Moderator's Note: Moved from New Series: Season One: The Unquiet Dead:

"That kind of makes sense, thanks...though it's still so UNNECESSARY." -Emily

Well, sure, I wasn't arguing with THAT... :-)


"Well, I have BIG problems with that! Quite apart from everything else...why would the God(ess) choose to intervene NOW rather than the fifty billion other times the Doc could have done with a hand while saving a planet...where was the divine intervention when half the universe was going up in smoke in Logopolis?" -Emily

Couldn't answer that one- especially as I haven't seen Logopolis- I'm merely saying I don't have a problem with the concept of divine intervention, not necessarily it's usage. However, from a what-if standpoint, I have to ask... did the other situations, including Logopolis, get resolved eventually? In other words, divine intervention wsn't NEEDED for their resolution? I've no clue, since, as I aid, I'm relatively new to the Whoniverse.

"Yeah, I know *shakes head bemusedly* but I can't believe many of 'em are Who fans. Who needs Jesus when you've got the Doctor?"-Emily

Well, y'know, last I checked, the Doctor's domain ends at death's door. :-) (Despite what some of his Companions may be able to do...) After all, what good's the new Who series if you can't remember it after a little thing like death? :-)


"but when they seriously offer up a cosmic God and Devil - in the form of Season Sixteen's White and Black Guardians - it jars appallingly with the ethos of the Whoniverse." -Emily

Interesting. Well, to someone new to the Whoniverse, how WOULD you describe it's ethos?

did the other situations, including Logopolis, get resolved eventually? In other words, divine intervention wsn't NEEDED for their resolution?

Well, personally I don't regard Tom Baker topping himself after wiping out half the universe as a desirable resolution...

Well, y'know, last I checked, the Doctor's domain ends at death's door. :-)

Not for HIM it doesn't. (And in the immortal words of Lawrence Miles, 'Jesus only resurrected himself once. Lightweight.')

what good's the new Who series if you can't remember it after a little thing like death? :-)

If you've got the guts to accept that life is all we have, then something that actually makes it worth living, viz Doctor Who, is fairly important.

Alright, so I'm not exactly looking forward to a post-death Whoness eternity, but hey, the BBC considerately gave me a trial run. For SIXTEEN YEARS. And at least my merciful lack of existence will probably stop me whinging about the loss of Eccy and co.

Well, to someone new to the Whoniverse, how WOULD you describe it's ethos?

Humanism. No doubt about it. Which is weird, given that it's a programme about a super-alien who is always saving a pathetic helpless humanity from a) aliens or b) humanity's own evil/stupidity. But just take a look at Tom Baker's speech in Ark in Space...no, on second thoughts DON'T, Ark in Space is bloody boring and one should try to shield newbies from the hideous truth that the new series utterly wipes the floor with the old for as long as possible. Watch Tennant raving about wonderful humans in Age of Steel or Christmas Invasion or Utopia instead.

Ah, that's not true. Ark in Space is great! And T. Baker's speech is still great, even though "Utopia" pretty much shoots it down in flames (humanity isn't ready to sit out eternity).

I was going to say the Whoniverse's ethos was rationalism. Pertwee is adamant there's no such thing as magic, we get to see the creation of the Universe in "Castrovalva", and later see the physical object that caused it in "Terminus." The ancient gods are all revealed as powerful beings that humanity deluded itself into worshipping ("The Daemons", "Death to the Daleks", "Pyrimids of Mars", "Kinda"), and the only thing you need to have faith in--is yourself.

The ancient gods are all revealed as powerful beings that humanity deluded itself into worshipping

And yet the new series is setting up the Doctor that way. And Emily has been for years.

Ark in Space is one of the very few stories I have on DVD so I wouldn't call it boring either.

As for the Who ethos, I would have thought it about self-determinism, how one person can make a difference if he just thinks he can (or she). More often that not it's the Doctor making the difference, but not always.

So many episodes hinge on that one character doing just the right thing at the right time, usually through an act of cleverness or sheer bravery, but sometimes just plain luck. The solution is never the army or the government or the powers that be, but always that one person.

No, the new series is not setting up the Doctor as god. He's definitely fallable. As for Emily, she's considers Russell T. Davies as God, not the Doctor.

Ah, that's not true. Ark in Space is great!

In a really boring kind of way...

And T. Baker's speech is still great, even though "Utopia" pretty much shoots it down in flames (humanity isn't ready to sit out eternity).

Nonsense! Utopia's humanity goes to inordinate lengths to outsit eternity (way more than those stupid Ark ones Tom was rhapsodising over, I mean all THEY did was fall asleep for a few thousand years after forgetting to set their alarm clock, how pathetic is THAT, did they learn NOTHING from the Sea Devils and Silurians?) even if tragically Utopia's humans may possibly have been outwitted by that meddling SPOILER.

I was going to say the Whoniverse's ethos was rationalism.

Ha ha ha, absolutely not! Who PRETENDS it's rational, maybe even BELIEVES it's rational, but basically it's a magical show about a magical man in a magical blue box.

Pertwee is adamant there's no such thing as magic

Yeah, but Pertwee's also adamant he's several thousand years old, the liar. And for every 'There's no such thing as magic!' there's...a witch. For every 'There's no such thing as ghosts!' there's...Ghosts of N-Space. Sure, Unquiet Dead aside, Who generally makes (somewhat vague and unconvincing) efforts to cast the fig-leaf of scientific respectability over the magic (it's a DNA replication module, not a mommet, yeah, right) but, let's face it, science has never been Who's strong point...

we get to see the creation of the Universe in "Castrovalva", and later see the physical object that caused it in "Terminus."

Very true, but I see those as part of Who's humanist, there-are-no-gods-you-morons philosophy. Cos the-universe-was-created-by-anti-matter-from-a-spaceship-travelling-back-in-time doesn't go down particularly well with rational scientific types...

and the only thing you need to have faith in--is yourself.

YOURSELF? No, no, the Doctor!

(Oh. Have a horrible feeling that come the end of the world (or something) I'd feel that twisting my ankle and wailing 'Doctor, help!' would be the most sensible attitude.)

And yet the new series is setting up the Doctor that way. And Emily has been for years.

Well, it depends on your definition of 'God'. There's the sexist, genocidal, homophobic, non-existent type, and then there are people so mind-bogglingly fantastic that one just can't help but fall at their feet and WORSHIP THEM! WORSHIP THEM!

So many episodes hinge on that one character doing just the right thing at the right time, usually through an act of cleverness or sheer bravery, but sometimes just plain luck. The solution is never the army or the government or the powers that be, but always that one person.

Only in the new series, what with RTG regarding the Doctor as, above all, an enabler. In the black n'white days it was generally the Doctor and/or sidekicks who saved the world (when he wasn't 'We mustn't interfere!'ing), by the Pertwee era it was him AND THE ARMY, and of course in Tom's day it's unimaginable for anyone but the Scarfed One to save the day.

No, the new series is not setting up the Doctor as god. He's definitely fallable.

Yeah, on the one hand he's more fallible and human than ever, but on the other...his response to 'Boe's got a message for the Lonely God' was 'Ooh! Gimme my message!' and then there's all that 'Last of the Time Lords' 'I burnt the two greatest empires in history', 'he is ancient and forever...he burns at the centre of time and sees the turn of the universe' stuff.

As for Emily, she's considers Russell T. Davies as God, not the Doctor.

Come to think of it, I worship the Doctor as a god too, I just don't usually refer to him as such cos to me the word 'Doctor' is just so much more godlike than the mere word 'God'. (OK, so I'm a polytheistic atheist. My Troughton-God assured me (well, Zoe anyway) that logic is overrated.)

"Well, personally I don't regard Tom Baker topping himself after wiping out half the universe as a desirable resolution... " -Emily

...Yes, I could see how that resolution could be considered undesireable... :-)


"If you've got the guts to accept that life is all we have, then something that actually makes it worth living, viz Doctor Who, is fairly important." -Emily

Fair enough... but remember, those with the sufficient guts may well need them to face eternity if their acceptance is misplaced. :-) Me, I'm willing to take my chances on faith that just maybe, Cap'n Jack Harkness was the unlucky one, and there's a whole lot more to life and the universe than we can see or understand at present... a philosophy that, in general at least, I think the Doctor would approve of in us 'stupid apes.' :-)


Humanism? I suppose that should have been obvious from the finale of Last Of The Time Lords... makes sense.

"I was going to say the Whoniverse's ethos was rationalism. Pertwee is adamant there's no such thing as magic, we get to see the creation of the Universe in "Castrovalva", and later see the physical object that caused it in "Terminus." The ancient gods are all revealed as powerful beings that humanity deluded itself into worshipping ("The Daemons", "Death to the Daleks", "Pyrimids of Mars", "Kinda"), and the only thing you need to have faith in--is yourself."

Hmmmm... interesting. Although... a little confusing... how could a physical object create the universe... in what uiniverse did the physical object exist? Ack.. I have a feeling that it would be easier to track down the preceeding 26 years than to get involved with questions like that... :-)

Well... unique philospohy, I suppose... but heck, I know myself and my flaws well enough that I'd like to find something a little better to have faith in than that! ;-)


"Ha ha ha, absolutely not! Who PRETENDS it's rational, maybe even BELIEVES it's rational, but basically it's a magical show about a magical man in a magical blue box." -Emily

:-D I'll have to remember that one... :-)

I can't believe you, of all people, is using "Ghosts of N-Space" to support your arguement.

Believe in the Doctor, sure, but just who is it that makes it possible time and time again for the Doctor to do his thing? Yep, "ordinary" humans who believe in themseves. After all, who saved the Earth from the Nestene in "Rose"? I'll give you a hint: it wasn't the Doctor. And who made it possible for the Doctor to work his mojo in "Last of the Time Lords?" Yep, plain old Martha.

Yeah, TBaker was a savior hog, but good ol' Sarah Jane and Leela did manage to help out. Even Adric and Nyssa managed to save the Doctor's bacon in "The Keepers of Traken."

And don't go quoting Lawrence at me. He's just being all literary with his "magical blue box"; when it comes down to it, the Doctor saves the universe with his handy tools and rational (if quirky) mind.

"Well, it depends on your definition of 'God'. There's the sexist, genocidal, homophobic, non-existent type, and then there are people so mind-bogglingly fantastic that one just can't help but fall at their feet and WORSHIP THEM! WORSHIP THEM!" -Emily

Well, can't say that the former sounds all that worthy of worship, and as for the latter... just last night, I heard it from the Doctor's own lips- "I'd make a pretty poor god." :-)
My deffinition would be the all-knowing, all-seeing, and all-LOVING God of the universe, m'self.

SPOILERS TO THE END OF SEASON 3/29:

"Well, personally I don't regard Tom Baker topping himself after wiping out half the universe as a desirable resolution... " -Emily

...Yes, I could see how that resolution could be considered undesireable... :-)

Yeah, 27 years later I STILL haven't got over it...Tom's departure, I mean, I don't really give a toss about half the universe.

remember, those with the sufficient guts may well need them to face eternity if their acceptance is misplaced. :-)

Oh, don't worry, as an ex-Catholic I'm very well aware of the eternity of torture your ever-loving God will inflict on me if I happen to have got my facts wrong.

Me, I'm willing to take my chances on faith that just maybe, Cap'n Jack Harkness was the unlucky one, and there's a whole lot more to life and the universe than we can see or understand at present...

Of COURSE there is! And I suspect Captain Jack's seen and understood most of it.

a philosophy that, in general at least, I think the Doctor would approve of in us 'stupid apes.' :-)

Eccy didn't mean it when he called us that! You'll note that he just couldn't face blowing up Earth - whatever the circumstances - whereas he could merrily blow his OWN planet to smithereens. (OK, I'm exaggerating with the 'merrily'.)

Humanism? I suppose that should have been obvious from the finale of Last Of The Time Lords... makes sense.

Actually I feel humanist principles get the tiniest bit dented by everyone getting together to express their faith in a superbeing, who promptly starts flying through the air as a result...

how could a physical object create the universe... in what uiniverse did the physical object exist?

In our universe...a spaceship accidentally jettisoned some anti-matter back in time.

I can't believe you, of all people, is using "Ghosts of N-Space" to support your arguement.

Mike, it's been nine years - to the day! - and you never realised that there's NOTHING I wouldn't stoop to to win an argument...?

Oh, alright, forget Ghosts of N-Space (I only wish I could). Just rewatch The Daemons, five episodes about a bunch of witches and a Doctor wandering round claiming there's no such thing as witchcraft...

Believe in the Doctor, sure, but just who is it that makes it possible time and time again for the Doctor to do his thing? Yep, "ordinary" humans who believe in themseves. After all, who saved the Earth from the Nestene in "Rose"? I'll give you a hint: it wasn't the Doctor. And who made it possible for the Doctor to work his mojo in "Last of the Time Lords?" Yep, plain old Martha.

Yup, I'm not denying this for a moment - I'm the one who saw Who as a humanist programme - but it's the Doctor who supplies the inspiration, not to mention the anti-plastic.

Yeah, TBaker was a savior hog

Hey, love that line!

You wouldn't like to come up with similar phrases for all the other Doctors too...? Cos I'm getting a bit sick of 'cosmic hobo' et al...

And don't go quoting Lawrence at me. He's just being all literary with his "magical blue box"

I didn't think I WAS quoting Lawrence when I said that.

when it comes down to it, the Doctor saves the universe with his handy tools and rational (if quirky) mind.

Yeah, his handy tools like the psychic (!) paper and the medical-diagnosing, reattaching-barbed-wire, does-anything-in-the-universe-except-open-deadlock-seals sonic screwdriver...and the telepathic quirky mind that can contain an entire planet's population (Gallifrey Chronicles).

"Well, it depends on your definition of 'God'. There's the sexist, genocidal, homophobic, non-existent type, and then there are people so mind-bogglingly fantastic that one just can't help but fall at their feet and WORSHIP THEM! WORSHIP THEM!" -Emily

Well, can't say that the former sounds all that worthy of worship

Well, perhaps you'd better check your Bible...I'm assuming you're a Christian and I feel it's my duty to warn you that your God has BAD things to say on the subject of, for instance, stoning Russell T Davies to death.

and as for the latter... just last night, I heard it from the Doctor's own lips- "I'd make a pretty poor god." :-)

Ah, that was just our Eccy being adorably modest! None of this 'There IS no higher authority!' stuff from HIM. And even Eccy could only come up with ONE pathetic reason as to why we shouldn't regard him as a God. And personally I haven't NEEDED a day off from Ninth Doctor-worship since his first 'Fantastic!'.

My deffinition would be the all-knowing, all-seeing, and all-LOVING God of the universe, m'self.

Well, with the universe in the state it's in, I'm assuming then that he (I'm also assuming it IS a 'he') is either bloody incompetent or has the kind of non-interference policy that REALLY annoys me about the Time Lords...?

I mean, at least Who fans have the whole mustn't-interfere-with-the-Web-of-Time thing to fall back on when someone points out that 'Pol Pot killed every doctor he could find and none of them was you!'

"Oh, don't worry, as an ex-Catholic I'm very well aware of the eternity of torture your ever-loving God will inflict on me if I happen to have got my facts wrong." -Emily

Sorry, madam, not my God. I'd be happy to discus the finer points of Hell theology on PM, the religion boards, or even my own blog (http://nolinecinemas.blog.com/God-Nerd/), but I imagine the Moderator would rather it didn't continue here. Suffice it to stay, if that's the story you're working off of... you haven't heard the whole story. :-)


"a philosophy that, in general at least, I think the Doctor would approve of in us 'stupid apes.' :-)

Eccy didn't mean it when he called us that! You'll note that he just couldn't face blowing up Earth - whatever the circumstances - whereas he could merrily blow his OWN planet to smithereens. (OK, I'm exaggerating with the 'merrily'.)" -Emily

true... and he did seem to have changed his tune (albeit in a different regeneration) towards humans by the time of Last Of The Time Lords...


"Well, perhaps you'd better check your Bible...I'm assuming you're a Christian and I feel it's my duty to warn you that your God has BAD things to say on the subject of, for instance, stoning Russell T Davies to death." -Emily

I am, and proud of it... but I think that the only thing God would would have to say on the subject of Russell T Davies is the same thing He'd have to say about me and you- "Yup, they're sinners, and they're not perfect- but they're my kids, and I love 'em!" I'm afraid that Mysoginistic, Homophobic, and Genocidal stuff just doesn't check out... and the non-existant... well, we'll have to wait and see, now won't we? :-)


"My deffinition would be the all-knowing, all-seeing, and all-LOVING God of the universe, m'self.

Well, with the universe in the state it's in, I'm assuming then that he (I'm also assuming it IS a 'he') is either bloody incompetent or has the kind of non-interference policy that REALLY annoys me about the Time Lords...?" -Emily

Yes and no... Non-interference in the sense of 'Providing Free Will and allowing the consequences, good or bad' - but hardly non-interference when it comes to providing a means of salvation! ...Again though, lest I stretch the moderator's patience... perhaps this is best discussed elsewhere?

"Oh, don't worry, as an ex-Catholic I'm very well aware of the eternity of torture your ever-loving God will inflict on me if I happen to have got my facts wrong." -Emily

Sorry, madam, not my God.

Ah. If no hellfire n'damnation, why would I need any guts to face eternity? I'll be in heaven with an eternal stack of Who DVDs. Most of them starring Christopher Eccleston.

I imagine the Moderator would rather it didn't continue here

Don't worry, Mike'll be the first to let us know when we should shut up about the god-bothering. And I am trying to keep it more-or-less on-topic.

if that's the story you're working off of... you haven't heard the whole story. :-)

Believe me, I've heard a LOT of stories. I just feel the ones where God resembles the Judoon a lot more convincing than the ones where he's more Face of Boe-ish. Bearing in mind that I've read the source material.

and he did seem to have changed his tune (albeit in a different regeneration) towards humans by the time of Last Of The Time Lords...

Actually I think the change occurred the minute he regenerated...Rose was obviously a huge influence on Who he turned into, and not just with the cockney accent. Just look at Tennant's Lion King speech.

I think that the only thing God would would have to say on the subject of Russell T Davies is the same thing He'd have to say about me and you- "Yup, they're sinners, and they're not perfect- but they're my kids, and I love 'em!"

Are you calling Russell T God a sinner???????

That's just...blasphemous.

I'm afraid that Mysoginistic, Homophobic, and Genocidal stuff just doesn't check out...

So how do you react when hit by something like Leviticus ('If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.')?:

a) God never said that! It's as non-canonical as the Cushing movies!

b) God is being misinterpreted. Like Hartnell-with-the-rock and Colin-with-the-acid-bath! They're all innocent!

c) God used to be a total ******* - worse than Colin Baker, if you discount the coat - but these days he's regenerated into a much nicer bloke, honest.

d) God was just doing gays a favour! Like Davison executing Kamelion! Once they're dead these lucky, lucky people will get wings and a halo and as much gay sex as Captain Jack confronted by a stopwatch-wielding Ianto!

and the non-existant... well, we'll have to wait and see, now won't we? :-)

The only drawback of being an atheist is that when I'm proved right I won't be in a position to say 'I told you so!'

Non-interference in the sense of 'Providing Free Will and allowing the consequences, good or bad'

Hmm. You might just get away with that to explain away all the rape, torture, genocide, etc etc (though those throw up all the thorny humanity-was-made-in-God's image questions) but it doesn't excuse, say, infant mortality rates down the centuries...

but hardly non-interference when it comes to providing a means of salvation!

Well, providing you were born in the last two millennia. Otherwise you're not really in luck, given that Jesus said 'No-one comes to the father save through me'.

Of course, the DOCTOR was around at the beginning of the universe. Twice!

I think you've hit on most of the points that make the existance of a god incomprehensible to me. In fact, I hope there isn't because the world through the ages would indicate he's either a sadist or really doesn't care even slightly.

""Oh, don't worry, as an ex-Catholic I'm very well aware of the eternity of torture your ever-loving God will inflict on me if I happen to have got my facts wrong." -Emily

Sorry, madam, not my God.

Ah. If no hellfire n'damnation, why would I need any guts to face eternity? I'll be in heaven with an eternal stack of Who DVDs. Most of them starring Christopher Eccleston." -Emily

The difference is simple: Hellfire, yes. God condemning anyone to it? No. Anyone going to Hell condemns themselves- when the alternative is freely offered, requires nothing but accepting forgiveness, and is free to any and all that are willing to accept it, anyone who fails to take God up on it is hardly being condemned by Him! :-)


"I'm afraid that Mysoginistic, Homophobic, and Genocidal stuff just doesn't check out...

So how do you react when hit by something like Leviticus ('If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.')?:" -Emily

Well, heck- I never said that God doesn't regard homosexuality as a perversion of the sexuality that He created- same as I do. (A determination He's allowed to make, I should think, as the it's creator in the first place!) The difference is: Homophoba is a state of bigotry towards homosexual people. Belief that the homosexual act is wrong is no more an act of hatred than believing that getting drunk is wrong is an act of hatred towards the patrons in a bar. And yes, the biblical punishment for the sin was steep- so too was the punishment for many things- but not an act of bigotry. A cause and effect based on the consequences of sin and a perfect moral system. (Some pretty heavy stuff, once you get into the details of it.)

"Non-interference in the sense of 'Providing Free Will and allowing the consequences, good or bad'

Hmm. You might just get away with that to explain away all the rape, torture, genocide, etc etc (though those throw up all the thorny humanity-was-made-in-God's image questions) but it doesn't excuse, say, infant mortality rates down the centuries..." -Emily

Well now hold up a second- yes, all the things you describe are a consequence of HUMAN actions, not God's, as you said- and just because we are made in His image doesn't mean we are made to ACT like Him- only with the moral capacity to do so. (At least, in a perfect world.) And I don't know how you can blame infant mortality rates on God, exactly...


"and the non-existant... well, we'll have to wait and see, now won't we? :-)

The only drawback of being an atheist is that when I'm proved right I won't be in a position to say 'I told you so!'" -Emily

I can only hope for your sake that you're right... and pray for you in the mean time. :-)


"but hardly non-interference when it comes to providing a means of salvation!

