>
You are obviously putting lying on some kind of pedestal that makes it a
more serious moral offense than anything else, because you have leaned over
backwards to keep from admitting that 1 Kings 22 shows that God does at
times lie. The fact that God sometimes killed thousands of people and
ordered the massacre of thousands of others doesn't seem to disturb you in
the list, but, horrors, don't let anyone even suggest that God has ever
lied. The reason you are twisting yourself into knots over this is that
Titus 1:2 says that God cannot lie. Despite what this verse says, however,
I have shown that the Bible teaches that God does lie. So let's suppose
that rape is an act of lying? So what? God has engaged in lying, so why
couldn't God engage in rape?
Don't look now, Randy, but you're twisting in the wind.
Farrell Till
Skepticism, Inc.
jftill@midwest.net