I could write a better god with my ass tied behind my back!

[dave_littler]

I was giving some thought to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah the other day

Comments

[hentaikid]

old testament god is pretty metal

[thepolishhammer]

This is true. To be honest I have heard more metal bands take their imagery from satan when old testament god is just as badass or possibly more badass then satan.

[dave_littler]

Mind you, the finest death metal bands will always be those who invoke imagery from the old norse gods of the vikings. Those guys never pretended their gods weren't bloodthirsty maniacs.

[thepolishhammer]

May I inquire to what bands these may be? I assume you are talking about Amon Amarth. At the moment my favorite death metal band is "Nile" which takes a lot of their imagery from Egyptian gods and some Lovecraftian things.

[superskimmilk]

Sorry you're worked up on such a happy day.

I hope you have a nice Thanksgiving nonetheless!

[dave_littler]

Oh, that's right, I keep forgetting Americans have their version of Thanksgiving in November. That always strikes me as so odd.

But no, I had a good time writing this. This isn't the sort of thing I actually get worked up over, any more than I get worked up over discussing, say, Star Trek or Lord of the Rings. It's interesting, it's fun to discuss, but not of any great emotional importance.

[johhnymayhem]

heh Interesting read, but it seems your fundamental problem is that you're trying to introduce logic to people who, if anything, shun such a thing.

Good points, though. I'll have to keep Sodom and Gomorrah in mind if I'm ever confronted with some sap telling me all life is precious.

[dave_littler]

Yep. And those other stories I cited are great to bolster that point, too, I should think.

[falconwarrior]

Good read, as always. :D

[dave_littler]

I aim to please. :)

[hentaikid]

Incidentally this is why Catholics were not allowed to read the bible, since it was "confusing" without proper interpretation. On a related note, there's a talk on youtube by Dan Dennet going into the theology studies priests take at seminars and how they frequently cause crises of faith, most of the talk is about religious people who have lost their faith

[dave_littler]

Yep yep. Just last night, I was watching the latest episode of The Atheist Experience, and the host, Matt Dillahunty (who is himself a former Christian fundamentalist who was training to be a priest when his studies of his religion forced him to realize it was all nonnsense), made a great point. He said (and I paraphrase him here), You can hand a christian a bible and a handful of highlighters and tell them, Okay, you say some of this is MEANT to be literal, and some of it is MEANT to be metaphor. Go ahead and highlight for me the literal stuff in blue, the metaphors in yellow, and the stuff you aren't sure about in green. No christian can ever do this, because it is all just guess-work and personal preference. There is no 'proper interpretation', whether they want to admit it or not.

I really like Matt's insights into these things.