Well, providing you were born in the last two millennia. Otherwise you're not really in luck, given that Jesus said 'No-one comes to the father save through me'." -Emily

Theologians debate that topic to this day, obviously- but the Bible clearly states in several places that the pre-Christ faithful are not simply condemned to limbo- Moses making an appearance in Heaven, for example.


"I think you've hit on most of the points that make the existance of a god incomprehensible to me. In fact, I hope there isn't because the world through the ages would indicate he's either a sadist or really doesn't care even slightly." -Mandy

Well, I can see that's a shared opinion here, but frankly, it is incomprehensible to me- the world through the ages indicates to me that, yes, man does have Free Will, and yes, man is sadistic- flawed-but-well-meaning in it's best moments- but that doesn't really say anything about God. The point of Free Will is specifically that we are free to make our own choices and recieve the results. That means we can make the right choices, and God will not keep us from recieving the consequences... or we can make the wrong choices, and God will also not keep us from recieving the consequences. The only way for Free Will to be truly Free is for it to be TOTALLY free. Which means that the history of wrongs you see in human history is the legacy of man, not of God... which does not indicate a cruel God. And the fact that He has not interfered is simply a part and parcel of the nature of giving us Free Will- which is what allows us to be the thinking, feeling, sentient being that we are and not a group of God-controlled robots... meaning there is no indication of an uncaring God.

...Or at least... all of that is my two cents on the subject. :-)

SPOILERS FOR THE END OF SEASON 3/29:

Is anyone else getting the irresistible urge to quote Troughton after his chat on Klieg-thought in Tomb ep 4, or is it just me...?

Ah. If no hellfire n'damnation, why would I need any guts to face eternity? I'll be in heaven with an eternal stack of Who DVDs. Most of them starring Christopher Eccleston." -Emily

The difference is simple: Hellfire, yes.

Oh.

Thanks.

Boy, have YOU blown it. There I was, getting a glimpse of eternal bliss for the first time in my life - 'heaven' having previously freaked me out second only to 'hell' - and you just have to ruin it. If only you'd kept your gob shut I might - might - just have convinced myself that because I WANT something it is actually TRUE, and - given a few years of indoctrination...brainwashing...electro-convulsive shock treatment...and hopefully an early onset of Alzheimer's - I may just have hurled myself into the arms of Baby Jesus, started munching away on wafers in the happy belief they're human flesh, and swearing that the Earth was created in six days flat and dinosaurs aren't real (something that comes easier after watching Invasion of the Dinosaurs, I can tell you).

But nope, you just had to go and threaten me with the old fire n'brimstone, didn't you? I hope you'll feel GUILTY, listening to my shrieks of anguish while you're floating round with your harp.

God condemning anyone to it? No. Anyone going to Hell condemns themselves- when the alternative is freely offered, requires nothing but accepting forgiveness, and is free to any and all that are willing to accept it, anyone who fails to take God up on it is hardly being condemned by Him! :-)

OK, lemme get it straight. God wrote the rulebook that says I'm gonna burn, baby, burn (as Cassandra put it) if I don't accept his 'forgiveness' (for what, precisely?). So how can he possibly not be to blame for this particular rule? And has it not occurred to you that it's a wee bit...harsh? Has God never heard of the Unfair Contract Terms Act of 1977? Couldn't he punish me a bit less drastically for (I freely admit) spitting in his genocidal face? I mean, what's wrong with a few thousand years in purgatory, or (as Hartnell so memorably put it) a jolly good smacked bottom?

And why do I have to be judged entirely on that tiny portion of time I spend on Earth? I mean, it's one thing to be 'No second chances, I'm that sort of a man' but Tennant didn't MEAN it *points indignantly towards Cassandra, Dalek Caan, the Master, etc etc* so why can't Mr All-Loving Saviour Guy give me one last chance to recant AFTER I've popped my clogs? When I might possibly admit, faced with His Glorious Majesty, that the atheist thing was a putting-the-CyberLeader-in-the-recharger kind of mistake? (I'm hoping I'd have the guts to follow that up with a Shardavan-style 'You made us, man of evil - but we are free!' before launching myself at his warmongering throat, but I have the nasty suspicion - not being enormously fond of agony - I'd launch into a few sycophantic verses of 'Amazing Grace' instead.)

Well, heck- I never said that God doesn't regard homosexuality as a perversion of the sexuality that He created- same as I do. (A determination He's allowed to make, I should think, as the it's creator in the first place!)

Hmm. He's the creator of the universe, he's the creator of sexuality, he's therefore the creator of homosexuality, so you don't think it's the tiniest bit MEAN for him to insist that all gays spend eternity in agony?

And to think I regarded Tennant as a total git just for creating John Smith with a three-month expiry date...

The difference is: Homophoba is a state of bigotry towards homosexual people. Belief that the homosexual act is wrong is no more an act of hatred than believing that getting drunk is wrong is an act of hatred towards the patrons in a bar. And yes, the biblical punishment for the sin was steep- so too was the punishment for many things- but not an act of bigotry.

Right. They get stoned to death and then tortured in a non-prejudiced kind of way.

God, this is reminding me of Taren Capel. 'I suppose you're one of those boring maniacs who's going to gloat, hmm? Going to tell me your plans to conquer the galaxy?' 'No, Doctor, I am merely going to burn out your brain. Very, very slowly.'

A cause and effect based on the consequences of sin and a perfect moral system.

Yeah, well, call me a fanatical nitpicker, but I feel that an absolutely perfect moral system would include a little less about the abominations of shellfish and shaving and a little more (well, a little SOMETHING) about the abominations of rape and slavery.

just because we are made in His image doesn't mean we are made to ACT like Him- only with the moral capacity to do so. (At least, in a perfect world.)

Hmm. I wasn't expecting Tom-Baker-in-the-Tachyon-Generator kind of identical copies, but if you're made in someone's image that should mean slightly more than with-the-moral-capacity-to-act-like-them-in-a-perfect-world.

And I don't know how you can blame infant mortality rates on God, exactly...

Don't see why not. Humanity's got massive physical as well as moral design flaws - and who's responsible, eh? EH?

(Well, obviously, Scaroth of the Jaggaroth, the Fendahl, the Doctor, the Daemons, the Exxilons etc etc - but according to YOU it's all this God person's fault.)

I can only hope for your sake that you're right...

You really hope atheists have got it right? You'd give up heaven in favour of non-existence - just to spare me hell? That's so sweet. The greatest self-sacrifice since that idiot Davison attempted to top himself eight times over for Nyssa and Tegan, of all people.

and pray for you in the mean time. :-)

No, please don't bother. Not only has prayer been PROVEN to be useless, but by your own ideology it'd be grossly unfair for God to pardon ME cos you put in a good word, whilst torturing everyone else who believes as I do.

Well, providing you were born in the last two millennia. Otherwise you're not really in luck, given that Jesus said 'No-one comes to the father save through me'." -Emily

Theologians debate that topic to this day, obviously

Sorry, if you've got the authority to state I'll be burning for eternity, I don't expect wishy-washy DEBATES on the hell issue. (You should read some Terrance Dicks Who novelisations - they'll soon teach you about the importance of having authority in your voice ;)) I want to know EXACTLY what happens to everyone else - Muslims, pre-Jesuses, Gandhi, baptised babies, non-baptised toddlers, etc etc.

Oh, and above all, I want to know what will happen to my Doctor. Will the fact he's saved God's entire Creation on several occasions counteract the fact he's obviously an atheist (except when suddenly becoming a pathetic agnostic in The Satan Pit)? Was the Master right when he played him that song claiming 'Oh, you'll probably go to heaven'...?

- but the Bible clearly states in several places that the pre-Christ faithful are not simply condemned to limbo- Moses making an appearance in Heaven, for example.

Well, it's good to know Jesus was lying through his teeth on this issue. And if Moses the child-rapist gets to go to heaven, there's hope for us all.

Which means that the history of wrongs you see in human history is the legacy of man, not of God... which does not indicate a cruel God.

Well, it does if he's omniscient. Which he should be, being God and all. He knew when he created the universe every single thing that was going to happen to every one of us. Billions of years (or are you a it's-only-been-six-thousand-years type godbotherer?) before I was conceived he knew I'd be incapable - by virtue of feminism, intelligence, nitpicking inclinations, and Doctor-worship - of EVER grovelling to him. And that I'd burn for it. Forever. In what way is THAT not cruel?

And the fact that He has not interfered is simply a part and parcel of the nature of giving us Free Will

I noticed quite a bit of interfering in the Bible. Mostly of the smiting-people kind.

Okay, I'd like to direct all religious debates over to the Religious Musings section at Nitcentral. I can't see that any discussions on these boards not devolving into flame wars. Thank you.

Have some faith, Mike. :-) (In the non-religious context in tthis case.) There won't be any flaming coming from these quarters.

Anyhow, Emily, in deference to the narrator, I have responded on the General Discussion board under religious musings. I do hope you will take a look, as I believe that a few points were miscommunicated between us; especially in that first paragraph.

Oh, and I almost forgot... whether your beliefs dictate this as a religious or completely secular message... MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!

No, no, no, Zarm. You must look at the camera & in a first Doctor voice say, "Happy Christmas, to all of you at home."

;-)

Merry Christmas.

Before you ask, he's referring to episode seven of The Daleks' Masterplan, known as The Feast of Steven, which was broadcast on Christmas Day in 1965 - and the First Doctor broke out of character and said the above festive wishes to camera.

Ahhhh... I wasn't going to ask, as I assumed it refered to a special I hadn't got to yet... but I see now that it's one I also WOULDN' be getting to for a while... :-) Good to know! Thanks!

You'll probably never get to see it, Andrew. The tape of this episode was wiped sometime in the early 1970's.

One of the lost, eh? That's unfortunate... also surprising... it seems pretty famous for something that few here have probably ever seen! ;-)

You'll find that Doctor Who fandom has pretty thoroughly researched and catalogued all that has to do with the show. If you want a great example, check out the book "Doctor Who on Location", an incredibly thorough documentation of every location used for filming the original series.

Just about every episode exists on audio, however, even if the visuals have been lost, and these have been made available through BBC Audiobooks, with linking narration.

Okay first of all, Mike may want to delete this board right off the bat, and if so, I completely understand and won't complain.

Second, for Mike to consider letting this board run, we all have to promise to keep it on target (Doctor Who AND religion) and not drift off (to just religion). We also had better promise to be nice and respectful, to each other at least.

Third, I know there's a 'religious musings' (or something like that) board, but several of us don't frequent boards outside of Doctor Who so, although we're free to participate on that board, we don't really feel like part of the community that is active there. Moreover, there's a strong 'Star Trek' bias outside our little corner, so if you're not a Trekkie, it can be hard to find common ground. Bottom line: I know it's there but it's not a very appealing option.

So let's try this, Mike willing. If nothing else, it seems a better place for such discussion than the individual episode boards.

Emily (and anyone else),

Have you seen Second Coming? It was a two-part mini series written by Russel T. Davies and starring Christopher Eccleston. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts if you have and would like to recommend it to you if you haven't. No matter what their beliefs, most viewers found it pretty thought-provoking.

(Yeah I know that's already a Doctor Who tangent.)

Ah yes, despite the absurd premise it was a joy and being the Son of God was excellent practise for Eccy becoming the Doctor. And obviously I enjoyed God dying by rat poison, even if that was nicked from RTG's own Who book, Damaged Goods.

I think Doctor Who will steer clear of any direct religious stories. Although it might be tempting to some writers, you will never see a Who story in which the TARDIS shows up in Bethlehem (sp?) on Christmas, say about 2008 years ago. To the extreme ring wing groups, that would be a red flag to a bull.

Some shows like Ghost Whisperer, Charmed, and Buffy did feature ghosts and the afterlife, but that's different. The idea of ghosts and the afterlife predate many of the modern religions, so it's easier to get away with that (the Ancient Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans, for example, all had their own ideas on those concepts).

All in all, Who would do well to stay away from any direct religious stuff.

How about some direct anti-religious stuff?

MINOR SPOILER FOR SEASON FOUR/THIRTY:

Richard Dawkins is gonna be in Who!!!!!!!!!!

From today's Independent:

"People were falling at his feet," says Davies, creator of the BBC's flagship show. "We've had Kylie Minogue on that set, but it was Dawkins people were worshipping."

Never heard of him.

One of the leading exponents of evolutionary biology which has brought him into direct conflict with various religious groups over recent years. Most important of all for this board he's married to Lalla Ward.

Ah, thanks for the info.

To be fair to the godbotherers, the evolution stuff probably doesn't drive them quite as mad as the, er, proactive atheist stuff. He's practically the atheist Pope, and his excellent book The God Delusion our Bible. (Though I do feel that instead of recommending all this 'science' nonsense as an alternative to religion Dawkins should just suggest humanity's tendency to fall in love with fictional characters should be directed towards a slightly more worthy object. The owner of a certain blue box...)

Of course, Dawkins has already made a cameo appearance in Who - with his wife!* - but as that was in a book (The Dying Days) it had slightly less impact.

*Lalla Ward, of all people.

Oh, and he invented the whole 'meme' thing, as in 'Adherents of the Repeated' from End of the World.

I heard an interesting quote once: God made the universe, and science tells us how he did it.

Works for me.

Moderator's Note: moved from Original Series: Season One: An Unearthly Child thread:

"Er...yes. I think we all know exactly how your God...and practically all the other ones...feel about a woman's place." - Emily

No, I don't think you do. Hence the attempting to dispel the ludicrous 'woman hating God' myth, that, frankly, doesn't exist anywhere except in the figments of God-hating imagination.


"Didn't Abraham pimp his wife out to a couple of foreign kings to save his own skin?" - Emily

And was chastized for it! The biblical 'good guys' - Abraham, Moses, David, etc. were hardly perfect, they were human. And just because they're chronicled as having done something doesn't mean they're chronicled as being approved for it. Biographies tend to record the good and the bad. Just like Doctor Who gives us Baker AND Baker. ;-)


"And presumably...by this logic...the husband loves and trusts his wife just as much? Enough to obey HER every command/whim too?" - Emily

Yes. In case of a deadlock, the husband is appointed as the final tie-breaker (and honestly, that's a 50/50 shot, not a bias against women- it could just as easily have been the other way around- but I think it's from a missinterpretation/corruption of this principle- citing the 'wife obey' without the 'husband love and cherish' as an excuse to get away with tyrany- that so much sexism, inequality, and injustice has come from in marriages and societies throughout the ages) but in the ideal marriage that shouldn't have much of any impact in the relationship because both spouses are more about each other than themselves and work together to reach their decisions.


"Aaaahhh, how lovely. And how fortunate for wives - being too thick to realise their own best interests - to have a MAN right there to tell 'em." - Emily

I didn't say that. What I am saying is that anything he would ask or 'command' would be in ACCORD with her best interests/what's good for her- not that he would TELL HER her best interests/what's good for her. In other words, that he wouldn't be asking anything of her that is in selfish interest in the first place.


"You know, I have nothing against husbands getting beaten to a bloody pulp. Due to physical strength it makes more sense for them to take on the bad guys, plus - most bad guys not being gay - they're considerably less likely to get raped in the process. I do, however, completely fail to see why a wife has to repay this theoretical protection with lifelong obedience." - emily

Well, at least we agree to a point. :-) I don't think there's any 'trading' or 'repaying' going on- marriage is hardly a protection racket- 'pay up the obedience money and nothin' bad'll happen to ya!'- it's a relationship between two people who love each other and want what's best for each other. It may have been corrupted into something else, I'm not dissagreeing- but that's not what it's supposed to be, not what it's intended to be. The wife is not paying for her protection with obedience- she's obeying because she loves him, and he's protecting because he loves her. And that's just one tiny element of the marriage- they're each doing far more than that. She's also honoring him. Not as in bow-down, pay homage kind of honor, but not disrespecting or belittling him. He's cherish. He's honoring. He's providing- and not because she is incapable of working or needs sheltering, but so that she doesn't HAVE to deal with those things unless she chooses to. Because, just like defending, he doesn't want her to have to go through the garbage associated with working for a living, paying the bills, providing for the family- only to work if she enjoys what she's doing, if it's good for her, if she wants it- not because she has to or starve. It's not condecsension, it's cherishing.


"And if she HAS made up her own mind, and it happens to differ from that of her lord and master's...how much brain-washing does it TAKE for her to WANT to follow his wishes rather than her own?" - Emily

That's just the point- the husband is supposed to respect and honor . If her opinion differs, he takes this into account and they talk about it- he doesn't just steamroll ahead. Yes, I do believe he has tie-breaking power, because sometimes when it comes to life, one person or other has to make the decision and you both live with it, like it or not. But I believe that particular role going to the husband comes with the responsibility to make sure that if he's using this 'veto power,' it's not to get his way but because he honestly believes it's what has to be done, even after taking everything his wife says into consideration. This is no different than any leader- be it the head of a safari, the captain of a team, or the skipper of a boat, has to make- take the wisdom of your trusted confidant into consideration, act- and be the one who is responsible for the consequences. And for the wife, that doesn't mean abandon free will- yes, I think she should still want to follow his wishes, as he should still want to follow hers- but that doesn't mean she has to change her position to match his- simply that she is supposed to submit to the fact that he made a decision and not kill each other fighting about it. :-)


"Do you think a man's mental faculties are generally stronger than a woman's? Cos I can't think why else he'd be the one giving the orders." - Emily

Absolutely not! The reason he's giving the orders, biblically, is because democracy just doesn't always work. ;-) When you have two people, no matter how close, they're not always going to agree on everything. And if the outcome of a decision is going to affect them both, then sooner or later someone has to make that choice for the both of them, or nothing will ever happen but a permanent stalemate. That's why groups have leaders, ships have captains, etc.- someone to break the tie, and someone to face the consequences first because of it. Why was it the male instead of the female? I dunno. But it seems to me you have to pick someone to do it or you'd ever have only anarchy- and if it'd been vice-versa and women were appointed as the decision-makers, you'd still have the same issue... someone'd be saying God hated men because he picked women to 'give the orders.'

Again, though, if a man's just 'giving the orders' in the relationship, then he's doing it wrong to begin with. 'Wives, obey your husbands' does not equate to 'Husbands, give the orders.' It just means 'In case of tie, default to...' which, if a couple is looking out for each-ther's best interests, should hardly ever happen.


"So why bother with 'commands' in the first place??!!!!" - Emily

Again, for the purpose of having a deadlock-breaker. Not for command, not for one spouse or another to always have their own way- just as a leader to break the tie. Which every group needs to succeed.


"Other than the idea that it's the MAN who is superior cos HE'S made in the image of God?" - Emily

Man being made in God's image is unquestionably 'Mankind' or 'Humanity'- it's not a Christian belief than man and not woman is made in God's image or that man is superior to woman in any way- it is a Christian belief that God made both equal and different, with different strengths and weaknesses. Like the different computational/pattern recognition strengths inherent because males have more gray matter brain content and females have more white matter brain content. That doesn't make one or the other smarter- just naturally geared to different strengths.

Any Christian you hear telling you that one gender is superior hasn't been reading their Bible and is letting cultural corruptions and medieval nonsense get mixed in with his theology, believe you me.


"in the FIRST story about the creation of humanity, admittedly completely contradicting the Garden of Eden stuff" - Emily

Where do you get THAT idea from?


"'So God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them'? 'Man' is obviously being used in the 'humanity' sense here, so your God is obviously a hermaphrodite rather than a male." - Emily

More accurate to say that He does indeed have male and female qualities. Hermaphrodite infers a sexual-organ/body structure issue, and that is something I suspect doesn't apply to God. There may be some reason for the masculine pronouns, I suspect- God tends to do everything for a reason- but I don't think it's to imply that woman is created any less in His image than man. I suspect that in His image has a lot more to do with being free-thinking beings, free will-endowed creatures with souls, than it does with being bipeds or having a certain set of genitals. We put the emphasis on 'look like Him' or body structure because we live in a physical world where the body is all of a person we commonly see. But if the Doctor demonstrates anything, it's that the body isn't nearly so important to who the person is as the mind and the spirit do. (Now there's an interesting theological theoretical question- would Time Lords have multiple souls? Maybe I'll tackle that one after I finish plotting my theory on how James Bond could well be another, far more inept Time Lord who's stranded on Earth shortly after his TARDIS is destroyed and he regenerates into Sean Connery... if you look at the continuity, it really works!) :-)


"Of course! Like a little child she must be wrapped in cotton wool and forbidden to face any of the challenges life invariably throws at every human being. The kind of challenges that MAKE us human beings, not just drones of the 'Go to work, eat chips, go to bed' type that Eccy (and, once she'd met him, Rose) poured such scorn on." - Emily

No, I didn't say that either. But just like the issue of protectiveness above (the 'beaten to a bloody pulp' thing?), when you love someone, you obviously want to spare them whatever hardships you can. Not because they can't handle them, or because you want to deprive them of the challenges they need to grow- it's just a desire to save them from having to go through any hardships that they don't have to, to spare them from any pain they don't need to endure, to make their way easier. And no, not to cotton wrap them, to keep them from things because they don't yet understand enough to decide whether to take them on... simply to free them up to have the choice; they can take the difficult, painful path if they CHOOSE to, but not because they HAVE to. Again, it's not condescending, saying 'You wouldn't like this, so I'll take the choice away from you,' but loving, saying 'This is unpleasant- you can still do it, if that's what you want to do. But I've made it so that you don't have to if it's something you DON'T want to do.' the same way that anyone does for someone they care about.


"I'm not entirely sure what we ARE talking about, but at the moment it sounds like a cross between lobotomy, slavery, and imprisonment." - Emily

Ughck! Not what I'm talking about! In any event, about pampering, I was just clarifying... :-)

No, I don't think you do. Hence the attempting to dispel the ludicrous 'woman hating God' myth, that, frankly, doesn't exist anywhere except in the figments of God-hating imagination.

Yeah, what could possibly have given me that impression?

The fact that when God was giving specific instructions about how to sell your children into slavery, he stated that female slaves must not be freed at the end of six years, as male ones are? (Exodus 21)

The fact that God's Chosen, Moses, gave his troops permission to rape little girls? (Numbers 31)

The fact God regarded Lot as a 'righteous man' after he BEGGED a crowd to gang-rape his daughters? (Genesis 19)

The fact that God couldn't be bothered to put 'Thou shalt not rape' in any of his numerous different versions of the Ten Commandments? (Presumably because not coveting thy neighbour's oxen was just so much more important.)

