Our Protagonist's acronym GLC stands for God Loving Creature.
Scripture
Atheist: Hi GLC, I have been looking for you everywhere
after you insulted my heroes or revered writers last time. You got very
uptight, and I thought that you were so clinically rational.
GLC: Hi Atheist. I am not only rational - I
am also passionate and a lot of other things. You however are the strictly
rational one. So what are you up to today?
Atheist: I am throwing you a curved ball today, and I
cannot wait to see you being caught out on first base.
GLC: Throw.
Atheist: This is why I am angry.
Deuteronomy
20:10-14
As
you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If
they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside
will serve you in forced labour. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to
fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you,
kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women,
children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your
enemies that the LORD your God has given you.
(A review recently on Amazon.com
by William J. Diamantas on the book: 99 Things which pisses off the Godless)
GLC: But that is a perfectly straight ball! I
saw it coming with a lot of spin and I hit it centre, stopping the spin on it.
What is the problem about this?
Atheist: Your God is a vicious, vengeful and merciless
God.
GLC: But what makes you think that God said
that? For you He does not even exist, so how could He have spoken those words? And
why are you so cross with someone who does not exist - a fictitious or
hypothetical person?
Atheist: But you Christians say that God said that.
GLC: So what? Why do us Christians bother you
and why do you want to believe or disbelieve us? Is this argument about Christians
or about God? I told you previously that you should not bring in Christians and
the Church, because that has got nothing to do with God. They are people and a people's
institution respectively, and I sometimes wonder whether God has anything to do
with many of them.
Atheist: Do you believe in the Bible?
GLC: Yes, whole heartedly.
Atheist: Then you must believe that God said that.
GLC: That my friend is a totally different
aspect and argument. I see we are already at second base and still playing. I notice
that you have now also acknowledged that there is another part of the field which
you are prepared to play on - not only your own goal area (see Part 1). So,
congratulations, we have made some progress.
Atheist: Only for argument purposes.
GLC: What do you think would mankinds most ardently
desire of a God, should He exist?
Atheist: I should think it is to help mankind in times
of trouble. That He should be there to protect and keep us - to listen to our
prayers.
GLC: And would you say that those prayers
should only be morally allowable prayers in terms of some moral principle set -
a limited framework, or do you think that one might ask Him anything.
Atheist: I would think that we might ask Him anything.
That He should be almighty and omnipotent, and that He should be able to
deliver us from any form of fear, aggression, illness, injury and error.
GLC: And especially when we are facing death
by an arch enemy, even of your own making.
Atheist: ... yes. I think so.
GLC: Very good - I am looking towards base
three already, and it is not even loaded.
Tell me then. Do you think that
the Israelites prayed to God to deliver them from this life threatening enemy -
an enemy who was known to attack them time and time again without rhyme or reason?
Atheist: Yes, I am quite sure that they prayed to Him, but I have heard the revenge belongs to God and not to man. Answer me that ... I am waiting ... at last you have tied yourself into knots.
GLC: I can see that I will be having a free walk to home base!
So, now, you do not want God to deliver
them from this enemy which haunted them for centuries. And you do not want God
to make an end to this enmity - an enmity which may be ended if they kill all
the men and take the enemy's wives and children. What else would you wish to
forbid God from doing?
I am not saying that this is
human. Humanism has only flared up in the past century as an antidote to
Christianity. You might say that Humanism is Christianity without a God. In the
time of the Israelites, revenge was the name of the game and humanism has not
been discovered.
Or do you want the Israelites to
act very Christian like to their enemies, while their enemies relentlessly plundered
their property and killed them? Would you stand still and let God's water run
over God's acre in such circumstances?
... but this is not the answer.
The answer is very easy and straight forward. Do you think if one believes in God, one must listen to Him and execute his commands?
Atheist: I would certainly think so.
GLC: If God told them to kill all those people, then the command came from God and that means they were only the vessels and God the avenger. QED
Atheist: Hey, where are you running to?
GLC: I am running for home base.
Where are you running
to, Atheist?
Atheist: (Shouting from afar)) I am going to call Sagan, Dawkins and hitchens to help me out of this
one. Sorry, I meant only Dawkins. Sagan died of cancer - an atheist until his
death, and hitchens died
of cancer - an atheist until his death. And I suppose that that fate also
awaits me - much like the enemies of Israel.
GLC: The innuendo is not correct. God does
not give people cancer - He heals them. But ... if you take up weapons against
the Most High, you must be prepared for the fight and its consequences ... and
you know, as well as I do, what the law of Cause and Effect means and does.
Whom could these two outspoken atheists call upon or turn to, in their time of need,
suffering, pain and death? And do you for one minute think that in this process
of Cause and Effect - a law you and I so rigidly believe in, that the effect of
their ill causes will just die with them? Have you not heard that what goes around
comes around?
Well, I have a surprise for you.
In this universe nothing can be created nor destroyed. You must certainly know from
the Law of the Conservation of Mass and Energy that mass and energy - and
everything else - cannot become more or less in a physical sense. Everything
can be changed into another form, but remain they will - even God's Word, which
you find so unpalatable.
Shall I conclude by quoting to you
from Shakespeare? From Julius Caesar in Mark Anthony's speech: 'The evil that
men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones. So let it
be with Caesar'.
I will address the moral
implications of the scripture you started with in another article next time - an
article about evil - and that I will do from third base.
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