Richard Dawkins, an atheist polemicist, was recently mentioned in the combox here so let's have a Dawkins quote on "God," although I do not find the T shirt image fully legible:
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it, a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak, vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, a misogynistic, xenophobic, racist, infanticidal...filicidal, pestilential...-maniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolant bully."
Anderson's Father Axor and Stirling's Father Ignatius do not worship such a deity but I suggest that this is because they are better than their own earliest scriptures.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And I don't agree with our latter day Marcionites in their attacks on the OT and how God was depicted or revealed in the earlier books. I've actually came across a "Catholic" online who rejected the OT for the shallow, simplistic reasons given by Dawkins. I would argue, rather that the older parts of the OT were shaped in large part by Hebrews/Jews who were still barbarians, with all the ferocity to be expected of barbarians. But as time passed God patiently taught the Jews to accept more advanced and nuanced ideas. A favorite example of mine from the OT being how the Prophet Elisha forbade the King of Israel to kill the Aramaean soldiers sent by their own king to kidnap the prophet. Elisha told his king to treat the enemy soldiers kindly and release them--which the king did after treating them to a banquet.
Sean
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