The fact that God's Chosen, 'Saint' Paul, said 'the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband...the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate'? (Corinthians)

And to think I've always regarded 'Why not make some coffee to keep them all happy while I think of something' as the ultimate in sexism...

"Didn't Abraham pimp his wife out to a couple of foreign kings to save his own skin?" - Emily

And was chastized for it!

What, God told him it was a bad idea? Shouldn't He have done so a bit...sooner?

The biblical 'good guys' - Abraham, Moses, David, etc. were hardly perfect, they were human.

They were also specifically hand-picked by an infallible Almighty to lead - and in some cases create - a new race and a new morality. And frankly He did a rubbish job. Like voting for Harold Saxon, without having the Archangel Network as an excuse.

Just like Doctor Who gives us Baker AND Baker. ;-)

*Bitterly* Yeah, tell me about it...but at least I don't have to regard JNT as either infallible OR moral.

In case of a deadlock, the husband is appointed as the final tie-breaker (and honestly, that's a 50/50 shot, not a bias against women- it could just as easily have been the other way around

See above Biblical quotes for why I have the feeling God didn't just toss a coin to decide that the bloke was the boss...

I don't think there's any 'trading' or 'repaying' going on- marriage is hardly a protection racket

That's EXACTLY what it's been for most of human history. Not just in fundamentalist religious societies, of course, but 'Cos Eve ate an apple' proved extraordinarily effective in justifying the oppression.

The wife is not paying for her protection with obedience- she's obeying because she loves him, and he's protecting because he loves her.

You're just not getting that 'she's obeying because she loves him' is JUST as offensive a marriage as any blatant protection racket.

he doesn't want her to have to go through the garbage associated with working for a living, paying the bills, providing for the family- only to work if she enjoys what she's doing, if it's good for her, if she wants it- not because she has to or starve. It's not condecsension, it's cherishing.

It's the most blatant piece of condescention since Troughton said 'Just act stupid - do you think you can manage that?' to Jamie...

But it seems to me you have to pick someone to do it or you'd ever have only anarchy

Actually most couples in this country seem to manage not to fight in the streets despite not having (as Rose would put it) a Designated Driver...

"in the FIRST story about the creation of humanity, admittedly completely contradicting the Garden of Eden stuff" - Emily

Where do you get THAT idea from?

Er, the fact that in Genesis 1-to-early-2 God created all the animals, and THEN the humans. And in the Eden story he created Adam first, and THEN created all the animals in the hope of making him a helpmeet. (And to think I found Captain John fancying a poodle in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang to be a bit risque.)

But hey, don't worry about it. Doctor Who went and gave us the PERFECT explanation of the creation of the universe in Terminus - completely answering all those tricky questions about how it could have popped up from nothing - and then it went and messed it all up with that godawful Slipback. Still, at least WE don't have to pretend Slipback is canon...

But if the Doctor demonstrates anything, it's that the body isn't nearly so important to who the person is as the mind and the spirit do.

That SHOULD be the message of Doctor Who, though it's not exactly helped by a) the long string of far-more-attractive-than-average female Companions (hmm...in view of the TARDIS's dismal failure to arrive to sweep me off around time and space, maybe I'd better consider plastic surgery?) and b) the fact that the one Doctor who LOOKED godawful WAS godawful.

(Now there's an interesting theological theoretical question- would Time Lords have multiple souls?

Absolutely not. Not that I believe in this 'soul' thing (though I suppose I must, in view of Torchwood's revelation that they spend a post-death eternity screaming in the dark) but if there ARE such things as souls, regeneration would ONLY make sense if the Doc and co only had one each. Of course, this would make it seriously difficult for your God to judge said soul - would it depend on the state of grace in which the final Doc died, or would it automatically be acid-bath-hell for Colin's sins?

Maybe I'll tackle that one after I finish plotting my theory on how James Bond could well be another, far more inept Time Lord

How DARE you give James Bond priority over the Doctor's soul(s)!

when you love someone, you obviously want to spare them whatever hardships you can.

Of course you do. But I don't notice you suggesting that wives spare their husbands all that going-out-to-work hassle.

Emily, you're so divorced from any reality that I can comprehend I can't even start to respond to this. Frankly, I can't understand a single line of thought- if doing something for someone because you love them is offensive and providing for someone you love is condescending, then we have no common ground to work from. If you want me to answer any points specifically, I'll be happy to. But frankly, I'm just too sad and angry about what I'm seeing here to respond properly.

Apologies if that sounded like an attack. It was... harsh language. Mod, feel free to delete.

Emily, all I can say is, frankly, it isn't like that. No, God didn't pick perfect people as the 'good guys.' Know why? Because there aren't any. He didn't put 'Thou shalt not rape' into the commandments because frankly, there are some things so obvious that they aren't even needed- rape is not condoned. Genesis contains an overview followed by a detail in the next chapter it's not contradictory. And while I never denied that marriage has, in past and present been corrupted, marriage as it is intended, what I'm talking about, is NOT like that. It's not offensive (the wife is doing what she does of her own free will because she loves her husband, just as he is doing likewise- what could possibly be offensive about that?!?!), it is not condescending (Wanting to spare someone not having to go through hardships but not blockading them from facing them if they so choose- how is that condescending?!?!) and no, I'm not suggesting that wives spare their husbands the burden of work because, frankly, after all of the corruption that has been in relationships in the past, we owe 'em one. :-) Seriously though, it's in large part because I believe that along with the so-called 'privilege' of being the leader/tie-breaker, the 'head of the house,' comes the responsibility to provide for the well-being of those that you're leading or breaking the tie for. In other words, I think that working is the responsibility that comes along with the position. If that's sexist, then... I'm sexist, I guess. I don't care, because my wife and I are equals, she has my complete support in anything she wants to do, and we're far happier than any of your suggestions about marriage could ever conclude, so... I guess there's something in all that sexist stuff that works after all, huh?


If you're serious about the Doctor's soul... then once again, state of grace and sins have nothing to do with it... if the Doctor's accepted Jesus Christ, he'll be heading to Heaven. The curious thing is, I guess, would the decision made by one regeneration count for the others? Is he one man with one mind and soul, or one man that contains ten and counting?

As far as theology is concerned, because the Doctor is not human he hasn't inherited original sin and hence doesn't need redemption for it, so has no need to accept Jesus, since he sacrificed himself to redeem original sin. Of course, Time Lords certainly don't act like an unfallen race - they're hardly in a state of primal innocence - but other arrangements will have been made for them, which the bible is entirely silent on. We can guess it would involve some form of Incarnation, but these are deep waters.

However, theology is a mug's game. There's no way of knowing who is right this side of death - and I see no reason to believe the other side exists. If there is a afterlife, and there is any justice in it, the Doctor will enjoy the best rewards it can offer - which, in Valhalla, isn't much - and that's all that can be said.

Apologies if that sounded like an attack. It was... harsh language.

It's OK, when a few unpleasant facts hit a wall of...let's be polite and call it 'faith'...harsh language is bound to ensue. I shouldn't have risen to the bait, though when said bait is 'wives should obey their husbands' I find myself as incapable of not responding as a Dalek is of not exterminating.

Anyway, let's just get back to our Doctor...

sins have nothing to do with it... if the Doctor's accepted Jesus Christ, he'll be heading to Heaven.

On the one hand, it's a relief that the Doctor's various genocides are considered so irrelevant. And it's a joy to know I'll have such good company when I'm sizzling away. On the other hand...oh boy, is HE screwed. Despite a worrying few moments involving rooms-at-the-inn in Voyage of the Damned, I'm 100% certain that the Doc has NOT accepted Jesus Christ as the Lord and Saviour of humanity. Any time HE goes to Church, the Church usually blows up.

As far as theology is concerned, because the Doctor is not human he hasn't inherited original sin and hence doesn't need redemption for it, so has no need to accept Jesus, since he sacrificed himself to redeem original sin.

Fantastic! Why didn't I think of that???

So what happens if the Doctor (or even just the Eighth Doctor) IS half-human...?

Actually this was addressed in the Gary Russell (and therefore pretty poor) EDA Placebo - some religious nuts objected to a human marrying an Ice Warrior cos of what it would do to their kids' souls. (To be frank, I was in sympathy with the religious nuts for once in my life - I too would far rather NOT have ghastly characters from comic strips with names like Stacy contaminating proper books with their stupid weddings and pretending to be proper Companions.)

If there is a afterlife, and there is any justice in it, the Doctor will enjoy the best rewards it can offer

Hear, hear. Which is why I'm rather worried by the afterlife revelations in a) Torchwood (Everything Changes, Dead Man Walking etc), b) Camera Obscura, and c) Deadly Reunion.

So what happens if the Doctor (or even just the Eighth Doctor) IS half-human...?

Ineffable mercy means he gets whichever option is best for him.

Thinking about it, Leela would probably enjoy Valhalla - fight all day, then spend the night feasting - but the Doctor is not so easily pleased. What would be the ideal eternal reward for his heroics?

What would be the ideal eternal reward for his heroics?

I doubt there is one. For someone as vital as the Doctor, eternal anything must ultimately be eternally boring. I expect he would want to simply die.

"I doubt there is one. For someone as vital as the Doctor, eternal anything must ultimately be eternally boring."

Well, I suppose that "Heaven" for Doctor Tom would be a place where the jelly babies never run out

I agree that Vahlla would be party time for Leela.

Where do you think Adric ended up?

Ineffable mercy means he gets whichever option is best for him.

Frankly I don't get the impression that most gods are big on inneffable mercy...(NB: I'm NOT trying to start another argument with Andrew, I'm hoping he'll just accept this since he's guaranteed that I'd be sizzling in eternal flames and call me prejudiced, but I don't consider that enormously mericful...)

For someone as vital as the Doctor, eternal anything must ultimately be eternally boring. I expect he would want to simply die.

I agree. It's a shame this wasn't addressed when the Doctor was facing his own mortality (well, he faces his own mortality on a daily basis, so let's say, when he faces his own CORPSE) in Alien Bodies cos Lawrence would certainly have gone for the oblivion option.

Come to think of it, would every Time Lord dying on Gallifrey have downloaded their dying consciousnesses into the Matrix if they'd had hopes of heaven instead?

Unless, of course, they're confident that their souls'd get into heaven, lack of consciousness notwithstanding? Or that a certain lack of consciousness would be an ADVANTAGE when facing eternal boredom? Or that they'd all be bound for hell so best try to avoid the afterlife altogether?

Cos if ANYONE ate from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden then the Time Lords did. (And got a lot more knowledge for their apple than the humans did...) So they may have their own Original Sin.

Also coming to think of it, the Doctor doesn't believe in a happy afterlife for humans either, cos he dumped HIS WIFE in a bloody computer. Obviously NOT hoping for a heavenly reunion any time soon. Also, there's the fact that, of the thousands of deaths the Doc's witnessed, he usually looks miserable as hell (give or take the occasional 'Look, I'm a Time Lord and I don't give a ••••') - NEVER ONCE has he assured anyone that the deceased is happily in the arms of Baby Jesus. Or happily in the arms of their 72 virgins. Whatever.

Where do you think Adric ended up?

Being a highly annoying git is no bar to heaven. (In fact it's an advantage, just LOOK at some of the saints.) It's not like he can have committed any hideous sins like sex-before-marriage. And he DID die in the most heroic manner possible. So obviously Adders'll be going straight to Alzarian Heaven.

Unfortunately Alzarian Heaven is full of spiders...

I feel a little disturbed that an innocuous comment of mine has turned into an off-topic slanging match between Emily and Andrew- ironically after it was pointed out that they agreed with each other...
Don't know where Mike is sleeping at the moment but I suspect if he were here he'd very gently remind people that this is a Who board and that discussions of Gods- or the lack thereof- should be taking place in the religious musings section of Nit-C.

If I may diffuse the situation- look EMily...you haven't commented on my Aztecs notes...there you go....gooood girl [pat on head]

"I'm NOT trying to start another argument with Andrew, I'm hoping he'll just accept this since he's guaranteed that I'd be sizzling in eternal flames and call me prejudiced, but I don't consider that enormously mericful..." - Emily

Fair enough, no argument... just a reminder- I don't want to see you there any more than you would... (lose my temper as I may- and again, I apologize about that- I'd really like nothing more than to meet up with you in Heaven someday so that we can continue rarely agreeing on Doctor Who for many eons to come... ;-) ) and the ticket out is a free 'yes, I'll accept the price has been paid' away... okay, sermon over. ;-)


"I feel a little disturbed that an innocuous comment of mine has turned into an off-topic slanging match between Emily and Andrew- ironically after it was pointed out that they agreed with each other..." - Emily

Heck, are you kidding? That probably one of our milder bouts... you should see what happens when we disagree! ;-)

If I may diffuse the situation- look EMily...you haven't commented on my Aztecs notes...there you go....gooood girl [pat on head]

I'm not really sure where to START here, but...a) situation was diffused without your help, thank you (which bit of 'let's just get back to our Doctor' are you not understanding?), b) I haven't commented on your Aztec notes cos there was nothing to comment on (NB: not an insult, just broad agreement), so why not tell every OTHER Nitcentraller to go comment on all those Rodcasts, and c) get your hands off my head, do you think I'm some sort of DAWG???

and the ticket out [of hell] is a free 'yes, I'll accept the price has been paid' away

Sorry *shrugs in a helpless but suspiciously smug-looking manner* but I already HAVE a lord and saviour. One who saves me without question, and certainly without inquiring into my religious beliefs (or lack thereof) first. One who saves my ENTIRE PLANET on a weekly basis, and ENTIRE UNIVERSES during really big season finales. One who would NEVER condemn ANYONE to eternal damnation (unless they'd REALLY got on Joan Redfern's nerves). One who doesn't ask to be thanked (let alone worshipped) one who'd prefer that we didn't even know his name (as he tells Martha a year after he sent her walking across the radiation pits of Europe to, um, tell everyone to pray to him as their Messiah...ah...okay, shutting up RIGHT NOW).

Emily wrote:

"And it's a joy to know I'll have such good company when I'm sizzling away."


Actually, there is this idea that Hell is not in fact, fire and brimestone, but rather the thing you hate most. For you Emily, I would say that hell would be forced to watch Colin Baker stories for eternity.

You forgot one thing, Emily... he also betrays' and abandons you. Repeatedly. The Savior I'm talking about is guaranteed to stay the same guy when He regenerates- and stick with His companions for life. :-)

I'm sorry, but this is getting mawkish and way off-topic.

There is a Doctor Who and Religion board I started last time this topic came 'round.

there is this idea that Hell is not in fact, fire and brimestone, but rather the thing you hate most. For you Emily, I would say that hell would be forced to watch Colin Baker stories for eternity.

That would be...harsh...but a fitting punishment for the blasphemy of switching that godawful pile of **** off in the first place...truly, I have sinned...

I'm sorry, but this is getting mawkish and way off-topic.

Hear, hear. Well, ignoring the mawkish off-topic nonsense...:

You forgot one thing, Emily... he also betrays' and abandons you. Repeatedly.

WHAT? When has our Doctor EVER not been there when we needed him??!!! The planet's still here, isn't it????

And if you're referring to various genocides the Doc's not been around to stop, well, let me remind you that he can't interfere in history. He didn't do it to save his OWN planet and so he couldn't do it for the Cambodians either. (Though I have to confess to a lot of sympathy when the the Master snarled 'Pol Pot killed every doctor he could find and none of them were you!' in the Doc's face.)

And if you're referring to certain, um, comments I may have made about certain people betraying and abandoning me...well, they were just actors. Human SCUM! as many of my favourite monsters would say. What can you expect? The DOCTOR never betrays and abandons us (even Colin Baker saved the universe, on occasion, though we may have preferred him not to bother) - he DIES in the line of duty.

Ahah! I was wondering if anyone else had picked up on this theme, I was going to start a thread elsewhere, but this is perfect so long as people still respond.

Strictly speaking, I want to concentrate on religion, however, I also want to split religion up into how it was dealt with by various influential programmes of the day, so we can speak specifically of Dr Who and religion without getting into religious arguments.

I have a theory, after reading Richard Dawkin's words about the choice of religion being imposed on a child by their parents, that many children were also influenced by TV programmes of their childhood. I am not tackling the issue to the extent that Richard Dawkins has, his views on religious choice might be something I agree with, but they are contentious to say the least. I was wondering though, whether children had *unconsciously* been influenced by TV programmes, in the sense that if your upbringing were Quasi Christian (as mine was), whether you, as a child, linked 'goodness' to religion, and whether writers were also influenced in this way.

So, we can come to stories which involved gargoyles (aliens), Weeping angels (aliens) and also various stories which *appeared* to have the Doctor treating religion as slightly…beneath him? This may not be correct, I am asking for information as much as anything.

Please allow me to stress that I am not asking for a massive argument about religion, or my take on it, or Richard Dawkins' take on it etc. etc., just about how aspects of religion are handled in “Dr Who”. I do have very strong views on religion, as people on other boards may be aware, but this is not the forum to discuss them.

So, we can come to stories which involved gargoyles (aliens), Weeping angels (aliens)

Given that there are now entire BOOKS dedicated to turning people into Christians via Doctor Who, they can hardly complain - the best way of luring an innocent child into a Church these days probably involves telling it there's a Weeping Angel inside...

and also various stories which *appeared* to have the Doctor treating religion as slightly…beneath him?

Any god-botherer on THIS planet is well used to dismissing dozens of other gods, goddesses, spirits etc as false (as opposed to the One True One they were indoctrinated with as a child) so I doubt they'll be TOO upset at seeing Xoanon, Ty, etc dismissed by the Doctor.

And they can hardly complain about the Doc being a non-Christian. Jesus referred to all non-Jews as 'dogs', so he obviously wasn't going for the alien vote...Anyway, the Doctor did (rather excessively) turn up at the birth of Christ AND his crucifixion, so it's not like he wasn't taking an INTEREST...

Plus the only time someone actually ASKED the Doc about his beliefs he gave some wishy-washy agnostic nonsense about not knowing everything. It's AMAZING Dawkins did us the honour of appearing on our programme after THAT particular cop-out.

Amusingly enough, RTG was actually trying to show religion in a positive light (just for a challenge) when he wrote Gridlock. Religion bound a community together, gave them hope - and a nun ended up running the planet (and even I was delighted).

Such a pity that the accidental subtext was 'Believe in THAT nonsense and you get stuck in a traffic jam for 25 years'...

Speaking personally, it wasn't killer gargoyles and the Reverend Magister that allowed me to cast off my god-bothering shackles. It was the blatantly obvious fact that Earth HAD the only Saviour it (or I) needed. And his name is the Doctor.

OK, so Emily has been indoctrinated into worshipping an alien!

I was meaning that the Doctor appeared to treat ALL religion as being something that wasn't needed by the average entity. I find it fascinating that this very influential programme seems to try to dispel the idea of religion, that the hero is...well, I guess 'self-worshipping' in some respects. But then again, that could be because he is a firm believer in the fact that if he wants to change something, he will change it, no matter the odds. That fits in with the religious view point that 'god only helps those who help themselves' (which I have never quite understood - at one point do you ask god for help if you need to be helping yourself?) but also ties in with "I don't need god because I change things myself". Ah, I had forgotten the first ever story of course, in which he appears to be controversial in encouraging war and violence, even though that was the answer int he end and I believe that we were all cheering the Thals on.

I just wondered if being so heavily science orientated, he had come to the conclusion that there was no god (or gods or goddesses) and whether that was the viewpoint the writers wished to put across. And yet by saying that the Doctor was there at his crucifixion (I am not disputing the birth of Christ, I would concede that there was a person called that at that time), they are saying that they believe what the Bible wrote. Apparently, Jesus should not have died by crucifixion, it was a punishment reserved for the very worst of criminals.

I guess I can conclude that the writers in this day and age would be prepared to give way to the viewpoint of believers AND non-believers, but I would like to do more investigation with regards to the writers of the past. And I believe that Dawkins himself holds the view that he does not know everything. His argument is that there is overwhelming evidence to dispute most of the claims of the Bible, and not enough to hold up the idea of god, so in which case, why continue to worship an unproven idea?

OK, so Emily has been indoctrinated into worshipping an alien!

•••• right I have *blissful sigh*. I think it was the Scarf that did it, though as I was three years old at the time, the details of my Blinding Light On The Road To Damascus are somewhat...hazy.

I was meaning that the Doctor appeared to treat ALL religion as being something that wasn't needed by the average entity.

Well, how else could he treat religion? He's actually quite polite about it, not telling, say, Novice Hame or that blind vicar in Remembrance to grow up and get a life.

I find it fascinating that this very influential programme seems to try to dispel the idea of religion

I honestly don't think Who was TRYING to do anything of the sort. Certainly not in the old series, where Barry Letts' Buddhism shone through and Hulke couldn't so much as dash off a Target novelisation without shoe-horning Jesus Christ into it.

the hero is...well, I guess 'self-worshipping' in some respects.

SOME respects? The guy is BLATANT about it, these days!

then again, that could be because he is a firm believer in the fact that if he wants to change something, he will change it, no matter the odds.

In the old series the Doc was a firm believer in not meddling with the Web of Time (even after he got over that 'You can't change history! Not one line!' stuff). So he did accept limitations on his actions, though possibly - as Harriet Jones discovered to her cost - not any more.

That fits in with the religious view point that 'god only helps those who help themselves' (which I have never quite understood - at one point do you ask god for help if you need to be helping yourself?) but also ties in with "I don't need god because I change things myself".

Confusing, isn't it? On the one hand, Who (especially New Who) is TOTALLY about the Doctor-God swanning in and saving all these pathetic mortals. On the other hand, New Who is TOTALLY about empowering utterly banal, chav losers to fulfil their wonderful, universe-saving potential.

Ah, I had forgotten the first ever story of course, in which he appears to be controversial in encouraging war and violence, even though that was the answer in the end and I believe that we were all cheering the Thals on.

