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theweaselkingJob is a pious man who sacrifices greatly to God, and does not sin, and yet when Satan scoffs that he's only doing this for his reward, God is not confident enough to ignore the doubter and is either unwilling to or incapable of simply showing Satan the truth. Instead, he tells Satan to murder Job's family, destroy his possessions, inflict him with plagues, and make his life miserable. God not only allows but *encourages* Satan to torture and murder innocents. In the end, God finally recants and stops torturing the innocent man, giving him new children and long life and riches, but only after Satan has been allowed to do his will on Earth with God's explicit approval AND has convinced everyone around Job that God is unworthy, requiring God to step in personally to correct this.
It doesn't matter that Satan didn't get Job. Satan still came out *way* ahead - even assuming that all 10 of the murdered children went to Heaven *and* that God's personal and direct intervention saved all of Job's friends and his wife from their sins *and* that Satan didn't manage to convert even one single unmentioned bystander by showing that God would *order*, not just allow, Satan to torment a righteous innocent and murder his innocent children. He still got to run free and commit acts of murder and torture, not just with God watching but with God's *encouragement*.
Satan had nothing to lose, God had nothing to gain, and yet God still played Satan's game by Satan's rules at Satan's behest, and not only let Satan free on the world, he encouraged Satan to pick his own targets. It's only that Satan is megalomaniacal and overreaching, so he picked an incorruptible man, that prevented a tragedy.
The book of Job annoys me because it shows God to be a gullible chump.
[Poll #1368441]
EDIT:
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-19 11:11 pm (UTC)Then ask another.
Then duck.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-19 11:13 pm (UTC)Which is a pansy-assed noncommittal take on things, in my ever-so-humble opinions. But I'm a very, very bad Jew.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-19 11:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-19 11:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 12:01 am (UTC)It's treiffic!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 02:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 05:07 pm (UTC)A toasted bagel with cream cheese sandwich with either bacon or sliced ham instead of lox. Mmmm, tasty.
- James -
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-19 11:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-19 11:59 pm (UTC)God's a bastard.
Date: 2009-03-19 11:30 pm (UTC)So God is boasting about this guy and Satan does his job by saying “bet he isn't”, and God gives Satan explicit instruction to destruction test the poor bastard. And when Satan is finished, and has to admit “yeah alright, he probably is”, God does not punish Satan, not because He can't, but because Satan did exactly what he was supposed to do.
The lesson being that one mustn't lose faith, no matter the trials and tribulations and vicissitudes, no matter if every good deed is punished and every bad deed rewarded, because God's
testingfucking with you.Or else you really deserve all that shit, who knows?
And remembering that Moses was forbidden to enter the Promised Land because he lost his temper once, and his sister Miriam was given leprosy for the hideous crime of asking if Moses knew what he was doing... if this is what He does for his beloved children, the rest of us should be thankful that He doesn't give a toss what the rest of us do.
Re: God's a bastard.
Date: 2009-03-20 12:26 am (UTC)destruction test the poor bastardmurder tens if not hundreds of human beings.They don't count, though, not being landowning men.
Re: God's a bastard.
Date: 2009-03-20 12:52 am (UTC)Neither do the children of Sodom and Gomorrah. Neither do the citizens of Jericho. Or, or, or...
The OT God shows all the characteristics of a violent psychopath, and the Hebrews are depicted as His abused children. “We love Him, we really do. He would do anything for us, He said so... don't even think that! You'll make Him have to punish us all again!”
Re: God's a bastard.
Date: 2009-03-20 01:50 am (UTC)...and you know, that makes him pretty much typical for most people in the god biz.
That whole notion of "loving and benevolent" deities is a pretty recent invention, and one that's always had a hard time maintaining a toehold. Religion, since its earliest prototypes, has ALWAYS been a combination of "don't hurt me" and "let's make a deal."
Re: God's a bastard.
Date: 2009-03-20 05:29 pm (UTC)The other possible interpretation, and the one that I tend towards, is that in the OT there's a whole slew of entities running around claiming to be Jehovah or agents thereof. I mean, nobody every asks an angel for ID, do they?
Re: God's a bastard.
Date: 2009-03-20 01:26 am (UTC)Or else it's a piece of literature from the Deuteronomic Authors, trying to make the theological point “Don't take it personally, man, God's just fucking with you, who said to stop obeying the priests?!”
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 07:30 pm (UTC)Or else you really deserve all that shit, who knows?
Which is why you can't trust on Yahwee's karmic feedback mechanic on if you're doing OK in life or not, if you have the the desire to change for "good". Are you being evil, or are you just Job? Sorry, god won't tell you, just guess harder!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-19 11:32 pm (UTC)(1) It's just another story with another perfectly fallable human source and suchly perfectly fallable translation.
(2) That Job's God pulls that sort of petty, malevolent crap all Old Testament long proving not only that He is a gullible chump but that He is able to be an asshole at any given time.
(3) The point is that this God was for early Jews - the tribes trapped in a nomadic whirlpool of trauma and reliant on a God that worked in the fight-or-flight mindscape; but not of much import for present day believers who can project much more evolved Higher Powers.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-19 11:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 12:01 am (UTC)And in the model you postulate, God *went out of his way to torture Job and murder his children* because apparently God wasn't smart or confident enough to tell his naysayer that the naysayer was wrong in this case.
Which still means God's a useless, gullible, incompetent prick and Satan wins again.
The Book of Job has *no* possible interpretations that are flattering to God.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-21 11:21 am (UTC)But why should God be more confident in Job?
The whole point of life is, apparently, to test us. Why not up the ante on some of the test subjects, to see how they do?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-21 03:17 pm (UTC)A) God is omniscient and therefore knows the result of the test in advance
and
B) God *is* shown to be confident in Job. Forget whether or not he should be, we see in the text that he *is*. He tells Satan, outright, that he knows Job to be strong and loyal and then Satan tricks him into letting Job get stomped anyway because God is insecure and gullible and not willing to stand by his own declared convictions.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-21 06:51 pm (UTC)Which does mean it makes no sense _now_, of course.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-22 12:22 am (UTC)Missing the point
Date: 2009-03-20 12:07 am (UTC)Caca was very popular.
Date: 2009-03-20 07:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 12:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 01:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 12:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 01:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 01:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 02:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 01:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 02:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 02:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 02:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 02:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 03:22 am (UTC)The only thing I could get out of it was that God was trying to prove something about fallibility and faith to Beelz himself, and the humans were just a convenient toy. That assumes, however, that he is trying to educate and evolve the angels as to the potential of his new favorite ant-farm.
Or it could be the absinthe fueled dreams of some maniacal monks who wanted to explain why 99.9% of humanity had to shovel shit for a living when someone questioned their little book of parables and ideals.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 03:22 am (UTC)I think everyone knew Jesus was WATCHING THEM.
Oh btw, gothic black pirate duck pencil toppers make excellent hats for glow in the dark jesus pencil toppers.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 03:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 04:50 am (UTC)Why do you think my invisible friend shouldn't be shown to be a gullible chump? Given what you think of his followers, I'd have thought that to be a foregone conclusion.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 07:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 03:40 pm (UTC)It is a strange tale, but no stranger than any other mythology. When we consider how the average person treated his own children, God's treatment of Job seems not a far cry from usual father/son relationships.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 03:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 04:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-20 05:10 pm (UTC)Just because /I/ pulled that stunt and walked away from it mostly unscathed is no reason for OTHERS to do it.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-22 05:31 pm (UTC)By this measure, it all goes well, and God gets to teach Job an important lesson, all in this Very Special Episode of the Bibble.