#Brat doesn't actually believe in the power of prayer—not really. Not in the real world.

[andersunmenschlich]

The Synopsis

...I promised @gramarobin I would share. (Promise in comments of this post: link.) It's long!

Brief summary of the post @buttebrat was responding to:

The Bible contains dirty stories. Many of the pornographic situations described are not condemned (for instance, Jacob regularly had sex with four different women and it's never so much as hinted that this might not be okay, Abraham married his half-sister and same, etc). .

Brat Jacob was married to two of the women, so that was fine. He was probably married to the other two, who were not slaves despite the fact that having sex with Jacob was not their idea (it was their mistresses' idea), so that's maybe fine? The Bible never says God approved of Jacob having sex with the two definitely-not-slaves.

Yes, Reuben did have sex with one of his dad's sex slaves concubines. I don't know where you got the idea that Yahweh approved of this. .

Anders They were slaves. If my wife can hand her 'servant' over to me and say "here, have sex with her and her kids will count as mine," that 'servant' is a sex slave. If God disapproved, he'd have killed some people. He's not shy about doing that.

I don't know where you got the idea that I thought Yahweh approved of having sex with one of your dad's sex partners. Go back, read again. I said that Yahweh didn't punish Reuben for having sex with Bilhah, and even when He got around to condemning this kind of behavior He condemned it for the wrong reason: because having sex with a body that belongs to your dad is gay, not because having sex with a woman who doesn't want it is rape. I think that's noteworthy. .

Brat I have school, but I'll get back to you. .

Anders Take your time. .

[One week later.] .

Brat I finished my midterms! How are you doing? .

Anders I just learned that my baby sister no longer has a left arm. Otherwise, I'm fine. Congratulations on making it through your midterms. .

Brat That's horrible. I'm so sorry. Can I ask what happened? .

Anders My parents relied on the Great Physician. Like the Bible says. Acted in accordance with their faith instead of in accordance with reality. My sister's 16. She might not make it to 20. .

Brat Now I understand why you're mad at God! You should be mad at your parents instead. This Bible verse about how faith is incomplete without corresponding action means that your parents should not have acted in accordance with their faith: they should have turned to secular medicine immediately. God blessed us with science, so we should use it!

This Bible verse where God scoffs at Moses for asking Him for help instead of waving a stick around and walking into the sea shows that your parents should have done the rational thing instead of depending on God! .

Anders Well, I'm glad you know God isn't dependable. Shame my parents don't. .

Brat I never said that! God's totally dependable! You just shouldn't depend on him for things you can do yourself. I think it's silly to rely on an all-powerful deity when fallible human doctors are right over there.

Also, God only heals people when he feels like it. Which is a good thing, because sometimes it's best for people to suffer and die.

It is. It really is. See, our physical bodies and physical lives are nothing compared to our immortal souls. God cares most about our souls. So it's best not to depend on him for anything physical. He's totally dependable, though. Just... you might die if you rely on him instead of modern medicine.

This line of thinking has upset me, so here's another Bible verse!

The Bible claims that everything will be wonderful after you die (ignore the following verses about the people who'll be burning in a lake of fire and sulphur and focus on this one about becoming incapable of negative human emotion).

God never meant us to suffer. That's why he created us with a capacity for suffering—because he never planned for us to suffer.

Life was never meant to be like this. We did this to ourselves when we turned away from my specific god. I'm really looking forward to the end of the world, when everyone will be judged I and the people like me will finally get to live happily, the way we were meant to.

...That made me feel better. I think I'll be able to sleep now. Bye! .

Anders Humans came up with medicine, not your god. But if you have to pretend your god came up with medicine so you can use it, fine. Please do.

Life was never meant to be like this, huh? According to the first part of your holy book, life was meant to be lived naked and ignorant. It's just a book. I wish people wouldn't take it so seriously. Taking it seriously leads to all sorts of tragedy.

Sleep well. .