That was the second story. And personally I was cheering the Daleks on. And it's not as if most religions are anti-war most of the time, quite the opposite.

I just wondered if being so heavily science orientated

Frankly, Who science is so dodgy that chucking in a few (genuine) gods here and there wouldn't make it much worse.

he had come to the conclusion that there was no god (or gods or goddesses) and whether that was the viewpoint the writers wished to put across.

The Doc accepts the existence of the Guardians, though. And he spent most of the NAs being the avatar of the goddess Time, so it's not as if it's exactly an atheist Whoniverse, more's the pity.

And yet by saying that the Doctor was there at his crucifixion (I am not disputing the birth of Christ, I would concede that there was a person called that at that time), they are saying that they believe what the Bible wrote.

Actually I was fine with the Crucifixion thing. The Doc said something along the lines of 'I was there for the original. Just between you and me, what really happened was -' In other words, RTG made it humorously clear that the official version was...inaccurate to say the least.

I'm still, however, struggling to come to terms with the Doc's Voyage of the Damned comment that 'I got the last room'. THAT implies that the Biblical Nativity thing was spot-on despite it being way more historically inaccurate than any Crucifixion (Hello! NO go-back-where-you-came-from census by Augustus!).

And I believe that Dawkins himself holds the view that he does not know everything.

Oh, absolutely. Dawkins is a total moderate. Compared to me, anyway.

I've found a wonderful dissertation; don't know if you've seen it. I won't put the link on here in case I'm not allowed to, but a chappie called Allyn Gibson has written it. If his name doesn't bring it up, if you Google 'Dr Who and Religion', it's on the second page of stuff that comes up, via someone else talking about it.

Many writers appeared to have been closet atheists - in fact, I'm wondering if sci fi sort of freed up atheists, in the sense that up to this point, the hero has to have been Christian, or at least heavily influenced by Christian ideas. However, Sci fi has been held up as a kind of antithesis of religion (Allyn does point out that the exception is "B5", but I'm talking about programmes of my childhood. To that end, even New Who shouldn't enter into the discussion, but I am curious to know if there is a constant movement towards trying to supplant religion, either consciously or unconsciously. RTG being an atheist is kind of a big pointer though'), so have the writers been pushing the boundaries, going, "Whoopee! We can say what we want and just put it down to aliens!"?

Re birth of Christ : I mean that there was probably a person called Christ about that time, not that there was a whopping great star and an exodus on a donkey etc. etc.

Look, I cheered on the later Daleks. Wasn't so impressed with "I can't go up stairs" ones. Although floating pepper pots weren't much better either. I'm never happy. How about teleportation? Much scarier.

Does the Doctor worship the Guardians as gods though? Respects them (to a point) in the knowledge that they are more powerful than him, but that's just being sensible. I seem to recall he was still less than worshipful when the White Guardian called on him.

Allyn does conclude that Dr Who is very fixated on Buddhism, but "In Defence of Atheism" has that down as one of the less obtrusive religions. I thought most religions were anti-war; they're just very anti everyone else who isn't them, which leads to misinterpretation and therefore war.

I'm wondering if sci fi sort of freed up atheists, in the sense that up to this point, the hero has to have been Christian, or at least heavily influenced by Christian ideas.

The Doctor IS heavily influenced by Christian ideas! He's always suffering and sacrificing himself. Saving humanity. Popping back from the dead. Surrounded by adoring disciples. Calling himself a God. Trying to spread goodness whilst committing genocide left, right, and centre. Showing up the smallness of our existences by walking in eternity.

The Doc's just BETTER at this sort of thing than Jesus Christ. And runs down more corridors.

Re birth of Christ : I mean that there was probably a person called Christ about that time, not that there was a whopping great star and an exodus on a donkey etc. etc.

Yeah, but didn't THAT VotD comment suddenly have you questioning ALL your beliefs on this subject?

Look, I cheered on the later Daleks. Wasn't so impressed with "I can't go up stairs" ones.

I'm not a natural bubbling-lump-of-hate-lover myself, you know. I just couldn't help wanting them to exterminate ALL those sexist, useless Thals.

Does the Doctor worship the Guardians as gods though? Respects them (to a point) in the knowledge that they are more powerful than him, but that's just being sensible.

True, but why would any sane God (if that's not an oxymoron) WANT to be worshipped, anyway? Alright, so the ones on THIS planet tend to want their followers face-down blubbing about being insignificant worms but IF they existed the way the Guardians do, they'd probably prefer a decent conversation...

Hmm. We really ought to see the Doctor being WORSHIPPED more often. I'd be interested to see his reaction. He didn't exactly seem displeased by having his face carved into a mountain (Face of Evil) OR by Malcolm's hysterical adoration (Planet of the Dead)...

I thought most religions were anti-war; they're just very anti everyone else who isn't them, which leads to misinterpretation and therefore war.

I don't know if there's much misinterpretation in the religious rush to war and genocide. (Buddhists aside: I vaguely recall Tibet - having conquered half of China - going Buddhist and as a result just turning round and going home again. In retrospect a VERY bad move.) Each religious person HAS to believe that their pile of gibberish is the One True Way and that all the other piles of (often suspiciously similar) gibberish will result in HELLFIRE AND DAMNATION! It's therefore their DUTY to burn all us infidels to death in the hope we'll repent of our evil ways as we feel this foretaste of hell. Plus it'll scare any other doubters into toeing the party line. (Obviously a few religions - I'm thinking Church of England - have actually adapted to the modern era and concepts like human rights and decided that God's Really Nice and wouldn't condemn 99.9% of the population to eternal torture, though that begs the question of why anyone would bother attending their services if we're whizzing off to eternal bliss either way.)

If the Doctor isn't willing to accept Satan (out loud anyway), he sure isn't going to embrace a god. The Whoniverse is teeming with ultrapowerful morons any lesser being could interpret as gods, but none of them seem to be all that majestic and worshipping them would be laughable.

And just because he happened upon the first Christmas and Easter doesn't mean much of anything. I've no doubt they were actual historical events, if not recorded all that faithfully.

I'm surprised RTD dared to upset the Christian lobby with that line about the crucifixion but then again, this isn't 1979 when Life of Brian was banned from cinemas across the land

If the Doctor isn't willing to accept Satan (out loud anyway), he sure isn't going to embrace a god.

Not necessarily. Plenty of people seem to accept god(s) without acknowledging a devil. Though don't ask how they justify humanity being so screwed up.

The Whoniverse is teeming with ultrapowerful morons any lesser being could interpret as gods, but none of them seem to be all that majestic and worshipping them would be laughable.

You've seriously never felt the temptation to hurl yourself at the Doctor's feet in worshipful adoration?

And just because he happened upon the first Christmas and Easter doesn't mean much of anything.

It means there was SOMETHING in an overcrowded Bethlehem for the Doc to gawp at. That's HIGHLY unhistorical.

I'm surprised RTD dared to upset the Christian lobby with that line about the crucifixion but then again, this isn't 1979 when Life of Brian was banned from cinemas across the land

Yay - the human race has certainly evolved since the 70s. The Christian lobby isn't gonna mess with us at the moment. Remember the Beatles saying 'We're more famous than Jesus'? Well, Who may not be more famous but it's a lot more POPULAR at the moment, tee hee. (Excuse the unseemly gloating. I EARNED it with those Sixteen Long And Barren Years.)

It means there was SOMETHING in an overcrowded Bethlehem for the Doc to gawp at. That's HIGHLY unhistorical.

Hmm, well, you may have a point there. Now I can't help but imagine him showing up for the various catastrophic events in the Bible, thereby precipitating the worst possible outcomes. Can't you see Jesus in the Gardens of Gethsemane (or wherever it was) thinking, "Oh ••••, there's that Doctor again. I'm so screwed." He was probably staying in Job's basement or trailing along with the Pharaoh to the Red Sea.

Ah, Emily - I doubted there was a god back when I was nine. I have read "the God Delusion" and now am certain - I am a Dawkinite - I'm simply saying that I would not go as far as to say "There defintiely was no one called Jesus who went around preaching and who upset the authorities" - heck, even Douglas Adams said something about "2000 years after a man was nailed to a tree for saying how good it would be if everyone could be nice to each other for a while".

They justify everyone being screwed up by saying that god is testing us.

I have also disccovered that someone has written a book dealing with religion and mythology etc. in "Dr Who", called the "Thinking person guide to Who" or something like that. I am going to buy, sounds fascinating. It's not totally like my idea, but...well, it would certainly agree with a chapter!

Hey, maybe it was the Doctor who parted the Red Sea! Sounds like the sort of thing he would do....

Misinterpretation as in "We should kill anyone who isn't a Christian/Mulsim/Jew etc.". The problem is, the Bible/Koran was written by a bunch of blokes, so I think the religious brigade should concede that there must be a great deal of...room for interpretation. However, god hasn't really spoken to someone and said, "By the way, I'd just like to point out some glaring inconsistancies which appear to be causing some friction and this is what really happened". Like god trying to wipe certain people out and then saying "Love your neighbour". You'd think people would sort out what they're fighting about, and then go to war. Can't agree? Shake hands and go back your respective corners. However, this is a little dream I have....

Right, now I need a "Sapphire and Steel" board so I can argue the presence of religion in that. Very hard to find.

Jessica:
I would say that in Doctor Who, we have god-like beings but no actual god

I was raised Catholic and my parents still seem to think that i will marry in a church in full white dress etc. etc.

Now I can't help but imagine him showing up for the various catastrophic events in the Bible, thereby precipitating the worst possible outcomes.

Fantastic! What's the betting it was HIM, not some snake, that got Adam and Eve to eat that apple? Who'd want humanity to have the knowledge of good and evil more than the Doc? Who else would have the guts to tell 'em God was lying through his teeth about them dropping dead if they ate the apple?

I'm simply saying that I would not go as far as to say "There defintiely was no one called Jesus who went around preaching and who upset the authorities"

Heavens, I didn't mean to imply I saw you as any sort of godbotherer!

They justify everyone being screwed up by saying that god is testing us.

Seriously? Have they tried saying that to, say, parents whose baby has just died?

I have also disccovered that someone has written a book dealing with religion and mythology etc. in "Dr Who", called the "Thinking person guide to Who" or something like that. I am going to buy, sounds fascinating. It's not totally like my idea, but...well, it would certainly agree with a chapter!

I have, of course, reviewed this amusing book in the Who In Print: Reference Works section.

I was raised Catholic and my parents still seem to think that i will marry in a church in full white dress etc. etc.

Have you tried pointing out the COST of a white wedding? They'll suddenly start BEGGING you to live in sin, if not actively worship Satan...

I have, of course, reviewed this amusing book in the Who In Print: Reference Works section.

OK, so I haven't. (I honestly didn't realise that there were TWO religious books jumping on the Who bandwagon. We rule the ******* UNIVERSE.)

Well, the Doctor is always claiming to have met and interacted with many historical figures. So it's possible that he met Jesus at some point. Jesus, whether ordinary man, Son of God, alien, or whatever, is a historical figure.

'Doctor Who' is a work of fiction with some good stories, a mass of self-contradictions, some shamelessly ripped-off ideas, a large amount of frankly unbelievable and illogical tripe that doesn't stand up to any form of scrutiny and has some lunatic followers that make any sane person shake their head at the stupidity of it all.

I can't see how anyone thinks it is related to religion.

a large amount of frankly unbelievable and illogical tripe that doesn't stand up to any form of scrutiny

I think this goes back to one of the previous points about the relationship between scifi and atheism. In my admittedly limited experience, people who read scifi books are led to more critical thinking than is typical. Trying to match technobabble with real science makes you look for loopholes and inconsistencies. And once you apply that form of thought to religion, it just doesn't stand up.

Scifi also allows you to explore alternative societies where various ideas can be taken to extremes, such as the twisting of religious-like faith bestowed upon the state in "1984" (truly one of the most horrible books I've ever read). Or how unthinkingly following a rigid set of rules can lead to a terrible waste of human potential, as in "Logan's Run."

Of course, there are exceptions, like our friend Andrew, but I think if we took a survey, the vast majority of scifi fans would be, at best, very weakly religious and many are openly hostile.

Why thank you, Mandy. (And of course, let's not forget the Chief! ;-) )

Um... I come here to frivol rather than seriously debate, so I haven't participated in the debates, but--I'd like to say that I find my faith intellectually as well as emotionally satisfying.

I find my faith intellectually as well as emotionally satisfying.

Of course you do. The same way I find Dalek history, UNIT dating, and the three Atlantises intellectually satisfying. (Or maybe the word I'm looking for is 'stimulating'...)

"but I think if we took a survey, the vast majority of scifi fans would be, at best, very weakly religious and many are openly hostile"


Well, I'm a big science fiction fan, yet I'm equally open to the idea that there are things out there bigger than myself. Sometimes science fiction can incorporate some religious ideas. The new Battlestar Galactica comes to mind here. That series strongly hinted that there was some master intelligence at work.

I've always thought that the concept of telepathy, shared alien minds, linked beings, etc. made it possible for finite humans to get a SLIGHTLY better conception of the triune 3-people-but-one-person nature of God (from a Christian point of view), for example. I do have a number of friends who are strong Christians but also Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, Dr. Who, etc. fanatics- between that and my internet experiences, I think it's safe to say that the percentage of sci-fi fans among the religious population is equal to that of the secular one- but probably, as Mandy pointed out, that the percentage of the sci-fi population that is religious is much lower than the percentage that is secular.

Well, I'm a big science fiction fan, yet I'm equally open to the idea that there are things out there bigger than myself.

The very DEFINITION of a sci-fi fan is being open to things out there bigger than myself. Just not crazy magic 'god' things.

Sometimes science fiction can incorporate some religious ideas. The new Battlestar Galactica comes to mind here. That series strongly hinted that there was some master intelligence at work.

Wow. That must be some SERIOUSLY nasty master intelligence. To think I thought the Jews had it bad with THEIR god...

I've always thought that the concept of telepathy, shared alien minds, linked beings, etc. made it possible for finite humans to get a SLIGHTLY better conception of the triune 3-people-but-one-person nature of God

NOTHING gives one a handle on this three-in-one daftness. I mean, I've TRIED thinking 'Ooh, it's just like regeneration' but then I realise that - intellectually AND emotionally - I don't really 'get' regeneration either. Colin Baker is the same person as Christopher Eccleston? Not even over my dead body. And certainly not over his.

"The very DEFINITION of a sci-fi fan is being open to things out there bigger than myself. Just not crazy magic 'god' things." - Emily

Oh, come on, now. You've seen Absorbaloffs and Adipose and Magical Isolus Attack Scribbles, and you can still call the concept of a benevolent, all-powerful God 'crazy?' ;-)

In a word - yes.

Though if you want to call the Adipose a bit crazy AS WELL, I won't take mortal offence. (I mean, you kind of get used to them in Partners in Crime. Then you see clips of 'em in Sontaran Stratagem and Turn Left and you wonder what the HELL RTG was THINKING.)

I think the best answer can be summed up in the Who novel, Empire Of Death. At one point, Nyssa asks the Doctor about life after death and such. He answers her with the only answer he can give: I don't know.

The Doctor doesn't know, we don't know, no one does. We all have our own theories and ideas, but as yet no one has been able to give a detailed report. This mystery has confounded humanity for thousands of years, and I don't see it being solved anytime soon.

Still, if Who wants to give us their ideas, then they should go for it. The Doctor has already taken on Satan and won, after all

I think the best answer can be summed up in the Who novel, Empire Of Death. At one point, Nyssa asks the Doctor about life after death and such. He answers her with the only answer he can give: I don't know.

Pah! What does that godawful Empire of Death know about anything? (Even BEFORE Tooth and Claw thoroughly decanonised it.) Our Doctor would never say 'I don't know' in that 'So it's fifty-fifty either way' manner. He'd say 'I don't know but I'll find out sooner or later*, and in the meantime don't give me any superstitious nonsense about harps n'haloes or 72 virgins, or I'll feed you to Xoanon. Sunshine.'

we don't know, no one does.

Of course we don't KNOW. I don't KNOW that I'm not followed everywhere by a giant invisible intangible kangaroo called Doris. You don't KNOW that I'm not an alien from outer space. We don't KNOW that the Muslims didn't get it right and that therefore we'll be burning in hell for all eternity for not sticking black sacks over our heads every time we go outside. We don't KNOW that our so-called lives aren't some sort of drug-induced hallucination. (That would certainly explain the New Series. I mean, NOTHING is that good, the human race NEVER gets things THAT right. I find the Gaping Chasm of Despair Year rather reassuring on this front, but then it COULD just have happened cos my subconscious hates me...)

Um, anyway, what I'm saying is, let's just stick to believing stuff with a bit of EVIDENCE behind it, eh? (Not TOO rigidly, mind. You don't want to go giving up hope that the magical blue box will dance through space and time to YOUR doorstep, just cos there's some of this 'evidence' stuff to suggest it might be some sort of TV programme.)

Still, if Who wants to give us their ideas, then they should go for it. The Doctor has already taken on Satan and won, after all

Actually ROSE took on Satan and won. Yay! Worship the Goddess Rose!

*He did. In Camera Obscura. The bad news for me is, there's definitely an afterlife. The bad news for god-botherers is, She's a REALLY nasty piece of work.

Emily wrote:

"Pah! What does that godawful Empire of Death know about anything? (Even BEFORE Tooth and Claw thoroughly decanonised it.) Our Doctor would never say 'I don't know' in that 'So it's fifty-fifty either way' manner. He'd say 'I don't know but I'll find out sooner or later*, and in the meantime don't give me any superstitious nonsense about harps n'haloes or 72 virgins, or I'll feed you to Xoanon. Sunshine"

Actually, we don't know what the Doctor would say. We didn't create him, we just watch and read about him.

Futhermore, I don't believe the Afterlife, if such a place exists, is all harps and stuff like that. We don't know what it's like, and so I think it could be anything. Other shows like Ghost Whisperer and Charmed have presented their own ideas. If Who decided to give their own version of the Afterlife, that's fine by me.

Actually, we don't know what the Doctor would say. We didn't create him, we just watch and read about him.

Of course we do. And a LIFETIME of dedication to the Doctor's every word can give us SOME idea of the sort of thing he says. (I mean, there's definitely gonna be a 'I'm sorry, so sorry' and 'Allons-y!' in there somewhere.)

Other shows like Ghost Whisperer and Charmed have presented their own ideas. If Who decided to give their own version of the Afterlife, that's fine by me.

It wouldn't be so fine with you if you'd read Ghosts of N-Space or Deadly Reunion...

"Um, anyway, what I'm saying is, let's just stick to believing stuff with a bit of EVIDENCE behind it, eh?" - Emily

What a godawful life that would be! I guess we're not believing in the physical laws of the universe,t hen, since we still don't know how gravity, strong electromagnetism, weak electromagnetism, etc. work, then? And scientists should just give up work and go sit around moping because it's foolish to believe in anything we don't have evidence for yet? Ugh, what a world that would be- no, faith is the stuff that makes life go on, moves society, motivates and gives hope; check into our understanding of the universe; history; or anything you like, and you'll find that there's not nearly so much that we have 'evidence' for as you might think- there are still plenty of things we 'know' (like that the disparate physical laws of the universe work in concert since we, y'know, still exist) but don't have 'evidence' for- we take a lot more on faith than any of us realize from day to day. Believing in what you don't know- or doing your darndest to discover it- is why we're not still living in caves with no concept of fire... because 'evidence,' or 'what we know' is no measure of reality or mark of what really is and isn't- it's just a benchmark of 'what we've figured out so far.' Just because people 100 years ago didn't have any evidence of Pluto doesn't mean that the planetoid doesn't exist; it's reality was unaffected by our 'evidence' - the only difference is, we got smart enough to figure it out. Evidence is just a reflection on our limited mental faculties and observational abilities- a pretty paltry thing, IMHO, to base beliefs on.

Emily wrote:

"It wouldn't be so fine with you if you'd read Ghosts of N-Space or Deadly Reunion"

Ah, but since they are no longer canon, it really doesn't matter. If the New Series presented a view of the Afterlife, I would be interesting to see it. Maybe the Doctor can run into old friends there, or people he couldn't save.

Andrew makes some good points. There are still a lot of things we don't have evidence for. Life on other worlds, for example. There is not one shred of evidence to suggest any such life exists, but a lot of people believe it.

The same could be said of an Afterlife. Just because we don't have evidence doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Ghosts have been reported since time immortal, and one could say that they could point to some kind of post-mortal existence.

Sometimes you just have to go on faith. Maybe someday we'll get solid evidence of an Afterlife, or aliens, or as such, but until then, we can only guess.

I wouldn't say there's no evidence for the physical laws of the universe. These laws were developed from empirical observations. If I drop an apple, it will fall to the ground every single time, without exception. Pretty strong evidence for the law of gravity.

If I ask god for a pony and don't get one, that isn't evidence one way or the other. And even if I did get a pony, if I asked god for another one, could I be sure of getting it?

The presence of life on other planets is a guess at best. Personally I think there can't help but be life elsewhere, but it can't possibly be called scientific fact.

Um, anyway, what I'm saying is, let's just stick to believing stuff with a bit of EVIDENCE behind it, eh?" - Emily

What a godawful life that would be! I guess we're not believing in the physical laws of the universe,t hen, since we still don't know how gravity, strong electromagnetism, weak electromagnetism, etc. work, then?

Er...I wasn't asking for a set of physical laws set in stone and signed by Rassilon himself, I was asking for a bit of evidence. Of which there is a wealth for the aforemtioned physical laws, and none whatsoever for your belief that the universe was created in six days, and shellfish are an abomination.

you'll find that there's not nearly so much that we have 'evidence' for as you might think

Well, YEAH. Scientists are constantly searching for answers, and amending their theories to fit the evidence. Unlike those with 'faith' who were pretty well summed up by Tom Baker in Face of Evil. ('The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: they don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be uncomfortable when you're one fo the facts that needs altering.')

Believing in what you don't know- or doing your darndest to discover it- is why we're not still living in caves with no concept of fire...

Er, no - THAT was the result of empiricism, i.e. seeing Hartnell light his pipe, and acting accordingly...

