Are we talking about the same god? The god that orders his most observant follower to sacrifice his own child then changes his mind when he attempts to obey, the god that apologises with rainbows after committing genocide, the god that has to incarnate as a member of his own creation and then be sacrificed by others before he truly gets what it is like to be mortal? That god?
If you read the bible as a story about this deity called Jehova or whatever, it does not read as everything-I-do-is-right, but more about a flawed character that slowly goes through a process of personal discovery, who hasn't really benefitted very much by having a load of hangers-on worshipping him. Was one of the things that convinced me as a child that the bible probably wasn't all that reliable as a guide to cosmology. God as portrayed in that book, is actually far too human to have created the universe, at least that was my rough opinion at the age of 11 and it hasn't really changed that much since.
You misunderstand the point. 'Rightness' in Abrahamic theology is what God does and what he commands you to do, period. Everything he does is by definition right. This is very convenient as far as moral philosophy goes, since it provides an absolute and objective foundation.
That's the sense in which he's the everything-I-do-is-right God of Abraham. The same is not true for the Nordic gods or the Greco-Roman gods. The Book of Job probably makes this point the most powerfully and clearly.
As an aside, it doesn't really make sense to judge historical moral norms by modern 21st century ones. Morality is an anthropological/sociological phenomenon, not some kind of measuring stick we can sensibly apply to other cultures and times.
>You misunderstand the point. 'Rightness' in Abrahamic theology is what God does and what he commands you to do, period. Everything he does is by definition right.
I'm not missing the point, I am making the point that this is just what his followers say and if you read the bible as a story about this character god, then you can get a very different impression.
>it is not the opinion or mainstream theology of the religions themselves, which is my point.
Depends what you mean. I described this take on the bible many years ago to my local minister, who was also the minister attached to my primary school and so would have been the person to give me my first bible, and he admitted that he was agnostic, but felt he did a lot of good in the community and if he went around telling people that he wasn't sure if God existed then they would probably stop listening to him.
Are we talking about the same god? The god that orders his most observant follower to sacrifice his own child then changes his mind when he attempts to obey, the god that apologises with rainbows after committing genocide, the god that has to incarnate as a member of his own creation and then be sacrificed by others before he truly gets what it is like to be mortal? That god?
If you read the bible as a story about this deity called Jehova or whatever, it does not read as everything-I-do-is-right, but more about a flawed character that slowly goes through a process of personal discovery, who hasn't really benefitted very much by having a load of hangers-on worshipping him. Was one of the things that convinced me as a child that the bible probably wasn't all that reliable as a guide to cosmology. God as portrayed in that book, is actually far too human to have created the universe, at least that was my rough opinion at the age of 11 and it hasn't really changed that much since.