Brat I'm not pretending. My god did give us modern medicine. By giving humans human brains. No other creature on earth has a human brain. The human brain is a gift from God.

Also, I think Genesis is a metaphor. God didn't want us to be naked, he wanted us to be vulnerable. He didn't want us to be ignorant, he wanted us to rely on him instead of being able to stand on our own. Eating the fruit wasn't an actual eating of actual fruit, it stands for the disobedience we have in our hearts—it's a metaphor for us not doing what God tells us to. God wants us to obey him. He wants us to trust him totally.

But he doesn't want to force us into it.

If he had wanted to force us to be vulnerable and dependent and obedient and trusting, there wouldn't have been a snake in the garden for Eve to listen to and trust instead of God.

God gave Moses the ability to part the Red Sea. He gave us the ability to go to doctors who he gave the ability to use modern medicine by giving scientists and researchers the human brains they used to create modern medicine, and aren't human brains amazing? We can read the Bible with them, and pray, and find the true kingdom of God.

Prayer is powerful, so I'm glad your family has that heart.

It's just strange that they would rely more on an infallible god than on the fallible doctors that infallible god gave them in such a roundabout way. .

Anders Of course you're not pretending to believe this bunk. You actually believe it. I know. I know you do.

And yes, only humans have human brains. (The president of the tautology club is the president of the tautology club, by the way.) Did you know that human brains aren't the only ones that possess a capacity for intelligence and self-awareness? In a few hundred years, African gray parrots may be campaigning for their own rights.

I'm glad you don't think the Bible means what it says. Keep pretending it says sane things instead.

You can't possibly believe that prayer is powerful. Prayers are only granted if they align with God's will, right? So if God wills a thing it'll happen and if he doesn't it won't, meaning that prayer does nothing. .

Brat Most of the things it says wouldn't make any sense if they were literal! So of course I'm going to carry on telling myself that they're metaphorical. Also, parrots are dumb birds and they'll always be dumb birds. .

[Long pause: from noon to one hour past midnight. No response to the bit about the power of prayer.] .

Anders Not sure whether you're ignoring the last bit of my message, or have been hit by a car. Hope it's not the car.

Here's a link explaining how intelligent some parrots are: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/02/harvard-study-shows-parrots-can-pass-classic-test-of-intelligence/

In short: pretty much every brain has the potential to develop human-style intelligence. At different rates, developing different areas in different orders, but given enough time and necessity it's a cert—it will happen. Here's where African grey parrots are right now: above human kids. .

Brat Do you honestly believe there is no difference between a human and an animal?

Happy Sunday, btw! .

Anders A human is an animal. Look at yourself: you're a mammal. Or do you think you're not warm-blooded? Does your species not give live birth?

I know Christians believe humans have an extra, invisible, impalpable, unverifiable, supernatural thing called a "soul" that makes them better than all the other mammals on planet Earth. Frankly, I could just as easily claim that capybaras have a supernatural thing called a "storg" which makes them better than all other living things, which are merely animals in comparison.

Happy sun's day to you, too. Though it's nearly the day of the moon now! .

Brat Some prayer is about asking for things, but some prayer isn't. Also, sometimes we pray with a bad, non-humble attitude. Sometimes we ask for things that God knows would be bad for us. Obviously God wouldn't grant those prayers. Anyway, it's best to pray for insubstantial things like humility, not for substantial things like good grades. The power of prayer is much more spiritual than physical. The soul is spiritual. Do you believe in the Big Bang? Then you're religious too. You believe in something coming from nothing. .

Anders If you recall, the powerful prayer we were talking about was in regard to my sister's arm. Is that prayer powerful? No? There's only spiritual power in prayer? Prayer has no real power in the real world?

There's no evidence that souls exist. There's not even an agreed-upon definition for the word "soul."