If the New Series presented a view of the Afterlife

It has. In Torchwood. And it utterly screwed it up, as is pretty inevitable when messing around with afterlives. Practically the first thing that HAPPENS in Torchwood is we get told there's no afterlife (dead bloke in Everything Changes). THEN we get told that actually, by 'nothing' they meant 'black nothingness that you're actually still conscious for, oh, and by the way, there are monsters in it' (They Keep Killing Suzie).

That means AN ETERNITY of hideous black nothingness for the DOCTOR. For DONNA. For ROSE. For ME.

RTG is a *******.

I would be interesting to see it. Maybe the Doctor can run into old friends there, or people he couldn't save.

Oh, puh-lease. Wasn't it cringe-making enough when River Song met her colleagues in a scientifically-justified afterlife?

There are still a lot of things we don't have evidence for. Life on other worlds, for example. There is not one shred of evidence to suggest any such life exists, but a lot of people believe it.

Well, yeah, but that's a perfectly sensible belief. Unlike with gods, no reasonable people say that they KNOW there are aliens out there (obviously I exclude ALL aliens who've ever appeared on Who) but, given that there are 200 billion stars in this galaxy alone, and 100 billion galaxies out there (er...something like that, anyway), and given that our own world is teeming with rather a lot of species, concluding that on the balance of probabilities We Are Not Alone is hardly like concluding that Jesus Wants You For A Sunbeam.

The same could be said of an Afterlife. Just because we don't have evidence doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Well, yeah, but are you also refusing to rule out fairies at the bottom of your garden on that basis?

Ghosts have been reported since time immortal, and one could say that they could point to some kind of post-mortal existence.

Now THAT is a sensible argument. Yeah, ghosts are the one niggling little hole in the blatantly obvious fact there's no bloody afterlife.

(Well, there ARE also all those near-death experiences of heaven that SERIOUSLY freaked me out but a thorough scientific study is currently debunking them, thank the gods.)

Anyway, I'd love to dismiss ghosts as fakes and figments of the imagination, but then I'd be guilty of doing the 'stupid and powerful' thing. Still, I don't actually have an enormous problem at the concept that some people's brains are so extraordinary/emotions are so strong that they leave a residue after death. It's just the concept of afterlives as portrayed by every religion ever that I object to (yes, even the few that DON'T threaten me with eternal roasting). And if anything, ghosts blow a far bigger hole in religious beliefs than in mine.

I wouldn't say there's no evidence for the physical laws of the universe. These laws were developed from empirical observations. If I drop an apple, it will fall to the ground every single time, without exception. Pretty strong evidence for the law of gravity.

Hear, hear. Though of course the whole discovery-of-gravity thing wasn't so much due to empirical observations as to the Doc chucking apples at Isaac...

So what you're saying, Emily, is that if ghosts do exist, and they are tantalizing evidence that they do, they just stay here on Earth after their mortal bodies die. Well, that is a valid theory. After all, look at Anne Boleyn, who has been hanging around the Tower Of London for nearly 500 years now. Also, the two young princes that were murdered there in 1483, have been seen (these are the one that were supposedly murdered on the orders of their uncle, Richard III, but that open to dispute, if you put Richard on trial in a modern court of law and charged him with that crime, the case would be thrown out of court for lack of evidence, but I digress).

As for the Afterlife in most religions, remember, they don't know any more than we do. They're guessing. I guess they only way we'll ever know is when we ourselves die. We'll find out then, that's for sure

Also, the two young princes that were murdered there in 1483, have been seen (these are the one that were supposedly murdered on the orders of their uncle, Richard III, but that open to dispute, if you put Richard on trial in a modern court of law and charged him with that crime, the case would be thrown out of court for lack of evidence, but I digress).

Nonsense, it's perfectly on-topic! Richard's innocence cannot be reiterated too often! And it was firmly established in the audio The Kingmaker (whose 'Richard III is Shakespeare' claim was sadly undermined by The Shakespeare Code, but never mind that).

I guess they only way we'll ever know is when we ourselves die. We'll find out then, that's for sure

That's small comfort. I won't exist to say 'I told you so!' Whereas if by some hideous freak of chance the Muslims got it right, they'll be able to say 'I told you so!' to me for rather a long time - part of the attraction of the Muslim heaven being the ability to watch the (mostly female) damned writhing in hell. (Well, I suppose you've gotta do SOMETHING with eternity once you've finished with your 72 virgins.)

"I wouldn't say there's no evidence for the physical laws of the universe. These laws were developed from empirical observations. If I drop an apple, it will fall to the ground every single time, without exception. Pretty strong evidence for the law of gravity." - Mandy

Precisely. You can see it's effect, even if you don't have any 'proof' of it's existence. The same can be said for God (whether a person chooses to deny it or not) - just look at the design of the eye, the incredibly perfect balance of the Earth (5 more degrees axial tilt and life is impossible, a few dozen- or was it hundred?- miles variance in distance towards the sun, and life is impossible, etc.- we're a basketball balanced on the thin edge of a piece of paper! :-) ) and you can see the effect of God on this world. Just like dropping the apple. Doesn't change the fact that at one time- before Newton for Gravity, now (and likely so long as we remain human) for God- that 'proof' didn't exist, just observation of effect. That doesn't mean that either didn't exist just because our knowledge didn't extend to cover them.


"If I ask god for a pony and don't get one, that isn't evidence one way or the other. And even if I did get a pony, if I asked god for another one, could I be sure of getting it?" - Mandy
Well, considering that isn't even a realistic test of another human's existence, I'd say no. But again... empirical evidence may be a measure of science, and may well be a gold standard for 'what we know' - but it's hardly a limitation of what exists or is true. It's just a measure of what we currently have been able to figure out. :-)


"The presence of life on other planets is a guess at best. Personally I think there can't help but be life elsewhere, but it can't possibly be called scientific fact." - Mandy
See? Faith! :-)


Emily- I have nothing against shellfish. :-)


"Unlike those with 'faith' who were pretty well summed up by Tom Baker in Face of Evil. ('The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: they don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be uncomfortable when you're one of the facts that needs altering.')" - Emily

Which of course never occurs with Evolutionary theory, theories on the origins of Man, etc. There's certainly no party line that gets toed regardless of the facts THERE! ;-P Besides, I have yet to see any 'facts' that would require a worldview reshaping in regards to my faith- especially as this whole discussion is rather dwelling on the fact that God is outside the realm of empirical evidence at present. :-) (It's a good quote, though!)


"It has. In Torchwood. And it utterly screwed it up, as is pretty inevitable when messing around with afterlives. Practically the first thing that HAPPENS in Torchwood is we get told there's no afterlife (dead bloke in Everything Changes). THEN we get told that actually, by 'nothing' they meant 'black nothingness that you're actually still conscious for, oh, and by the way, there are monsters in it' (They Keep Killing Suzie).

That means AN ETERNITY of hideous black nothingness for the DOCTOR. For DONNA. For ROSE. For ME." - Emily
Well, that sounds like a pretty decent description of Hell to me. Which is why avoiding it is a GOOD thing! :-) Which, as I'm sure you know I'll mention by now, is a freely offered gift...


"or people he couldn't save."
Well, it would have to be an afterlife, then- that would take an eternity! ;-) (Yeah, I know... cheap shot! :-) )


"Well, yeah, but that's a perfectly sensible belief." - Emily
There is no evidence for it. Current empirical science would tend to lean against it (what with the seeming 1 million 1-in-a-million conditions that the Earth has to balance in order for life to exist, and the odds against that happening even twice... we're a basketball balanced on the edge of a piece of paper, here!) So what makes this a more legitimate belief than God? At least there is historical evidence to corroborate Biblical events... your average book people claim was handed down to them by aliens is unlikely to receive quite the same historical back-up! ;-) It seems to me that if you can believe in life on other worlds, and even call it a perfectly reasonable thing to assume based on the vastness of space, it is only right that, believe it yourself or not, you don't criticize someone else who believes in a God that they don't have evidence for either, if only based on the orderliness of nature- which, though hardly a be-all reason for believing in God- seems an equally valid reason as the vastness of space and the imagination of endless possibilities for believing in something you can't prove.

"Still, I don't actually have an enormous problem at the concept that some people's brains are so extraordinary/emotions are so strong that they leave a residue after death. It's just the concept of afterlives as portrayed by every religion ever that I object to (yes, even the few that DON'T threaten me with eternal roasting). And if anything, ghosts blow a far bigger hole in religious beliefs than in mine." - Emily
Well, the idea of a life after death is at least a starting-point common ground... :-) (And for my part, there's nothing in my beliefs that are threatened by ghosts- be they demons out for deception or actual dead roaming (though I'd be less likely to simply believe in the latter, it's not like it's biblically without precedent...))

"That's small comfort. I won't exist to say 'I told you so!' Whereas if by some hideous freak of chance the Muslims got it right, they'll be able to say 'I told you so!' to me for rather a long time - part of the attraction of the Muslim heaven being the ability to watch the (mostly female) damned writhing in hell. (Well, I suppose you've gotta do SOMETHING with eternity once you've finished with your 72 virgins.)" - Emily
Not that that isn't equally as good as Torchwood in describing Hell... *shudder*

In any event, on the subject of not being around for I-told-you-sos if you are correct, I would point you in the direction of Pascal's Wager again... :-) (Not that it's anything to base a life decision on... but it is good food for thought...)

just look at the design of the eye, the incredibly perfect balance of the Earth ...

The eye is badly designed, what with its blind spot, as is the human throat, knee, and much fo the rest of our anatomy. The earth's axial tilt isn't constant, and neither is its distance from the sun; variations there are one cause of ice ages.

In those scant few cases where your supposed facts have some faint connection with the truth, your interpretations of those truths are wildly wrong. The Bible, meanwhile, is no more credible as an historical source than Homer, not with its textual history.

That said, Doctor demonstrates that even if we did postulate an undesigned designer, leaping to assume that designer was worthy of worship would be a logical fallacy. In the Whoverse, there would be clear evidence of design in the human genome, traces left by the tinkering of the Fendahl, the Daemons, and others. Should Whoverse humans really revere and venerate Daemons, just because they helped create the species?

I suppose you've gotta do SOMETHING with eternity once you've finished with your 72 virgins.

Or, if one theory is correct, white grapes. The textual history of the Koran leaves plenty of room for errors to have crept in during the first century or so, and parts of it may not actually be in Arabic at all.

A never ending supply of grapes is nice enough, for both males and females, but would soon got boring. In fact, there isn't any heaven in any religion that sounds like a good place to spend a billion years, let alone eternity.

"If I drop an apple, it will fall to the ground every single time, without exception. Pretty strong evidence for the law of gravity." - Mandy

Precisely. You can see it's effect, even if you don't have any 'proof' of it's existence. The same can be said for God (whether a person chooses to deny it or not) - just look at the design of the eye, the incredibly perfect balance of the Earth

Oh, of course. 'Apple always drops on ground! = gravity!' is totally equivalent to 'Our planet supports life! AND we have eyeballs! = OBVIOUSLY the universe was created in six days flat by a genocide-loving gay-hating Supreme Being!'

"The presence of life on other planets is a guess at best. Personally I think there can't help but be life elsewhere, but it can't possibly be called scientific fact." - Mandy

See? Faith! :-)

Er...no. Faith is, to quote Mark Twain, 'Believing what you know ain't so'. Mandy, whilst (unlike religious types) fully acknowledging that this is an unprovable personal preference, should be able to get the balance of probabilities on her side without too much hassle.

Emily- I have nothing against shellfish. :-)

Well, you SHOULD have something against 'em! Your infallible, omniscient God announced in no uncertain terms that they were disgusting and unclean and you were to keep away from them! Sure, he later regenerated into Jesus, who told you to go knock yourself out, lobster-wise, but...c'mon! Don't tell me the Almighty would have taken against those little shelly fellas for no reason whatsoever. It's just like the Doctor/Ice Warrior situation in Curse of Peladon - sure, he repented of his racist ways but let's face it...HE WAS RIGHT!

Which of course never occurs with Evolutionary theory, theories on the origins of Man, etc. There's certainly no party line that gets toed regardless of the facts THERE!

Well, no, as a matter of fact there isn't. If every scientist in the world is singing from the same hymn sheet (sorry - not the most appropriate analogy in the circumstances) that's because EVERY FACT points inescapably towards evolution. It would only take ONE fossil in the wrong place to blow the 'theory' of evolution out of the water. (Not that it's a theory any more, it's a historical fact, with at least as much evidence behind it as, say, the existence of Henry VIII, which is NEVER referred to as a 'theory'.)

Besides, I have yet to see any 'facts' that would require a worldview reshaping in regards to my faith

Well, of course you haven't. You've got your brain in a steely Orwellian double-think vice. (Wouldn't it just be easier to join one of those sects - there are plenty of Protestant ones around, don't worry - who don't actually take the 'six days/Adam and Eve' stuff QUITE so literally?)

especially as this whole discussion is rather dwelling on the fact that God is outside the realm of empirical evidence at present.

Welll, YEAH. There's no evidence for ANY God, let alone your one. Glad we finally agree on SOMETHING.

That means AN ETERNITY of hideous black nothingness for the DOCTOR. For DONNA. For ROSE. For ME." - Emily

Well, that sounds like a pretty decent description of Hell to me.

True (though I would expect you of all people to go in for literal 'hellfire') but, whilst hell seems a fair enough destination for Suzie - and even for Owen, who, much as I love him these days, is technically a rapist - what about our heroic Captain Jack? Or the five(ish)-year-old girl in Skypoint? Or that poor bloke at the beginning of Everything Changes, who may well have been a Christian judging by his absolute shock at the lack of afterlife? EVERYONE who reports on afterlife (lack thereof) got the 'black nothingness' option...

Which, as I'm sure you know I'll mention by now, is a freely offered gift...

Sunshine...how can I put this...saying 'Take my me-worshiping pressie or get tortured for all eternity' does not, technically speaking, come under the definition of 'free'. In fact, words like 'blackmail' are springing to mind...

"or people he couldn't save."

Well, it would have to be an afterlife, then- that would take an eternity! ;-) (Yeah, I know... cheap shot! :-) )

BAD Andrew! It may not be much consolation to, say, the hundreds of universes he deliberately destroyed in that godawful EDA alt-universes arc, but the Doc has saved a fair few in his time. In fact, considerably more than Jesus, because by YOUR criteria at least - what? - 99.9% of the human race are - or shortly will be - burning in hell.

"Well, yeah, but that's a perfectly sensible belief." - Emily

There is no evidence for it. Current empirical science would tend to lean against it (what with the seeming 1 million 1-in-a-million conditions that the Earth has to balance in order for life to exist, and the odds against that happening even twice... we're a basketball balanced on the edge of a piece of paper, here!)

Um...thing is, when there are 200 billion stars in this galaxy alone, and 100 billion galaxies out there...1-in-a-million conditions are EXTREMELY likely to reoccur, statistically speaking.

At least there is historical evidence to corroborate Biblical events

Sadly for you, most of the historical evidence actually CONTRADICTS Biblical events. Though not, admittedly, any more seriously than the Bible repeatedly contradicts itself.

... your average book people claim was handed down to them by aliens is unlikely to receive quite the same historical back-up! ;-)

Well, yes, but so what? Mandy (or, come to that, anyone else I've ever heard of, even the nutters who are always claiming to be abducted) was not suggesting she was in possession of an alien-written Holy Book, she just thought there were some aliens out there somewhere.

It seems to me that if you can believe in life on other worlds, and even call it a perfectly reasonable thing to assume based on the vastness of space, it is only right that, believe it yourself or not, you don't criticize someone else who believes in a God that they don't have evidence for either

Aliens have statistics. Gods - especially ones as specific as yours - don't.

if only based on the orderliness of nature

THE ORDERLINESS OF NATURE?????????????

Have you ever seen a lion rip an innocent gazelle into a thousand pieces??

Well, OK, neither have I. And the gazelle should have been delighted to feed the ickle moggie anyway. To pick a different example, there's a worm in Africa that lives in children's eyeballs. And slowly and agonisingly blinds said children. The point is not just that it LIVES there, but that it's evolved (in my terms) or DESIGNED BY GOD (in your terms) ONLY to live in children's eyeballs.

In any event, on the subject of not being around for I-told-you-sos if you are correct, I would point you in the direction of Pascal's Wager again... :-) (Not that it's anything to base a life decision on... but it is good food for thought...)

Well, MY thoughts are as follows:

a) Is Pascal telling me to PRETEND to believe in God? Cos, trust me, genuine belief is IMPOSSIBLE for me.

b) So will God be happy with me just faking belief? Does subservience matter to him so much more than, say, INTEGRITY?

c) Pascal assumes there's only one possible God for me to pretend to believe in. Unfortunately there are THOUSANDS of 'em. The odds of getting the right one are...not good. Not much point in dancing around shaking maracas at a thousand Protestant services if I then burn in hell for going out without a burka.

The eye is badly designed, what with its blind spot, as is the human throat, knee, and much fo the rest of our anatomy.

Hear, hear. What kind of sadist sticks the most sensitive nerves on the end of your FEET? And then there's sex. What kind of sick mind thought up THAT as the best means of reproduction?

In the Whoverse, there would be clear evidence of design in the human genome, traces left by the tinkering of the Fendahl, the Daemons, and others. Should Whoverse humans really revere and venerate Daemons, just because they helped create the species?

Hear, hear!

Though I must say, it's pretty mean of us not to have set up a few temples to the DOCTOR by now...

In fact, there isn't any heaven in any religion that sounds like a good place to spend a billion years, let alone eternity.

Exactly. What religious people always fail to grasp is that my fear of heaven is second only to my fear of hell.

(Wouldn't it just be easier to join one of those sects - there are plenty of Protestant ones around, don't worry - who don't actually take the 'six days/Adam and Eve' stuff QUITE so literally?) - Emily

Wouldn't it just be easier to join one of those fan groups where they agree that all 11 incarnations of the Doctor really are half-human?


Sorry if you perceive this poorly, but... the level of hatred in the above post has me firmly convinced of the futility of responding. If you really want to continue the discussing instead of using every mention of God to list personal grievances against His designs and opinions, you can easily contact me through www.nolinecinemas.com (I'd post my e-mail address directly, but I'm not sure of the forum policy regarding that, due to spammers, etc.)

Wouldn't it just be easier to join one of those fan groups where they agree that all 11 incarnations of the Doctor really are half-human?

Well...no. Cos on the one hand we have thirty years (THIRTY YEARS! We have been blessed. Though by RIGHTS it should be 31. Well, 46 actually. But I digress)...anyway, we have thirty years-worth of TV proof that the Doc's pure alien, and one telemovie that states he's...not. I'm not suggesting we toss the telemovie overboard without a second thought, but it would make more logical sense to try to explain it away.

Of course, not being one of the powerful-or-stupid, I WOULD join the half-human brigade if lots of further evidence came to light. If, say, all the missing Hartnells and Troughtons reappeared, with the first two Docs saying, at regular intervals, 'I'm half-human, hmmm, hmmmmm, my boy!' and 'Oh my giddy aunt! Jamie, when I say "Half-human"...I'm going to tell you all about my mother!'

Sorry if you perceive this poorly, but... the level of hatred in the above post has me firmly convinced of the futility of responding.

It never ceases to amaze me how upset god-botherers get when insufficient respect is shown their deity by unbelievers. I'm gonna be tortured for all eternity for my principles, how can you resent me getting my hellfires' worth out of them?

If you really want to continue the discussing instead of using every mention of God to list personal grievances against His designs and opinions, you can easily contact me through www.nolinecinemas.com

Why on Earth would I want to talk about God when I can talk about the Doctor?

No religious discussion I've ever seen results in anyone changing their mind. You believe or you don't and there's nothing anyone can do to "talk some sense into you."

I know belief in god gives many people a sense of purpose and inner happiness that is pretty enviable, but like Emily and Robert, I find I can't get past the necessary suspension of disbelief, especially when you examine any religion with a critical eye (poorly designed as it may be).

It's too bad the Doctor's only fiction. I find the idea of someone from a more advanced civilization trying to save mine just because he likes us more reassuring than some unknowable god who's as inclined to punish as preserve.

"It never ceases to amaze me how upset god-botherers get when insufficient respect is shown their deity by unbelievers. I'm gonna be tortured for all eternity for my principles, how can you resent me getting my hellfires' worth out of them?" - Emily

I don't resent you, Emily. But I can see that what I'm saying is not... making it through the filters, as it were. So, I'd rather not put any more effort into a fruitless debate if I'm the only one that cares about what I'm posting... I'll save the board space instead. :-)

I just have to wonder, though... let's say for just one second that I was right- I hope that I'm not being too impolite, but since you yourself keep making reference to burning in hellfire, etc.- say for a second that I was right, and despite whatever I can plead, debate, or suggest (and again, I do plead- give the Bible a fair shake; read through the New Testament- heck, just the first book and skip the genealogies- without any preconception of what you'll find or who God is- you might just be surprised at what you find! :-) ) that ends up being the case. Would you blame me? Would you blame God? I didn't site Pascal's Wager as a viable life plan (which I tried to clarify beforehand; it does have it's logical shortcomings, as you pointed out) but just as a thought provoker- what if, just what if, the 'god-botherers'- not the misogynist, biased, etc., etc. that you're citing, but the unbiased faith as I claim to present it- what then?


"Why on Earth would I want to talk about God when I can talk about the Doctor?" - Emily
Fair enough; I just wanted to give you the option if you wanted to continue the discussion and not 'end the conversation' by bowing out.

No religious discussion I've ever seen results in anyone changing their mind. You believe or you don't and there's nothing anyone can do to "talk some sense into you."

I knooooooooow! In fact, the more you point out the insanity of religion, the more faith they need to cling to it, and as religion thinks that faith is the most wonderful thing in the universe, it's all rather counter-productive.

Mind you, I have shifted one friend from agnostic to atheist by lending him Dawkins' The God Delusion.

I know belief in god gives many people a sense of purpose and inner happiness that is pretty enviable

ENVIABLE? We are Doctor Who fans. We HAVE that sense of purpose and inner happiness!

It's too bad the Doctor's only fiction.

FEED THE UNBELIEVER TO THE FLAMES!

