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“I figured out way back if God is all-powerful, He cannot be all good. And if He is all good, then He cannot be all-powerful.” - Lex Luthor, Batman V Superman
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
― Epicurus
The OT god and NT god are literally different gods. CMV.
The OT god is firmly monolatristic, other gods canonically exist. The NT god is after Judaism transitioned to monotheism, so god had to change from less “my dad will beat up your dad” to more “god is responsible for everything so he’s omnibenevolent but don’t think about it too hard.”
Depictions of YHWH are inconsistent from book to book in OT, and even within one book you sometimes get different pictures. You have to remember that these texts were composed over hundreds of years.
The scriptures are not univocal, not inerrant, not divinely inspired.
These remain the academic consensus and what is taught in seminary, which is to say ministers deliberately lie to the laity.
“God works in mysterious ways!”
Me - “Bless your heart.”
One way to interpret that dichotomy is that the Catholic Church is living up to their belief that humans cannot do what god does. While god’s ineffable wisdom allows them to sacrifice an innocent for the good of humanity, humans’ imperfect understanding means they cannot do the same.
Yeah from my observations that seems to be the preferred interpretation.
A lot of Catholic apologetics picture God as basically an utilitarian, who thinks big picture and allows bad things (sin, suffering) to happen for greater good. Then they turn around and say only the mob boss gets to break the rules, and you should get in line and also stop masturbating.
It still raises the question why God arranged the paradigm just so he’d have to have to sacrifice an innocent for the good of humanity in the first place. This practically admits He’s not so omniscient / omnipotent or that He’s not benevolent to humankind, certainly not all of humankind.
In the catholic tradition there’s a view on jesus’s sacrificial role that interprets it as the last human ritual sacrifice. For long the religions of the region had transitioned from human to animal sacrifice. Greeks, Romans, Judaism and, later, Islam all used animal sacrifice as offerings to god. Jesus’s death was the human sacrifice to end all ritual sacrifices and replace them with symbolic offerings, like wax candles, flowers and behavioral sacrifices in the form of penance and prayer. Or the consumption of wine and wafers (body and blood of Christ) instead of ritual consumption of blood, meat and fats of sacrificed animals.
It’s a shitty explanation that comes from anthropological analysis, but it is an explanation alright.
I mean, the biggest proof is him changing his mind and promising he will no longer be a dick towards people (at least not directly).
Also, destroying the world because it saddens you how people turned out, when you know everything (including how people will turn out) is just dumb storytelling.
But at least I have a concise guide on how to deal with slaves. And when I get horny, I can read that bit about the prostitute sleeping with men with donkey-sized dicks. Or the two chicks raping their dad, that’s a fun one.