No, I don't believe in the Big Bang. I believe that experts in the field of cosmology have settled on that as the mostly likely explanation for all the evidence available to them, and I don't think I have more evidence or expertise in that area than they do. They could be wrong! But they're way more likely to be right than me, a non-expert.

Also, from what I understand, Big Bang theory does not postulate something coming from nothing. It's just a description of the expansion itself, not of where the expanding stuff came from.

Would you like to shove your god into that gap and pretend you already know where the initial singularity (or whatever) came from instead of waiting for more information to come in?

Happy day of Tiw, by the way. .

Brat No, I remember about your sister. Notice how your family still believes in the power of prayer even though relying on it cost your sister her arm? That's because they have faith. Faith is not about what we see. It's about all the stuff we believe is going on in the spiritual realm we believe exists but that we have no idea about.

I would definitely fit God into that gap you're speaking about and I think you know that lolz.

Our hope isn't about what will happen in this lifetime, but in the next. The next one is forever, this one our bodies on average won't make it past 100 years. We are fragile beings if you ask me. .

Anders Thanks for admitting that prayer does nothing in the real world.

Applying prayer did nothing to save my sister's arm. This implies that God didn't want my sister's arm to be saved (if her having two arms had been aligned with his will, he'd have answered that prayer). So what do you think would have happened if my parents had applied science instead of prayer? Do you think God would have intervened to make sure she lost her arm anyway?

Thanks for admitting that you think real life—the life that definitely, provably exists, that everyone knows for a fact exists—is much less important than a hypothetical afterlife.

I care about real life. I wish Christians (specifically my parents) did too. .

Brat Prayer always works, it's just that sometimes the answer is no.

It's okay that you don't understand why Christians value eternity more than finitude. Faith is hard to understand if you don't have it. (I realize that I just said something very rude. Time to empathize!) I am very sad this is happening to you, though. This must be really hard for you. It's hard for me, too: I'm really struggling to empathize with you because no one I care about has lost an arm.

(This is not making me feel better about myself. I'm a good person! What can I offer an angry person who hates God? Oh, I know!) If I can help you in any way, please let me know what I can do. Even if you want to just call me up and scream. I'd listen. .

Anders Prayer has no effect on the real world.

I know why Christians value eternity more than finitude. I would too, if the eternity was real. For over thirty years, I did! Somehow I failed to notice that while real life is obviously and definitely real, this supposed afterlife is not.

Faith is easy to understand. It's belief without evidence, often because the believer doesn't know what evidence is.

And thank you for the offer, but no, I'm not going to call a young lady [a number at the top of her blog said 22; this has since been changed to 25] and scream at her. I'm not angry at you. It's the blind faith—pardon the redundancy—that you share with my parents which I wish I could wipe out of this world.

Why believe things when A) they can't be proven to be true, and B) believing them can be proven to harm people? .

[10 days of silence.]

Anders All right then, back to the original discussion.

You were attempting to deal with the fact that God blessed Jacob's polygamous relationship with four different women.

You went on a bit of a tangent arguing that a woman who can be handed over to a man with a "here, have sex with her and her kids will count as mine" is not a slave, but never addressed the polygamy at all.

Is it moral for a man to have a harem? Is this a part of God's moral law that shifts and changes like sand with human cultural norms?

Did God disapprove, and merely bless all four unions with sons because he didn't care to condemn this immoral behavior? Or were these people wrong in thinking that sons are a blessing from God? .

Brat I'm going to copy and paste my first arguments as though you didn't already address them, and then tack on a bit about how sons are totally not a blessing from God because they aren't specifically called that during the course of this one story.

Incidentally, I no longer remember why we're having this exchange. .

Anders We're talking because you ran across a post pointing out bad things in the Bible, denied the facts, and I agreed to spoonfeed you the information (while you continue to try and spit it out).