(and again, I do plead- give the Bible a fair shake; read through the New Testament- heck, just the first book and skip the genealogies- without any preconception of what you'll find or who God is- you might just be surprised at what you find! :-) )

I'm certainly always surprised when Jesus tells us that no-one can follow him unless they hate their mother, father, wife, brothers, sisters, and kids. Guess that subconsciously - in spite of everything - I actually think of him as a NICE GUY!

just have to wonder, though... let's say for just one second that I was right- I hope that I'm not being too impolite, but since you yourself keep making reference to burning in hellfire, etc.- say for a second that I was right, and despite whatever I can plead, debate, or suggest...that ends up being the case. Would you blame me? Would you blame God?

Of course I wouldn't blame you! You've done your best to convert me. OK, so your best isn't as...energetic...as, say, Mary I's, but I forgive you in a Christ-like act of benevolence (sorry, can't help myself, it's a favourite line from Dead Romance). Providing, of course, you post to the Other Place all those endless tapes of New Who you lucky haloed types will be eternally blessed with.

But God? •••• right I'll blame him. What kind of sadist creates a universe where 99.9% of the sentient life will be tortured for all eternity?

"I'm certainly always surprised when Jesus tells us that no-one can follow him unless they hate their mother, father, wife, brothers, sisters, and kids. Guess that subconsciously - in spite of everything - I actually think of him as a NICE GUY!" - Emily

Actually, that's in Luke. ;-) But Jesus was in no way telling his followers to hate their relatives- he reaffirms the Biblical commands to 'Honor your father and mother' and to 'Love your neighbor as [much as] you love yourself.' The verse in question is explained much better than I could explain it here:
http://jewsforjesus.org/answers/jesus/family
(Short version- it's a comparative statement in the original language, an example of priorities (that your devotion to Christ is higher than your devotion to anyone on Earth)- our English rendering is what causes the misconception.)


"But God? •••• right I'll blame him. What kind of sadist creates a universe where 99.9% of the sentient life will be tortured for all eternity?" - Emily

More accurate would be the question 'What kind of sadist creates a universe where 100% of the sentient life has the freedom to choose their own destiny- and isn't it His fault if they choose to reject a free ticket to paradise?' :-) I maintain that God is no more responsible for the people who refuse to believe and end up in Hell than the Doctor would be if he showed up on the deck of the Titanic (Presumeably some tiem after he spent all those frigid hours clinging to the iceberg), opened the TARDIS doors, and shouted "Everybody in, I can take you some place safe!" Anyone who heard him and still drowned that night- be it because they didn't trust him, didn't believe him, thought they could make it on their own or find their own way- did so by their own choice- he didn't create the Iceberg (as God didn't create the sins that condemn us), and he offered the way out freely to everyone with no other requirements (other than 'accept it') (as God has done with His gift of salvation, freely offered).

(And yes, I realize that the comparison would be more effective with an existing Who scenario... but for the life of me, I couldn't think of a scenario where the Doctor offered to save someone from a situation he didn't create and they refused- VOTD and Journey's End being a questionable possible exception- though comparing humanity at large to Davros was not quite the point of the illustration.) :-)

what if, just what if, the 'god-botherers' .....but the unbiased faith as I claim to present it- what then?

I don't think you quite understand our perspective. You might just as well ask what if Santa or the Easter Bunny were real. What if the Hindus have it right with all this reincarnation stuff and our failure to move up the social hierarchy will result in our never reaching paradise? It's all just so much mumbo-jumbo.

It's easy to find various religious cults throughout history where the originator was eventually discredited. Not all of them are. Some even manage to found major religions that last for centuries (Jesus, Mohamed, Buddha). I'm afraid it doesn't do much to justify their validity.

And then there's the gaping injustices inherent in any exclusionary kind of doctrine. "Believe in me or you will go to hell." What about the poor stone age Druid worshipping whatever it was they worshipped? How much of humanity has already been doomed without ever knowing why? And the church's sorry "you can't possibly understand the ways of god" has got to be biggest cop-out in history.

I don't think any of the mainstream religions have "got it right". I think the Aftelife (for lack of a better term) is something we will never know about for sure. After all, mankind has been digging at this puzzle for thousands of years, and I don't think anyone is gonna stand up and say: "Yes, this is what happens to us." anytime soon.

Also, ghosts and the concept of an Afterlife predate all the mainstream religions, so the idea of being sent to Hell because you follow a different belief or worship a different god is absurd. As Mandy pointed out, what about the pre-Christian civilizations. Egypt? Greece? Rome? How can they be punished for not following a religion that did not yet exist.

My position is that if there is an Afterlife, then EVERYONE goes there. No matter what colour your skin is, no matter what language you speak, no matter if you're rich or poor, no matter what god or gods you currenly worship. IT DOESN'T MATTER. Once there, we're all equals. As to what that Afterlife is like, well, I can't begin to guess. We're all in the dark here folks, no matter what idea anyone comes up with.

"I don't think you quite understand our perspective. You might just as well ask what if Santa or the Easter Bunny were real. What if the Hindus have it right with all this reincarnation stuff and our failure to move up the social hierarchy will result in our never reaching paradise? It's all just so much mumbo-jumbo." - Amanda
Actually, I do understand that position entirely. It doesn't make the question less valid, though- 'what if?' And yes, I know there are a lot of what-ifs; and which you choose to consider and which you choose to dismiss as completely irrelevant are a matter of personal choice. That's why I'm only asking about one. ;-)

"And then there's the gaping injustices inherent in any exclusionary kind of doctrine. "Believe in me or you will go to hell."" - Amanda
Well, thank goodness I'm not talking about anything like that, then. I'm talking about Christian doctrine, which is 100% inclusionary- the atheistic view seems to be some sort of punishment/reward system- believe in God, if you don't, your punishment will be Hell.
That is not Christianity doctrine or theology. The basic truth of ti is this: we're all bound for Hell on a completely level playing field, a 100% inclusionary, applies-to-everyone basis- not because of anything God did, but because of what we did; our actions, our sins (wrongdoings)- it's all on us, and it would be happening regardless of whether God had ever communicated a fig to us or not. (Some people can't get over the notion of Hell being 'created' and thus equating it with punishment. If that's your hang-up, ignore the actual physical 'Hell.' Think of it as oblivion, nothingness, if that helps. The general point is- what we're headed for is the result of our own actions and choices, not something that God has done to us. 'We did the crime, we do the time,' if you will.)
What Jesus did by coming down and dying- and going to Hell- in our place was to offer a free 'escape route' from the natural consequences of our own actions. It's is 100% inclusive, and equally available to anybody. It's not 'Believe in me or go to Hell,' it's 'Accept this gift (which, admittedly, you do have to believe in in order to do so- it's impossible to truly accept a gift you believe in your heart is fictitious) and your debt is paid- if you'll let me, I'll take your place and get you out of what you've gotten yourself into.' That's not exclusionary- it applies exactly equally to every man, woman, and child on this Earth. It's not 'narrow-minded' (as some people claim- that the concept that there's only one way to Heaven is narrow thinking) any more than it's narrow-minded to claim that only one handle in a jet cockpit triggers the ejector seat- sometimes there is only one way to be saved! :-) (And in this case, as the natural result of sin is death, a sinless person dying in your place- one who doesn't have any sins of their own to pay for so that they can pay specifically for yours- is the only thing to circumvent that consequence- and since there's only ever been one such sinless person willing to do so, there's only one way to have that debt paid for you- His sacrifice.) And it's not petulant punishment ("Worship me or I'll make you burn!")- it's an offer made out of love ("Just let me, and I'll save you from this!"). It's just that simple.

" What about the poor stone age Druid worshipping whatever it was they worshipped? How much of humanity has already been doomed without ever knowing why? And the church's sorry "you can't possibly understand the ways of god" has got to be biggest cop-out in history." - Amanda
It's true, that's a tough theological question. And one that we don't have the answers for, except for a general belief that if the Bible claims that God loves every single person enough to die for them, He's not going to leave them out in the cold because they were born too soon. But how that works? No idea. But that doesn't change the truth of our situation, the reality of our sin, or the sacrifice that Christ made for us.
I would challenge you on one point, however- we can't understand the ways of God by definition. He is, literally, infinite. He knows everything- everything you've ever thought or will think, and everything I've ever thought and will think, and everything Winston Churchill ever thought and the same for every other person on this planet ever did or will. That alone is a level of understanding we can't ever hope to match- in knowledge alone, much less the other aspects- many of which we probably can't even conceive of- of being infinite. We can't understand because we are literally incapable- we're too finite to fully understand something infinite. That's no cop-out, it's intellectual honesty. To demand absolute understanding of a completely infinite being, or even just the ability to 'get inside the head' of someone with absolute knowledge of everything and understand what He's thinking, why He does what He does- by a 'Stupid Ape' is a little bit absurd- simply because not a single one of us has the required knowledge or understanding to fully process everything about any part of infinity. It doesn't mean we can't know some things- but there's simply no possible way for us to know everything. So, "The ways of the Lord are mysterious" is not a cop-out, it's an honest assessment of our ability to understand an infinite God; if we could fully understand everything about Him, then it wouldn't be God, because He'd be equal to or smaller than we are- which is hardly infinite or all-powerful. :-)

"Also, ghosts and the concept of an Afterlife predate all the mainstream religions, so the idea of being sent to Hell because you follow a different belief or worship a different god is absurd." - Tim
I'm sorry? I don't follow your logic. How do the concepts of ghosts and an afterlife make another concept absurd? Neither really proves anything about the other.
Again, as stated above, however, no one is sent to Hell because of worshiping a different god or have a different belief. They are already on their way there naturally, as the state of their existence due to sin. (And I can explain why in far more detail if you have a LOT of time. :-) If you don't want to delve into the theology of why, the Bible puts it more simply: "For the wages of sin are death.") God, through Jesus' sacrifice, is offering us a rescue from a path we are already on, through no action of His- not saying "I'll send you there because you didn't agree with me!" like some petulant child.

"My position is that if there is an Afterlife, then EVERYONE goes there." - Tim
That's what I keep saying in my beliefs, too! :-) It's called Hell, unfortunately, and everyone is headed there because of their wrong actions*. But there's more than one option, thank God! (Literally! :-) )

"No matter what colour your skin is, no matter what language you speak, no matter if you're rich or poor, no matter what god or gods you currenly worship. IT DOESN'T MATTER. Once there, we're all equals." - Tim
Just out of curiosity, as the idea of equality keeps coming up- do you perceive any difference (minus the question of 'gods you worship,' of course) between this and what Christians are saying? Because I would say that in this regard, at least, we are in complete agreement in what we are saying. :-)

"As to what that Afterlife is like, well, I can't begin to guess. We're all in the dark here folks, no matter what idea anyone comes up with." - Tim
Once again, that, I completely agree with you on. That clouds and harp stuff? Propaganda. Heaven is simply not going to be that boring! :-) I may have some pretty differing theology on how we get there, but I agree 100% that not only do we have no idea what it's going to be like... but we probably couldn't even wrap our minds around it if we did!

Wrapping up for today; no, it's not about 'worship me or burn,' or punishment for beliefs, no, it's not about condemnation because we ticked off God (it's about where we;'re already headed due to our own actions), and no, it's not an exclusionary belief open only to some (I'm sorry, but choosing not to believe does not make you 'excluded'). These are Straw Man issues with Christianity- they're not what the Bible says, and not what I'm saying. And none of this... has much to do with Doctor Who. :-)


...Well, I have been VERY successful in bowing out of this conversation as intended! ;-)

They are already on their way there [to hell] naturally, as the state of their existence due to sin.

Oh lord, do I really have to explain how offensive this concept is to a nonbeliever? I have sinned merely by existing? I'm going to hell as a default scenario? What kind of sadistic creature creates a universe where this is so? Where my very state of being is an offense against goodness?

The idea of having to ask an all-powerful being to save me from the very scenario he created in the first place makes me genuinely angry. That comes much closer to my definition of evil than anything in the Bible.

"Oh lord, do I really have to explain how offensive this concept is to a nonbeliever? I have sinned merely by existing?" - Mandy

No, apologies for unclarity. No, you haven't sinned simply by existing... but no one existing (neither you nor I or anyone else) has ever gone without sinning. So, we are not on that path by default for existence... we are on that path by action (I merely said 'naturally' because naturally seems to be the best description of how easily we commit sins.)

I understand that it is not a popular message; but truth be told, every single one of us has done wrong things- no one, not Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King, Jr. or even Gahndi goes through life without telling a single lie, taking a single thing, hating another person, etc. It's just a fact. And thus, we all sin. I know it's offensive- but it's also true.



"Where my very state of being is an offense against goodness?" - Mandy
Hmmm... you'd be surprised how many philosophical debates a sentence like that would touch off... ;-) But no, rather your actions are the offense. That, as humans, our 'state of being' seems very much tied to doing wrong things is very unfortunate- our 'sin nature' is very prominent and universal; hence the Biblical declaration (and the one made in my arguments) that 'All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.' However, this nature is not really an 'I don't deserve consequences from this' excuse, as while we have a tendency to trend towards sin universally, we always have a choice, and we always make it. We are not compelled to by who we are- or else we would never choose to neglect a sin. :-) The ability to choose- the much-lauded free will/freedom of choice- also places the blame for any of our sins squarely on us, not God, because we are solely the ones making the choices- and thus, responsible for the consequences.


"The idea of having to ask an all-powerful being to save me from the very scenario he created in the first place makes me genuinely angry." - Mandy
Were it simply a case of your very existence being sinful, that would be so. As it is, however, it is actions- made with free choice and a knowledge of right and wrong- that create the scenario; God is offering the solution freely because He loves you and doesn't want to see you suffer the fate you've caught yourself in. It's not a protection racket wherein He says "I've rigged the rules so you're outta line- pay up and I might letcha outta it..." ;-) I agree with you; if that were the case, it would be Evil, and your anger would be completely justified.

I apologize for poor communication; I clearly mis-stated the case.

And that leads us to the basis for my being a nonbeliever. I don't recognize the right of this unknowable supernatural creature to label my actions as either sinful or not. Pardon the expression, but "who died and made him god?"

Lying, stealing, killing, etc. are antisocial behaviors, bad for society and therefore condemned (and rightly so) by law and custom. They are not "sins." Nothing is, by its very nature, a sin. Society decides was is acceptable, not some holier-than-thou in heaven.

And since I don't accept the concept of sin, it becomes impossible for me to accept the reason for anything to be sinful in the first place; i.e., the judgment of a god.

No sin, no god, no heaven, no hell. Just the here and now, defined by us humans, for our own benefit or downfall, as history judges.

Well, as I said above, the idea of an afterlife predates all the known religions and probably goes back to the beginning of human history. When the religions started, they just incorporated it into their dogmas. That is why I stand by my idea that no religion has "got it right". Rather, they just have their own ideas on what the afterlife, if there is such a thing, may be like.

I think most people view the afterlife as a comfort. Let's face it, doesn't it all make us feel better to think that we continue to exist in some form or another, even when our bodies die? Isn't it better than the alternative, just vanishing into nothingness, like you never existed at all?

If the soul does exist, then it must exist from a time a person becomes self-aware. As to what the soul looks like, well, your guess is as good as mine. Once again, none of us know.

Many shows have their own ideas of the afterlife, Ghost Whisperer, Charmed, Supernatural, for example. Of course, since no one actually knows what it's like, any show is free to present their version.

However, reports of ghosts, near death experiences, out-of-body experiences, are tatalizing hints that SOMETHING may exist beyond our current understanding of life. However, there is really no way to prove or disprove whether there is an afterlife. Like I said, this is one mystery we will likely never solve.

"And that leads us to the basis for my being a nonbeliever. I don't recognize the right of this unknowable supernatural creature to label my actions as either sinful or not. Pardon the expression, but "who died and made him god?"" - Mandy
Funny- let's analyze that saying. "Who died and made him God?" implies that someone is trying to usurp or claim a power or authority that doesn't belong to him- only to God. Thus, it makes that claim that God does have that authority, and a person is trying to claim it also. Thus, since God is already God, He does have the power and authority implicit in that saying already! :-)

Here's the thing. There are three problems with this.
1. God has the right whether you recognize it or not. To borrow from the Titanic analogy above, this would be the equivalent of standing on the deck and saying "I don't believe that the Doctor has the power to rescue me, nor that he has the power to sink this boat! Therefore, I am on dry land." The problem with this is that A. The Doctor has that ability whether you believe it or not (Likewise, the authority of God is not lessened by an opinion- if you break the law and then declare to the court "I reject the laws of this nation," it wouldn't mean that you'd no longer broken the law- it would mean that you'd still broken the law and were also in denial.) B. The Doctor isn't the one who sunk the boat (Likewise, God isn't arbitrarily deeming your actions sinful) and thus that criticism of him isn't valid.
2. Sin is nothing more than breaking the law- violating the standards of right and wrong. It's not God that's labeling your actions as sinful or non-sinful, it's the standards of right and wrong themself. They are absolute, not shifting based on culture or by cultural agreement. They have to be- right is right, and wrong is wrong. It doesn't matter what society agrees on- right and wrong transcend society's ability to re-design. They're bigger than society. They are unchanging- else, there could be a situation where rape is right. But there isn't, is there? Rape is always wrong. It's an absolute wrong. And it's based on this absolute right and wrong that a rapist would be a sinner. The same applies to other rights and wrongs as well. Right and wrong are always right and wrong, or else they are useless standards. Even if there is an action that may be right or wrong in a situation (I.E. Shooting a man because you want his money is wrong. Shooting a man who is holding a hostage and a bomb and you are a police sniper ordered to take him out is right.) it is still absolutely right or wrong in that situation. There is never a time that lying or stealing or cheating 'MIGHT be right, or it might be wrong'- it either is, or it isn't. It is based on this that we are sinners- there is a right and wrong, or, as the Bible says, there is a 'Law'- and we've broken it.
3. Have you ever, in your whole life, done something you know is wrong? If so, you've sinned. Doing something wrong, with the foreknowledge that it is wrong, is all it takes. Can you honestly say that you've never, even once, done that?

"Society decides was is acceptable, not some holier-than-thou in heaven." - Mandy
So, if society deemed that rape and murder were acceptable, they would become so? Sorry, but this is not true. (Side note on the prejorative 'Holier than thou'- well, yes, He is- since he doesn't sin. But that's by nature, not by attitude.) :-) Right and wrong are standards from outside of society that society recognizes and agrees upon- they do not create them.

"And since I don't accept the concept of sin, it becomes impossible for me to accept the reason for anything to be sinful in the first place; i.e., the judgment of a god." - Mandy
But again, it is our own actions- not a judgement of God- that make you and I sinful. And even if you were to go with the philosophy of 'right and wrong are societally determined,' we've all done things that we know are wrong and/or are societally determined as wrong; therefore we're still sinners. To use another analogy, you'd hardly try the defense "Other streets have higher and lower speed limits, so when the police caught me speeding on this one, it doesn't count." Likewise, you wouldn't say "Well, the whole neighborhood got together and agreed that the speed limit should actually be 10 miles/km higher"- it would fail as a defense because you were still speeding regardless of what you agreed on. Why? Because the speed limit is absolute. Now, granted, it's a clumsy analogy, as the speed limit is designated by the government instead of being an absolute like right and wrong- but regardless, as someone subject to the laws, once you've violated that speed limit, it doesn't matter whether you reject it or think it's community-defineable... you've still broken the law anyway.

In any event, I mentioned several sins already- just 'simple' ones- lying, cheating, stealing, breaking the laws (of the land), and hating. Can you say that you've never done one of these? Can you say that these are not wrong? Even if you apply the moral relativism position that they are situational and not always right or wrong, can you honestly say tha you've never done one of them in a 'wrong' manner? Sin is not a judgement of God, it's just a fancy word for any action you take that is wrong or breaks the law of right and wrong. Regardless of how you can try to limit right and wrong or define them alternately, I don't think any of us can find a standard that we STILL haven't violated in one way or another. So the Sin still stands- we've each done at least one thing wrong (usually more than one :-) )- it doesn't mean we're murderers, rapists, burglars, or politicians- but we've still done something wrong, each of us (no matter how you define wrong- assuming it was up for definition in the first place)- and that makes us sinners. Our own actions, not God's judgement.

Let me ask you this- would you at least agree that, in principle, if right and wrong are absolute and thus sin does exist because there would be an objective, absolute standard that is being violated regardless of our perspective on it- would you agree that the problem of sin would be a grave one, that God would not be offering condemnation for it, but instead offering us a free rescue from a situation we ourselves got ourselves into? Or is that still a point of contention, too?



"Well, as I said above, the idea of an afterlife predates all the known religions and probably goes back to the beginning of human history. When the religions started, they just incorporated it into their dogmas. That is why I stand by my idea that no religion has "got it right". Rather, they just have their own ideas on what the afterlife, if there is such a thing, may be like." - Tim
I understand the thesis of rpedation that I am seeing here, but respectfully- time does not determine truth. I will agree with you that we don't know what the afterlife is like; there are still a great many mysteries in existence. But this does not ahve any bearing whatsoever on the question of sin, morality, or whether we are bound for one afterlife or another- all of those are issues of when we are still living, here on this Earth.
But this whole 'predation' thing doesn't really have a bearing on whether Christianity, or concepts of the afterlife, are true or not. If I was living in 1836, and made the declaration "There will someday be a man called Churchill, and a man called Hitler... and they will be rodeo clowns."- would that mean that WWII didn't happen because I had the concept first and said something different about it? No, it would just mean that I came up with the concept in parrallel. The reality of WWII wouldn't be affected. Likewise, just because a concept 'predates' Christianity does not having any bearing on whether the Christians- or the predating group- is right or wrong. Even Biblically, you had religions crop up at the second generation (Cain and his offspring, culminating in Ram) that long predated Abraham, Moses, or organized Christian or Jewish religion... that didn't make it truer, however. Just first. (Now, I'm not 100% if that's what you were saying- that the idea of predating concepts implies that what came later somehow isn't true or isn't valid and has to be a sort of conceptual rip-off. I was just answering the concept anyhow.) :-)


"I think most people view the afterlife as a comfort. Let's face it, doesn't it all make us feel better to think that we continue to exist in some form or another, even when our bodies die? Isn't it better than the alternative, just vanishing into nothingness, like you never existed at all?" - Tim
I would think that the notion we fabricate an afterlife for our own comfort would be slightly contradicted by the concept of Hell. :-) If we were creating a philosophy to make us feel better, wouldn't one in which the afterlife is free and automatic, requiring nothing from us, and we had no responsibility whatsoever to worry about or talk to anyone else because they're already headed there too be a more logical invention? :-)

"If the soul does exist, then it must exist from a time a person becomes self-aware. As to what the soul looks like, well, your guess is as good as mine. Once again, none of us know." - Tim
I agree. If it even has an appearance... that's where you start to get into the other-modes-of-existence stuff... where it gets fun (but of course completely pointless at this juncture) to speculate. ;-)

our English rendering is what causes the misconception.

