First, I want to note that you made absolutely no case for the pro position in your first post. All you did was attempt to rebut me. Please provide a positive argument for your own position. You cannot simply treat it as being true prima facie in an attempt to shift the entire burden of proof to me.
Now to address your response to my position:
We agree that God put his own pleasure and glory ahead of Job’s suffering.
That's not quite accurate, inasmuch as Yahweh inflicted that suffering. It would be more accurate to say that Yahweh inflicted that suffering as a demonstration of his own pleasure and glory.
No, what I said is quite true. We discussed and agreed to the factual aspects of the story, including:
3.
Satan caused Job’s children to be killed and his possessions to be stolen or destroyed. It should be noted that while
Satan actually performed the acts, God accepts responsibility: 2:3 …And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause.
God would receive honor and glory if Job maintained his faith despite suffering, so he
let Satan torture Job. God put his own pleasure and glory ahead of Job’s suffering.
It is disingenuous to now argue that God directly inflicted the suffering.
The text of Job does not, in fact, say that anyone else was suffering. We cannot therefore definitively state that any suffering was present in Job's community (other than the suffering that Yahweh inflicted on Job).
Nor does the text of Job say that anyone was in poverty.
Sure it does. I thought you were going to read it before the debate. Examples:
Job 3
Or why was I not hidden away in the ground like a stillborn child,
like an infant who never saw the light of day?
17 There the wicked cease from turmoil,
and there the weary are at rest.
18 Captives also enjoy their ease;
they no longer hear the slave driver’s shout.
19 The small and the great are there,
and the slaves are freed from their owners.
20 “Why is light given to those in misery,
and life to the bitter of soul,
21 to those who long for death that does not come,
who search for it more than for hidden treasure,
22 who are filled with gladness
and rejoice when they reach the grave?
Job 7
Like a slave longing for the evening shadows,
or a hired laborer waiting to be paid,
3 so I have been allotted months of futility,
and nights of misery have been assigned to me.
Was there some reason that they should have? Scripture indicates quite clearly that Yahweh permits and endorses slavery, to the point of setting down a variety of rules for the way slaves were to be treated. There would not appear to be any incentive for freeing slaves. Indeed, in light of Yahweh's rules about slavery, it might even be considered disobedience to Yahweh to release slaves.
Your knowledge of the law is on par with your knowledge of Job. Slaves could be freed, and in fact were required to be freed in certain circumstances, so no, it would be no affront to God for Job to use his wealth to redeem slaves.
The child who starves to death or dies for lack of medical attention, does so because Yahweh wants it to happen, and despite the fact that humans don't. If it were within my power, I'd eliminate all hunger and infectious disease on the planet. (I have to be satisfied with what little I can do to help with charitable donations and the like.) Yahweh, however, has that power, but refuses to exercise it.
First, you’re committing a version of the tu quoque fallacy here. If it’s wrong to put one’s pleasure ahead of the suffering of others, than it’s wrong for you to put your pleasure ahead of the suffering of others, period – it doesn’t matter what God does.
Second, as an atheist, that argument is utterly ridiculous.
Third, you don’t have to be satisfied with what little you’re doing to help if you expend any resources at all on your own pleasure and/or glory. Until you’ve given it all up, you shouldn’t be satisfied, or should admit that by your own criteria you’re monstrous.
You cannot state this with any definitiveness unless you know how much any one person here is giving to charitable and humanitarian causes
Yes, I can state it definitively, because as noted, everyone here is necessarily putting their time here when it could go to better uses.
-- and even if you did, it would still be a questionable call.
How so? You can’t just make a general assertion like this and expect it to go unchallenged.
Same category error. The richest man on earth is still a man of finite resources, the same as any other human being. Yahweh does not have greater resources, he has infinite resources, which is a very different matter.
Same three answers as above.
