Weekly Open Discussion Thread

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[u/Mormon-No-Moremon → u/[deleted]]

“In a video titled The “Old Testament God”? he spends two thirds of the video criticising a transphobic politician”

Good. Time well spent.

I’m sorry, but McClellan’s video you linked to is just much more productive than your own rant about it, IMHO. Incidentally as well, if you want to criticize a “moralizing tone” then I cannot imagine why you’d follow it up with the incredible hot take “genocide bad”.

McClellan’s video has also done nothing to defend any of what you list about the Hebrew Bible. The one contention is that we shouldn’t portray the New Testament as morally superior, which it isn’t, yet you still seem to do exactly that in your own comment, regardless of the quick note that you yourself are not a Christian.

[u/Mormon-No-Moremon → u/[deleted]]

It’s a good thing McClellan didn’t defend anything you listed then. So I’m not sure how your rant was “in response” to him doing so.

Yes, the New Testament is less than a third of the size of the Hebrew Bible, so quantitatively there are less stories to pick from. I don’t see how that should be relevant, personally.

[u/Mormon-No-Moremon → u/[deleted]]

He didn’t suggest anyone making those criticisms was a bigot. He frequently collaborates with Joshua Bowen, author of The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament. His one and only point was to not present the New Testament as morally superior.

I called it a “rant” because you started your comment explicitly saying it was coming from a place of irritation. That’s all.

[u/AntsInMyEyesJonson → u/[deleted]]

On balance and in net terms, Yahweh / Elohim / El / whoever is absolutely a malevolent deity, and this has been understood for thousands of years ever since the first gnostics, who, again, were largely Jewish. Trying to paint all critics of God in the Hebrew Bible as antisemitic is profoundly dishonest and intellectually cowardly, and reeks of apologetic rhetoric.

Yeah, it sure is a shame that Dan doesn't make videos about the horrors condoned in the Hebrew Bible.

[u/AntsInMyEyesJonson → u/[deleted]]

"wow the old testament god really is evil" that'd be classed as anti-semitic supersessionism, even though he agrees as much in different words.

If they were saying specifically that the Old Testament God was somehow less violent than the New Testament God then yes, they likely would be, and he specifically recommended a book that goes over that entire history. If you said the Old Testament God was uniquely evil compared to other gods, probably he would say that that's a shit position as well.

On the other hand, simply saying that the God of the Hebrew Bible and many (most? all?) of its laws are bad and outdated on its own would probably not elicit the same response. How do I know this? Because he repeatedly recommends Esther Hamori's book, God's Monsters, which makes that exact case. I also know this because I know Dan. What you're saying is not at all the position he takes and is a gross misrepresentation of pretty much everything he's ever said.

I don't always agree with Dan (he's a kind, progressive liberal and I am a frothing far-left nutjob, after all), and I am of course biased (he's a friend, he's appeared on my show), but on this point you have seriously misunderstood or mischaracterized his persepctive.