Aha! So what percentage of the Bible IS a hideous mistranslation, do you reckon?

More accurate would be the question 'What kind of sadist creates a universe where 100% of the sentient life has the freedom to choose their own destiny- and isn't it His fault if they choose to reject a free ticket to paradise?'

Except that, as Mandy and Tim pointed out, not 100% of the universe's population DO get to choose Jesus.

I maintain that God is no more responsible for the people who refuse to believe and end up in Hell than the Doctor would be if he showed up on the deck of the Titanic (Presumeably some tiem after he spent all those frigid hours clinging to the iceberg), opened the TARDIS doors, and shouted "Everybody in, I can take you some place safe!" Anyone who heard him and still drowned that night

Your comparison doesn't hold water (sorry. VERY bad pun). Your God engineered the universe to condemn untold trillions. The Doctor didn't engineer the iceberg to hit the Titanic. (At least...I HOPE he didn't. Frankly I've never been ENTIRELY convinced by his protestations of innocence in Invasion of Time.)

he didn't create the Iceberg (as God didn't create the sins that condemn us)

Well, presumably that's EXACTLY what God did, what with creating the universe and everything in it.

Not to mention deciding that the punishment for the 'sins' which EVERY human cannot HELP but commit being...er...rather draconian. (No insult intended to the Draconians. They're warmongering sexist gits but even they would draw the line at torturing people for THAT long.)

"And then there's the gaping injustices inherent in any exclusionary kind of doctrine. "Believe in me or you will go to hell."" - Amanda
Well, thank goodness I'm not talking about anything like that, then.

Andrew - that's EXACTLY what you're talking about. However desperately you strive to dress it up to absolve God of any blame.

we're all bound for Hell on a completely level playing field, a 100% inclusionary, applies-to-everyone basis- not because of anything God did, but because of what we did; our actions, our sins (wrongdoings)

You know that moment in Parting of the Ways where Eccy gazes in pitying horror at the Daleks as he realises they've been driven mad by a hatred of their own humanity...?

...Um, I just happened to find myself thinking of that. For some reason.

(Some people can't get over the notion of Hell being 'created' and thus equating it with punishment. If that's your hang-up, ignore the actual physical 'Hell.' Think of it as oblivion, nothingness, if that helps.

No, that doesn't help! Christianity has made it pretty clear that hell involves HIDEOUS SUFFERING, not merciful oblivion.

The general point is- what we're headed for is the result of our own actions and choices

So what 'actions and choices' does a stillborn baby have that justifies it frying for eternity?

not something that God has done to us. 'We did the crime, we do the time,' if you will.)

But presumably the Creator God created this punishment to fit the horrific crime of being human? Don't you think he overdid it a bit? I mean, what happened to proportionality? It's like your parents ripping you limb from limb the first time you picked your nose.

What Jesus did by coming down and dying- and going to Hell

Jesus went to hell? Seriously?

it applies exactly equally to every man, woman, and child on this Earth.

I wanna know where cats stand in all of this.

It's true, that's a tough theological question. And one that we don't have the answers for, except for a general belief that if the Bible claims that God loves every single person enough to die for them, He's not going to leave them out in the cold because they were born too soon. But how that works? No idea.

In other words, you are prepared to defy Biblical teaching ('No one comes to the father save through me.' - Jesus) to generously spare any pre-Christ people the fires of hell (particularly, one can only assume, the Jews who God was assuring were his chosen people). What about those born in countries, centuries after Christ's birth, where word of him had never reached? What about those, in any country in any time, who died too young to understand language?

And what, therefore, was the POINT of Christ coming down to Earth and getting himself nailed to a Cross? You've always stated that it was to give us a chance to escape hell, but now you're saying that no-one pre-Christ went to hell ANYWAY. Logically speaking, it would be infinitely better for people like myself if he'd just skipped the whole Crucifixion lark altogether.

To demand absolute understanding of a completely infinite being, or even just the ability to 'get inside the head' of someone with absolute knowledge of everything and understand what He's thinking, why He does what He does- by a 'Stupid Ape' is a little bit absurd

None of us are demanding absolute understanding. Just why a loving and merciful God would create billions of humans whilst ensuring (by setting up the universe the way he did) or at the very least knowing (in his omniscient way) that their suffering would be forever.

the Bible puts it more simply: "For the wages of sin are death.")

I'm not complaining about death, I'm complaining about hell. And that's obviously a load of nonsense because even the most sinless of babies dies. Not to mention animals, who presumably you regard as sinless since 'sin' seems to be a disguistingly human trait. (What about intelligent aliens, by the way?)

Oh lord, do I really have to explain how offensive this concept is to a nonbeliever? I have sinned merely by existing? I'm going to hell as a default scenario? What kind of sadistic creature creates a universe where this is so? Where my very state of being is an offense against goodness?

Hear, hear.

Driven mad by a hatred of their own humanity or WHAT?!

hence the Biblical declaration (and the one made in my arguments) that 'All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.'

I have no problem with this. I do have a problem with the 'fact' that cheeking your mum or a moment's sexual desire are right up there with genocide as an reason for torturing us. Forever.

I mean, personally I feel the Doctor overreacted to the Family of Blood. And they were (literally) asking for it.

I apologize for poor communication; I clearly mis-stated the case.

Honestly - it's not you. It's your religion.

I think most people view the afterlife as a comfort. Let's face it, doesn't it all make us feel better to think that we continue to exist in some form or another, even when our bodies die? Isn't it better than the alternative, just vanishing into nothingness, like you never existed at all?

HELL no. Nothing wrong with non-existence, we've all tried it for a few billion years with no ill-effects. And of course I don't want it to be as if I'd never existed at all - I want to be remembered, not to live eternally. (Admittedly I'm not actually doing much to make my mark on this planet, as that would involve tearing myself away from Doctor Who and actually DOING something.)

This is starting to sound like RM.

"Aha! So what percentage of the Bible IS a hideous mistranslation, do you reckon?" - emily
Cute. I don't think any of it is a hideous mistranslation; though I do agree that there are layers of subtlety that are lost to us; that's what Biblical scholars and Bible studys are for- to delve into the Bible in greater detail and get past the clumsiness of our own language. The basic facts, however, don't change with translation.

"Your God engineered the universe to condemn untold trillions. The Doctor didn't engineer the iceberg to hit the Titanic. (At least...I HOPE he didn't." - Emily
Say what?! That is a 100% untrue statement that I've just spent all morning discussing! In what possible way did God engineer existence to condemn anyone? That is absolutely untrue- God created a race of people free to choose their own actions (don't tell me you wouldn't object if it were otherwise... :-) ) and gave them the guidelines and rules of right and wrong so that they would be completely capable of not using that freedom of choice to do wrong... and then when we, by our own choices and actions, did wrong anyway, He made the sacrifice of His own son, who DIED in our place, so that we could be rescued from the consequences of our own choices! In what way could this possibly consititue 'engineering the universe to condemn?' The Doctor didn't sink the Titanic (that we know of... :-) ) and God didn't create the guilt of sin. He did everything short of making us mindless robots incapable of comitting any wrong act (without the freedom to choose anything for ourselves) to prevent our condemnation- and He's still doing it.


"he didn't create the Iceberg (as God didn't create the sins that condemn us)
Well, presumably that's EXACTLY what God did, what with creating the universe and everything in it." - Emily
No, He didn't. Sin is not a created thing; it's an action. Sin is the absence of doing what's right- God creating a standard of what is right and wrong (or, more acurately, such a standard existing based on the nature of God- that's a whole other discussion) did not create Sin; Sin didn't exist until we took an action contrary to the standards of right and wrong. Likewise, the government doesn't create criminals or create disobedience by publishing laws- those things are 'created' by the individuals doing the opposite of the laws that have been created.

"Andrew - that's EXACTLY what you're talking about. However desperately you strive to dress it up to absolve God of any blame." - Emily
No it is not. Emily, please stop and look at my words. Stop looking at the Straw Man version of my beliefs that that statement implies, and look at what I am saying. I am not talking about anything exclusionary- already covered above. Despite your contention that not everyone can make that choice to believe (and I will admit, I don't have all the answers in that regard, I don't pretend to)- nonetheless everyone CAN, and everyone has that ability, and EVERYONE is covered- both by the fact that they've sinned, and by the gift of forgiveness offered to cover it.
Likewise, it is in no way about "Believe in me or you'll go to hell,"- which fallaciously implies that people wouldn't have been going to Hell before,, and God is now offering the choice of 'believe or I'll send you there'- it is about "Accept the gift and you don't have to go to Hell." Yes, it is required, just like in reality, for you to actually believe in what you're accepting- or else you're not really accepting it, are you? You're just humoring someone (which is the problem we discussed earlier with Pascal's Wager.) But that's just a fact of reality- you can't accept what you don't believe in. So that statement is very much NOT what I am talking about.
I do not have to absolve God of any blame; if my actions based on my choices are going to send me to Hell based on an objective system of Right and Wrong which I already have laws in place to prevent me from breaking- then God HAS NO BLAME in my situation- it's all me! The same applies to each of us.

"You know that moment in Parting of the Ways where Eccy gazes in pitying horror at the Daleks as he realises they've been driven mad by a hatred of their own humanity...?
...Um, I just happened to find myself thinking of that. For some reason." - Emily
Cute. So, you categorically deny that Humans do wrong things? Because to me, recognizing the reality of who we are is not hating humanity- it's admitting the truth about it. On the contrary, I have conversations like this not because I like hearing myself talk or want to pick a fight- it's because I care about people and don't want to see them end up in that fate- most especially you, Amanda, and Tim! If recognizing that we are people that sometimes do wrong things and wanting peolpe not to suffer the consequences of doing those wrong things is Dalek-ish hatred of humanity or self...
I'm not mad, Emily. I'm just telling it like it is.

"No, that doesn't help! Christianity has made it pretty clear that hell involves HIDEOUS SUFFERING, not merciful oblivion." - Emily
Actually, I think it's safe to say that I'm more with Tim on this one- there's a great many things we don't know about the afterlife. There is a Lake of Fire prepared for the devil and his followers, yes. Regardless, I don't think oblivion is an option- just as energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed, I think that the soul is, by nature, eternal. It has to go somewhere. Merciful oblivion isn't an option due to the nature of out existence. Of course, don't quote me on any of that. :-)


"So what 'actions and choices' does a stillborn baby have that justifies it frying for eternity?" - Emily
I don't believe that. It might be the doctrine of some churches but that is NOT Biblical. King David has a baby (not stillborn but dying shortly after birth) and he speaks of the day that they will meet again, suggesting two very important Biblical concepts: One, that there ARE provisions for the saving of those before Jesus came- though we don't know what they are. I believe that they apply equally to people who have not had the chance to hear about Jesus. So the idea that 'not 100% of people have the chance to be saved and thus Christianity is exclusive' is not Biblically accurate. Second, it importantly demonstrates the principal inherent in Adam and Eve's fall- they were only capable of Sin after they became aware of the difference between right and wrong. Likewise, a baby that is not yet capable of comprehending the difference between right and wrong cannot yet commit any sins and is not bound for Hell. Now, this is no help for those that are told the difference, are capable of understanding it, but deny it's existence. They still have the knowledge of good and evil, even if they choose to ignore or deny it. But for babies and children who are not yet capable of understanding the difference, there is not yet any Sin- just as there wasn't for Adam and Eve before they gained the knowledge of good and evil. So the stillborn baby, the aborted babies, the children killed in accidents or dying prematurely are not just 'tough luck, you're screwed' cases. If they're capable of going to Hell, they're first capable of comprehending the difference and making the choice. If they aren't, then they can't yet commit any sins.


"But presumably the Creator God created this punishment to fit the horrific crime of being human?" - Emily
I can't comment on that because I don't know the details of how Hell works or how exactly it was created, if it was, etc. (We assume much about Hell but really know very little about it.) However, it is not a creation for the crime of being human- it is a . That being human has become almost inextricably linked to being sinful is a result of our culture, choices, actions- all things that humans have done to themselves and to others. Humanity as it was created was not sinful. And, despite how we may play the Teenage Card on punishment for sin (I.E. Anything we don't like is "Not fair! I hate you!" :-) ), the fact remains that even though we humans are a sinful, fallen people- every sin we commit is still a matter of choice, so there really is no one to blame but us. We may have created for ourselves an environment of failure (I.E. Making it far harder on people to do the right think due to the culture and circumstances around them)- but no one ever commits a sinful action without choosing to commit the action first. Hell is a consequence of our choices, not a punishment for our existence or nature.


"I wanna know where cats stand in all of this." - Emily
I believe that cats, being non-sentient, or at the very least, not sentient enough to understand the difference between right and wrong- are not capable of sinning (driving us crazay, yes- my legs are currently covered in scratches because our little Ellie does not understand that I am not for climbing, and hooking claws into my flesh as the sole support for her weight is a BAD thing). Thus, they have no fear of Hell. Now, as a matter of personal belief, I suspect that they- or any animals- do not have souls (at least, not the kind that we do)- seriously hampering their ability to evolve into nurse-nuns, :-) - and thus the 'merciful oblivion' might be closer to where they're headed. BUT, that is my personal suspicion and not really a Biblical position- the fate of cats remains a mystery so long as we're on this Earth. :-)

"And what, therefore, was the POINT of Christ coming down to Earth and getting himself nailed to a Cross? You've always stated that it was to give us a chance to escape hell, but now you're saying that no-one pre-Christ went to hell ANYWAY. Logically speaking, it would be infinitely better for people like myself if he'd just skipped the whole Crucifixion lark altogether." - Emily
Again, I don't KNOW how it works. The Bible speaks of Abraham, David, Moses, Elija, etc. in Heaven- or at least in somewhere not-Hell. So I do believe that God had something in place. If I had to guess, I'd say that it was probably more stringent, harder to qualify, or had some other condition upon it. Clearly, Christ would not have come to provide a single way of reaching Heaven if a previous way that was better existed. I don't know how it works. I really can't give you any answers; I just don't know. I have faith that God will work it out, but in the mean time I can only trust and act on what I do know- that Christ did say "No man comes through the Father except through me"- and I do believe that, at the time those words were written, they were true- the old way was no longer valid, (save possibly for those not yet capable of hearing the message- again, that is a guess, not a certainty either way) and Christ is the only way. I can only tell you this: I KNOW how things worked with Sin, the cross, and Christ. I don't know how things worked before that, or for those that haven't heard. Which is why Christians have missionaries, why we try to spread the message to everyone we can- because it's our duty as those who do know to spread the word so that others have the chance to know rather than being left to the big question mark that may or may not be unknown pre-Christ processes. :-) In any event, I don't think that it was EVER automatic at any juncture; else God wouldn't have fixed it. :-)


"Just why a loving and merciful God would create billions of humans whilst ensuring (by setting up the universe the way he did) or at the very least knowing (in his omniscient way) that their suffering would be forever." - Emily
Frankly, I'm still not qualified to answer the whys of what God does. Clearly you know from my arguments above that I would disagree with 'ensuring.' As for knowing? I don't know. He did create us with the complete potential for that never to be the case, and provided us with the perfect mechanism for avoiding it even when we did screw it up, so I couldn't call it unloving or unmerciful of Him to create us in the first place- indeed, it was an act of love and mercy in the first place that Jesus came and died for us so that we could avoid that suffering. But, knowing that Free Will could be used to choose death, why were we made? We have Free Will in the first place so that can be who we are- living, thinking, comprehending beings capable of making choices and having the freedom to live by them. So the real question is, quite litterally, the meaning of our existence. Why were we created in the first place? The suffering comes from the Free Will being misused, the Free Will comes so that we could be created and exist in our current state- sentient- but why did the creating happen? I don't know. A lot smarter philosophers than I have tackled the question and come up short. Why create us, and why create us even knowing that some of us would choose to reject what is right and siffer for it? I don't know. But I truly don't think it's possible to know the answer to a question that outside of our realm and ability to comphrehend so long as we are mere mortal humans. That's the best answer I can give you.


"I'm not complaining about death, I'm complaining about hell. And that's obviously a load of nonsense because even the most sinless of babies dies. Not to mention animals, who presumably you regard as sinless since 'sin' seems to be a disguistingly human trait. (What about intelligent aliens, by the way?)" - Emily
I'm not really worried about the theological implications of aliens, but if they have knowledge of right and wrong, they would be equal to humans in that regard. In any event, the Bible is not talking about plain old physical death- from a Biblical perspective, that's just the end of 'Part 1' of life. :-) It's talking about true death- eternal separation from God. (Actually, that's an interesting bit where the potential confusion of Hell being God-created is... God is everywhere and in everything- thus, part of Hell is a separation from God- as imperfection and perfection cannot co-exist- perfection would become imperfect by the insertion of imperfection, etc.- again, another conversation- and so also a separation from all creation and existence as we know it, since God is a part of those too- so it seems as if Hell is in fact not a created place, perhaps, since otherwise the separation wouldn't be complete. On the other hand, imperfection/sin clearly exists HERE, in our little bubble of created time/space, so clearly there is more to this concept than I'm getting. I suspect it comes from trying to look at Heaven and Hell in terms of earthly four-dimensional space-time. It seems like the kind of thing the Doctor would be more suited to figure out with 5th or 6th dimensional thinking.) :-) Again, that's all conjecture, not Biblical facts, so don't mix up my rambling theorizations with actual theology. :-)


"I do have a problem with the 'fact' that cheeking your mum or a moment's sexual desire are right up there with genocide as an reason for torturing us." - Emily
Again, from a human perspective, 'It's not fair!!!' But from an objective viewpoint- if right and wrong are objective and unchanging standards, then any wrong is equally violating that standard, whether it's a crumb, an ounce, a pound, or a ton. Wrong is wrong. Emotionally it seems unfair. But realistically it is consistent with objective and absolute standards. Wrong is wrong, whether it's a big wrong or a small one. :-(

Oops! Missed the most important one!

"Jesus went to hell? Seriously?" - Emily
Yes. He paid the full price. He rose from the dead on Easter (Despite the Doctor's potential claims otherwise :-) ) but for those three days in between the Cross and Easter, He was in Hell. (I believe- though of course, this is only me- that Heaven and Hell, like God, are non-temporal- that eternity is one ever-present 'now' as opposed to our current experience of then, now, and later- which is an abstract and hard to grasp reference in our current bound-by-time state.) Regardless, the Bible makes it clear that Jesus experienced everything- from severity to duration- that any person going to Hell would ever experienced- He took our place completely, in every aspect, and went through every single thing we were destined for- from death to literally going to Hell- so that we wouldn't ever have to.

Well, ScottN, it is M on Doctor Who and R, after all... ;-)

Let me ask you this- would you at least agree that, in principle, if right and wrong are absolute and thus sin does exist

No. And perhaps this is the crux of our disagreement. Without the concept of sin, religion falls apart. Since I don't recognize sin, I have no religion.

Andrew, you can swamp every argument with paragraphs of explanation, but no matter how you choose to reinterpret Christianity to suit yourself (or to try to suit us), it is an exclusionary, unjust, and involuntary system that condemns large numbers of the human race both now and in the past. There is no way to explain all this away or make it even remotely palatable.

God knows why I jumped into this discussion since, as I said much earlier, I know better. There is nothing we can say to each other that will change anybody's mind.

Oh, I forgot to ask: what is RM?

Religious Musings.
It's top level topic board here.

God knows why I jumped into this discussion since, as I said much earlier, I know better.

So you admit there's a God then? :-)

Maybe we can ask the Doctor to pop into the afterlife and tell us what it's like. The TARDIS can go anywhere, after all. He could then give a detailed report on what he saw

Actually, that is why I'd love to see a ghost. To me that is proof that SOME kind of post-mortal existence awaits us all. As I said, Britain is chock-a-block full of them. Considering its long history, I'm not surprised.

He could then give a detailed report on what he saw

I don't know. We might get one of those wibbley-wobbley, timey-whimey explanations.

Mandy, people dying or being lost- by their own choice or the actions of others- is never palatable. That does not mean that it isn't true. People do wrong things, every single one of them. It's a fact. :-) It's not hateful nor unjust to state it. And the offer of salvation is made freely to all, without strings- it's not exclusionary, unjust, or condemning.

I'm not dressing it up, re-stating it, re-interpreting it, or distorting it- I'm telling it the way it's always been, as stated in the Bible. I urge you to consider it- and I also understand your position on it. Just remember, despite the claims to the contrary made on this board, if you read Jesus' words, the truth is plain: God loves you, whether the feeling is mutual or not. :-) And He has made provisions for your salvation- for mine, for Emily's, for Tim's, and for everyone else, both on this board and in this world- all you need to do is accept it.

OK, Andrew, let's put it like this:

I M Foreman creates a universe. In a bottle. (Interference by Lawrence Miles.) Supposing I M Foreman's universe involved ALL its sentient beings, once they'd lived their generally nasty-brutish-and-short-like-a-Sontaran lives, being tortured in an afterlife for all eternity. Cos they were, by very definition of their sentience, so evil that they deserved it. Even the ones who hadn't had a chance to actually DO anything, like stillborn babies. Supposing I M Foreman eventually decided this was a teeny bit unfair, so regenerated into his/her own kid (come to think of it, this is EXACTLY the kind of nutty thing I M Foreman would get up to) and had her/himself tortured to death in order to persuade her/himself to make an exception for the faction-of-a-percentage of sentient beings who loved and worshipped her/him in precisely the right manner.