To reiterate: in the Old Testament, God is not shy about killing anybody who does anything he dislikes. He doesn't kill Jacob. Instead he gives Jacob multiple sons. The Bible presents sons as a blessing from God. You have read the Bible, right? At least tell me you've read the bit in Genesis that we're talking about. Remember how Jacob's wives kept saying things like "God has given me a son"?

God blessed Jacob's polygamous unions with lots of sons, and then he blessed the sons and created the twelve tribes of Israel through them. Remember that? This is not condemnation. This is approval. This is a blessing of Jacob's sex with all four women. This is a reward for polygamy.

Can you see how "oh, you're having sex with four women at once—okay, I'll give you sons with all four women and then I'll make those sons into a great nation" is the opposite of disapproval?

If not, that's okay. There are smaller words I can use. .

Brat I don't understand your arguments at all, and you're making me feel stupid!

Obviously God is only capable of approving one form of marriage! He can't like both monogamy and polygamy! Because of this fact (which I don't even need to state because it's so obvious), I can logically argue that if God thought polygamy was okay he would have made Adam polygamous!

Also, because it's stupidly obvious that children aren't a blessing from God in the real world, the Bible can't possibly state that they are! The writers of the Bible weren't ignorant enough to believe that, so they didn't believe that and didn't write it!

I hate your tone! Respect me! Respect me and my beliefs or I'm not debating with you anymore! .

Anders Look, I respect you just fine. Not as an authority on anything! But as a fellow human being, yes. And as a fellow human being I'm gonna point out when you've started talking out of your ass, because to do otherwise would be disrespectful: it'd be giving you up as too stupid to talk to.

On the other hand, your beliefs are stupider than hell and I refuse to give them any respect at all because they don't deserve any.

Also, this was never a debate. You asked to see the bad things in the Bible. I showed one of them to you. You rejected it. That's not a debate, that's you refusing to accept what's right in front of you. .

Brat No, every chance you got you twisted my response. Maybe you'd be better talking to yourself in a mirror.

Also the backhanded replies is what made me feel disrespected. .

Anders Twisted your responses, did I? Well, let's look at them.

In my argument that the god we see in Genesis sometimes approves of immorality, I pointed out that:

1) the god character in Genesis punishes actions he disapproves of with curses and death, and offers "having lots of descendants" as a reward for actions he approves of (he's the one who controls whether women's wombs are open or closed).

2) Jacob had sex with four women (two of whom were "gifts" and may or may not have had a choice).

3) The god character does not punish him for this. No cursing him, no putting him to death. Instead,

4) All four of Jacob's sex partners have sons, giving Jacob lots of descendants.

To this, you responded that:

1) Jacob was definitely married to two of his sex partners and may have been married to the other two as well.

2) The first two women were using the wombs of the second two to "go over God's head" and have children without his approval, which was selfish.

3) There's no verse that straight-up says "and the Lord blessed Jacob's polyamory and opened the wombs of his sex partners."

4) God could have been blessing Jacob for something else.

When laid out this clearly, I hope you can see that your supposed counterpoints are nothing but disjointed, irrelevant statements. Does being married to multiple women make polygamy moral? If what Leah and Rachel did with the bodies of their "servants" was immoral, shouldn't God have punished them? If the Bible doesn't bluntly say "and God approved of this," does that mean we should ignore the evidence of his approval and lack of evidence of his disapproval?

Does the god we see in Genesis make a habit of not punishing people for immoral things, instead rewarding them (for moral things that they definitely did just off screen)?

If none of these things are so (and they certainly seem to not be so), then none of your points were at all pointy. Yes, Jacob was a polygamist who might have been married to all four of his sexual partners. Yes, his wives tried to use their "servants" as secondary wombs because they didn't like what God was doing with the wombs they had in their own bodies.

Yes, God's approval (and disapproval) is not always directly stated; often it's implied by his actions or the results of his actions. Yes, God could have been blessing Jacob for something else while not punishing him for being a polygamist (and possibly a slave-raper).

Does all this make God look good to YOU? If not, why say any of it?

.

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