I mean, is s/he MAD? Sadistic? Stupid? Criminally careless? Or...WHAT?! Why didn't s/he just stick to creating junkyards, practically EVERYONE would be a LOT better off...

(NB: Please feel free to ignore the above, cos, let's face it, we've BOTH got better things to do than to perpetually disagree on this. But if you want to explain all about the daughters of God (beginning of Noah's Ark story) I'm genuinely curious. My religious indoctrination would probably have stood a MUCH better chance if it had had more daughters of God and less 'Son' stuff.)

An interesting scenario. I'm afraid I'm not very up on my novelizations, so I M Foreman is hardly an area of expertise. :-)
Were I to, say, take this as some sort of metaphor as opposed to a theoretical Who scenario, I might offer the following critiques of this model of the universe...
-Things might be just a bit different if, in fact, the aforementioned sentient beings chose to do evil things. If in fact that were the case, their eternal fate hinging on the fact that they'd done wrong, the scenario isn't quite so unfair, now is it? It's a case of crime and punishment. Hold that thought, though...
-It would also be unfortunate if I M, in his creative endeavors, managed to extend this punishment to innocents who had no chance to do anything wrong, like stillborn babies. Thankfully, this is something that is not supported in other models of the universe, like, say... one described in the Bible. :-)
-Getting back to the issue of punishment, this bottle scenario would be drastically different if the universe in a bottle was instead created and governed in an absolute system of right and wrong. In that case, the consequences of wrong actions (the 'eternal torture') would be a part of the mechanics of right and wrong itself; again, crime and punishment. Now, supposing I M were to look at this model and decide that, even though each of the sentients was, in fact, breaking the law multiple times over the course of their life, and thus triggering the punishment upon themself, he (I'm guessing it's a he? Again, poor book knowledge) didn't really like the idea that any of his creations would have to suffer such a fate- but due to the mechanics which governed the bottle, he couldn't just change how right and wrong worked or absolute they were, because they were, well... absolute. :-) And he couldn't just deny the sentients the exact and complete consequences of their actions, be they good or bad, because he had created them with free will- the ability to choose their own destiny and receive the consequences of their choices with no interference. This would be quite a dilemma for I M, in a way, because the only legitimate consequence of the evil the sentients were choosing was death. He wasn't making them choose it, nor was he sending them anywhere, but he didn't want to just stand by and watch them make choices that would destroy them, either. So, the regeneration...
-The trick, in such a theoretical scenario, of course, would be that I M foreman would have to die. Not to appease himself or keep himself from hurting his sentients, but instead to serve as a substitute; to take every wrong choice and evil act his sentients had committed and suffer the consequences himself, in their place- to deal with that death, that torture, for their actions, so that they wouldn't have to. Not to satisfy some bloodlust in himself, but to satisfy the requirements of an absolute system of right and wrong, and to fully allow the consequences of the sentients' actions, promised to them in their gift of Free Will, to come true.
-Luckily, after I M's sacrifice, this exception belonged not a a fraction of his sentients, but to every single one of them. However... up cropped that 'pesky' free will again; integral to the sentients' actually being sentient- as opposed to I M-controlled automatons- it also promised them noninterference from I M; the consequences of their actions, be they good or bad. And part of that was, unfortunately, they also had the freedom to accept or reject that exception I M had just died to create. The same freedom that allowed them to be sentient also allowed them to choose right or wrong, and now it allowed them to choose to be exempt or not.
-So, after all of this, all I M could do was offer- "This exception is available to everybody!" He even recruited a group of sentients to go out and spread the word. (Sadly, they were a fallible lot, prone to wandering off track, adding a bunch of their own made-up nonsense to the mix, building up fake requirements, discrediting their own movement, and generally mucking things up for the next 2,000 years... :-) One lot who kept going around venerating I M's mother as some sort of demi-god and adding a bunch of legalistic mumbo-jumbo into the mix especially had the rest slapping their foreheads... ;-) (No offense intended to any Nitcentralians!) ) The exception had nothing to do with worship or adoration- the exception only required one thing: accept it. Agree to yield the consequences to I M instead of keeping them- as is your right, by nature of your free will- to yourself. And accepting it also has one requirement- believing it in the first place, since unfortunately you can't truly accept something you don't believe exists (the best you can do is say the words, which is a far sight different from accepting).

In that case, I'd say that I M would be only doing what could be done without violating the laws of the universe that made the sentients sentient in the first place (which would kind of make the whole thing moot)- and not really responsible for what happened to any of the sentients because not only were they doing themselves in, they were ignoring the mechanism that was put in place to keep any of them from ending up tortured. And I would DEFINITELY say that there was no worship-based exclusivity in the offer- just a simple matter of belief and acceptance... which, frankly, without violating someone's free will and forcing something on them, is about as simply and easy to grasp and freely available as you can make something. :-)


All theoretically speaking, based on this hypothetical Doctor Who scenario, of course. ;-)


"Please feel free to ignore the above, cos, let's face it, we've BOTH got better things to do than to perpetually disagree on this." - Emily
Heh... on the same day that someone else on Nitcentral calls me out with indexed links and date-and-time based examples for not staying to finish every debate to the bitter end. ;-) I'm gettin' called out all over the place! :-)

Well, truthfully, Emily, since I believe that the 'theoretical' story we're debating is literally a matter of life and death... I don't think I have got anything better to do! ;-) Here's hoping our disagreement won't be 'perpetual,' no matter what it may look like these days... ;-)

"But if you want to explain all about the daughters of God (beginning of Noah's Ark story) I'm genuinely curious. My religious indoctrination would probably have stood a MUCH better chance if it had had more daughters of God and less 'Son' stuff." - Emily
Ummmm... I would be happy to, but I'm afraid I don't quite understand the question. :-)

" My religious indoctrination would probably have stood a MUCH better chance if it had had more daughters of God and less 'Son' stuff." - Emily
Ummmm... I would be happy to, but I'm afraid I don't quite understand the question"


I think Emily means that men seem to have a bigger role in religion than women do. Well, considering that these writings are centuries old, and were written by men, that's not surprising.

Today, some Feminists do refer to God as "She". Doesn't matter either way to me. If such a being does exist, and has the power to create an ENTIRE universe out of nothing, then it is logical to assume that said being could assume whatever form it chose, male OR female.

Something to consider..

I'd say, alternately, that men tend to have a bigger role in the history of the Bible than women do- as you said, it indeed was a part of the culture at times, likewise for the male-biased language- but in terms of 'religion,' God's plan, and the way in which he sees us, I don't think there's any difference between the two.

(Which is not to say that there aren't some very important and very significant 'daughters of God' showcased in the Bible, too- from Miriam (the priestess) to Deborah (Leader, judge, and warrior) to Ruth (a model of loyalty) to Mary and Elizabeth (models of faith) and Tabitha (a model of generosity) and... well... can't remember her name, from Judges, who singehandedly defeated the nation's greatest enemy of the time by killing the enemy king... not even the cultural bias of the times could keep the stories of these women from the prominent places where they belong.)

As Phil just said in his most recent podcast, "In Genesis, God took a part out of Adam to create Eve. He didn't take it out of his skull, so that woman could lord it over man- nor did He take it out of man's feet, so that woman should be subservient to man- rather, He took the bone out of man's side, right in the middle- to symbolize that man and woman were meant to stand side by side, as equals." :-)

I'm afraid I'm not very up on my novelizations, so I M Foreman is hardly an area of expertise. :-)

*Glares* There are some PERFECTLY GOOD REVIEWS of the Interference books that can get you up to speed...and they are NOVELS not novelisations...

Things might be just a bit different if, in fact, the aforementioned sentient beings chose to do evil things. If in fact that were the case, their eternal fate hinging on the fact that they'd done wrong, the scenario isn't quite so unfair, now is it? It's a case of crime and punishment.

Well, it kinda depends on the 'crime'. Eternal flames for Pol Pot: no problem! Eternal flames for people whose only crime is to accidentally fall in love with the Doctor/Mohammed/Odin or something instead of Baby Jesus...big, BIG problem. Cos such behaviour is not 'evil' by any sane definition of the word.

And then there's the punishment. Say you've got a kid. And it pulls another kid's hair. A reasonable (if probably illegal) punishment would be to give your brat a quick slap and send it to bed without any supper. But forbidding your rug-rat to ever watch Doctor Who again while setting it on fire is just...overkill.

It would also be unfortunate if I M, in his creative endeavors, managed to extend this punishment to innocents who had no chance to do anything wrong, like stillborn babies. Thankfully, this is something that is not supported in other models of the universe, like, say... one described in the Bible. :-)

Really? Whatever happened to 'No one comes to the Father save through me'?

The Catholics (till it was abolished a few months ago) gave us Limbo for these little dead-baby moral dilemmas. What do YOU give us?

this bottle scenario would be drastically different if the universe in a bottle was instead created and governed in an absolute system of right and wrong. In that case, the consequences of wrong actions (the 'eternal torture') would be a part of the mechanics of right and wrong itself

Very true, and this may indeed be the case with old I M, living in the existing universe while creating her/his bottle. To get onto your particular God, however...WHO or WHAT set up this 'absolute system' before the Terminus anti-matter exploded He created the universe in six days flat?

he (I'm guessing it's a he? Again, poor book knowledge)

I wasn't saying her/him all the time out of some weird feminist sensibility, y'know - I M Foreman was male in most of his thirteen incarnations, but when he met the Doc he happened to be inhabiting (someone else's) female body.

Now, supposing I M were to look at this model and decide that, even though each of the sentients was, in fact, breaking the law multiple times over the course of their life, and thus triggering the punishment upon themself, didn't really like the idea that any of his creations would have to suffer such a fate

Frankly, he should have thought of that before. Even WITHOUT the benefit of omniscience.

And didn't you assure me a while back that no-one was being burnt for all eternity for the crime of not worshipping Jesus BEFORE Jesus was born?

- but due to the mechanics which governed the bottle, he couldn't just change how right and wrong worked or absolute they were, because they were, well... absolute. :-)

If the White and/or Black Guardians tried telling MY Lonely God that Rose would be tortured for all eternity for the 'crime' of sleeping with Mickey-the-idiot and Jimmy Stone, plus cheeking her mum AND a bit of childhood shoplifting (or whatever) and there was sod-all he could do about it...those Guardians AND the birds on their heads would soon find themselves eating dirt.

Not that I expect YOUR God to be up to the Doctor's standards, of course, but if he was utterly incapable of fighting the grotesquely cruel system, he oughtn't to have brought life into it - when he knew it had a 99.99% chance of suffering for eternity.

I mean, if I happened to be living in Darfur or Skaro, I wouldn't say 'Hey! Fantastic idea! Let's have a baby!' (Alright, so I wouldn't say that under ANY circumstances, but that's not the point.)

the only legitimate consequence of the evil the sentients were choosing was death.

Would that this were so. I'm not complaining about DEATH - a perfectly logical biological process - I'm complaining about being resurrected and tortured afterwards. Like the Master did to poor old Captain Jack.

it also promised them noninterference from I M

Allow me to break the news that 'Worship me or fry' does not constitute non-interference.

the consequences of their actions, be they good or bad.

But you don't care if people choose 'good' - a Protestant genocidal maniac would get to heaven, a philanthropic peace-maker who happened to be atheist or Muslim would fry...

And part of that was, unfortunately, they also had the freedom to accept or reject that exception I M had just died to create.

What percentage of humans over the last 2000 years have really had the freedom to learn to love Crucifix-Boy? Not the majority of 'em, that's for sure.

And even those of us who quite deliberately spit on this lovely gift...is it MY fault I'm a born feminist and nit-picker and human-rights-respecter? That I fell for the REAL Saviour of the World instead of for a Palestinian carpenter? (Alright, they can both be rather sexist and genocidal, but only one of 'em has a Scarf. And a sense of humour.)

One lot who kept going around venerating I M's mother as some sort of demi-god and adding a bunch of legalistic mumbo-jumbo into the mix especially had the rest slapping their foreheads... ;-)

So...are all Catholics gonna burn in hell or not?

I mean, their reproductive and cannibalistic habits are a bit sick but hey, their whole 'purgatory' thing (get tortured for each sin for a few thousand years and then you can go to heaven) is a LOT fairer than your all-or-nothing beliefs, and unlike certain people they have managed to accept the facts of evolution...

The exception had nothing to do with worship or adoration- the exception only required one thing: accept it.

Shan't.

Anyway, what happened to 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all they heart' or whatever it was?

And accepting it also has one requirement- believing it in the first place, since unfortunately you can't truly accept something you don't believe exists (the best you can do is say the words, which is a far sight different from accepting).

So all those poor people who WANT to believe, and go through the motions, but sadly are cursed with critical faculties...are THEY gonna crisp like the Master on Sarn?

just a simple matter of belief and acceptance... which, frankly, without violating someone's free will and forcing something on them, is about as simply and easy to grasp and freely available as you can make something. :-)

Try reading the Old Testament. God wasn't always so keen on the whole 'free will' thing - he went seriously, genocially nuts whenever his 'Chosen People' politely announced that thanks very much, but they'd really rather worship this nice golden cow...

Well, truthfully, Emily, since I believe that the 'theoretical' story we're debating is literally a matter of life and death... I don't think I have got anything better to do! ;-)

Yeah, but I have. And whichever one of us is right (NB: that would be me) I have very few decades in which to fit in everything I want to do...

Here's hoping our disagreement won't be 'perpetual,'

Indeed. Maybe Matt Smith will be the one to lead you to the light...

but I'm afraid I don't quite understand the question. :-)

Sorry! Entirely my fault. I remembered doing a double-take over the beginning of Noah's Ark but I totally misremembered...it actually mentions the 'sons of God' going to Earth to mate with the 'daughters of men', which is WAY less interesting than I thought...but you can still explain God's multiple sons, if you want.

I think Emily means that men seem to have a bigger role in religion than women do. Well, considering that these writings are centuries old, and were written by men, that's not surprising.

Of course it's not surprising - to ME, who knows perfectly well that the Bible - and all those other religious books - were written by a bunch of MEN in a seriously male chauvinist age. To those who claim it's the Word of an Eternal and not-at-all-sexist-honestly God, it's another matter...

Today, some Feminists do refer to God as "She". Doesn't matter either way to me. If such a being does exist, and has the power to create an ENTIRE universe out of nothing, then it is logical to assume that said being could assume whatever form it chose, male OR female.

Look, I'm absolutely in favour of the Doc becoming a woman, but GOD...? That's just beyond the pale. The guy is the ultimate male chauvinist pig. If he'd had one shred of femaleness, he might have considered that 'Thou shalt not commit rape' would be a marginally more useful Commandment than 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's oxen'. And he CERTAINLY wouldn't have praised Lot as a righteous man. That's Lot who begged a crowd to gang-rape his young virgin daughters.

in terms of 'religion,' God's plan, and the way in which he sees us, I don't think there's any difference between the two.

Really? Cos I didn't notice God saying that if a priest's SON had pre-marital sex, he should be burnt alive.

Why is a woman 'unclean' for TWICE as long after bearing a daughter than after bearing a son?

Why - when God's giving charmingly specific instructions about how to sell your daughter as a slave - does he insist that 'she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are'?

'Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve.' - ringing any bells?

How about 'Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife'?

"*Glares* There are some PERFECTLY GOOD REVIEWS of the Interference books that can get you up to speed...and they are NOVELS not novelisations..." - Emily
Ack! And I knew that, too- novels, not novelizations- must've been more tired than I thought! As for the reviews... I'm still trying to wrap my head around the 25 years or so of TV that I'm not up on... ;-)

"Well, it kinda depends on the 'crime'. Eternal flames for Pol Pot: no problem! Eternal flames for people whose only crime is to accidentally fall in love with the Doctor/Mohammed/Odin or something instead of Baby Jesus...big, BIG problem. Cos such behaviour is not 'evil' by any sane definition of the word." -Emily
We're back to the worship-or-burn thing, are we? Let me put it this way- not a single person is going to Hell if they believe in Odin but have otherwise done absolutely nothing wrong in their life. :-) It's not about 'pick the right one or die'- it's more of 'there's only one of these that will actually offer you a way out for the other, non-religious-choice-related bad things you've already done.' If that makes sense...

"Really? Whatever happened to 'No one comes to the Father save through me'?
The Catholics (till it was abolished a few months ago) gave us Limbo for these little dead-baby moral dilemmas. What do YOU give us?" - Emily
I give you 2nd Samuel 12:18-23. Unless King David is saying he expects to go to Hell soon enough, the story clearly indicates that he will be reunited with his dead-a-few-days-after-birth child. I don't claim to be an expert on sin nature or the deep particulars of theology, but the gist of it is this: Through Jesus sacrifice, the way was paved to Heaven. If you'll use your free will to accept His offer of paying the price for your own sins, you'll be headed straight to Heaven- God created Heaven as the default place for all of his 'sentients' to go. It's merely that those of us who have sinned can use our free will to choose a different path- in essence, by not accepting Jesus' paying the price for our sins, we are holding onto the only method of going to Hell that we have- paying the price for our own actions ourselves. But for those incapable of comprehending the difference between right and wrong (like Adam and Eve before they ate the apple), there is no sin in need of yeilding to be paid for, and no need to accept the payment from their sins, as they haven't comitted any. And so they are bound to Heaven, the 'default afterlife,' if you will, which Jesus created the way to through His sacrifice.


"To get onto your particular God, however...WHO or WHAT set up this 'absolute system' before the Terminus anti-matter exploded He created the universe in six days flat?" - Emily
In essence, God did; the breakdown is a bit complicated, but it goes a little like this: God is absolute and unhanging, infinite, and perfect. (If there was any one of these that He WASN'T, He couldn't really be God, because there would be room for someone higher, now wouldn't there. :-) ) So, to reduce a whole lot of complex ideas to a simple summation- an absolute standard of right and wrong are, in essence, defined by God Himself's nature- right is more or less 'what He would do' and wrong is more or less 'what He wouldn't do.' (Again, to put it in really basic terms.) Since He is perfect, the list of rights/wrongs or would/wouldnt's is also perfect, not arbitrary or preferential. And since He is, by nature, unchanging, the system is also absolute and unchanging. Those are the basics. Again, if you want the nitty-gritty details, you'll have to ask someone a LOT smarter than me. :-)


"I wasn't saying her/him all the time out of some weird feminist sensibility, y'know - I M Foreman was male in most of his thirteen incarnations, but when he met the Doc he happened to be inhabiting (someone else's) female body." - Emily
Ah. I made the assumption based on previous info I'd overread connecting Foreman to the Unearthly Child junkyard... at which time he/she was a he, I believe?

"Frankly, he should have thought of that before. Even WITHOUT the benefit of omniscience." - Emily
I don't think that the idea hadn't ocurred before. :-) According to the Bible, Jesus is known as the Lamb Who Was Slain Before the Foundations of the Earth. In other words, God knew everything that was going to happen and made provisions for it before He even started the Universe in motion. Which is another reason why I do believe that there was a salvation mechanism in place for pre-Jesus peoples too, even if I don't know how it works. :-)

"Not that I expect YOUR God to be up to the Doctor's standards, of course, but if he was utterly incapable of fighting the grotesquely cruel system, he oughtn't to have brought life into it - when he knew it had a 99.99% chance of suffering for eternity." - Emily
See the absolute right/wrong system above. When right and wrong are based on a perfect system and an unchanging origin, it's not like they can or should be changed; and when there's an absolute 100% escape clause that is dependent on the individual only saying yes and NOT holding onto paying the price for their own actions, it's not like you can claim an unfair or cruel system. :-) There's not a single life that He brought into it that HAD to go to Hell- and not a single one, including you or me, has to today. It's only if we make the choice not to accept a free pardon- sing the free will that makes us the thinking, sentient beings that we are- and actively choose to hold on to 'paying our own price, thankyouverymuch!' that we could possibly end up there. That doesn't sound like a 99.99% chance of ending up there to me.

"But you don't care if people choose 'good' - a Protestant genocidal maniac would get to heaven, a philanthropic peace-maker who happened to be atheist or Muslim would fry..." - Emily
Choosing good isn't enough to be good. It only takes one drop of cyanide in a jar of water for that watter to be poisoned, even if there are a million drops of water in it. It only takes one imperfection in a million-piece machine for it to be imperfect. And it only takes one sin to be sinful. Sin is sin- 'a sin' is sin, and 'a million sins' is sin. So it really doesn't matter if you choose one bad thing or one million; if the consequence of wrongdoing is death, and only one wrongdoing is still 'doing wrong,' then it doesn't matter how many 'good things' you choose alongside it- right and wrong isn't a scale weighed against each other.

"So...are all Catholics gonna burn in hell or not?" - Emily
No, not at all. But some of the 'extras' introduced extra-biblically into the doctrine... make conversations like this one more difficult. Not only do I have to defend the facts of what the Bible actually says, I have to deal with the misconceptions someone in the church made up, too. Hence the palm-to-forehead. ;-) So long as they believe and accept Christ's sacrifice, the rest doesn't matter; after all, if it was required that everyone also believed completely and exclusively only the right and true things... then no one could get into Heaven! :-) We all have our nutty beliefs; myself included, I'm sure. But as long as we believe and accept the one that matters, the rest aren't going to count against us. :-)

"Anyway, what happened to 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all they heart' or whatever it was?" - Emily
Well, again... if you're loving another 'god' then you're probably not really believing in God, and thus not really accepting anything; so in that way, yeah, it's pretty important. :-) But while the Ten Commandments makes it clear that loving a false god is a sin, it's not an unpardonable one... it will just serve as a major impedement to the individual when it comes to believing and accepting the only thing that can pardon their sins... and thus is forbidden.

"So all those poor people who WANT to believe, and go through the motions, but sadly are cursed with critical faculties...are THEY gonna crisp like the Master on Sarn?" - Emily
If the desire is genuine, I think God will probably work it out. I think it depends on exactly what you mean by 'want to believe.' In the end, if they decide they really don't believe it, though... then what are they accepting? The motions don't really mean anything; again, 'doing good' can't save anyone. It's really, truly accepting- not the 'actions' of accepting, but really accepting it- that counts. And after all, one could say that's the point of faith- believing in something despite not understanding it fully in the 'critical faculties.' :-) Just plain disbelieving it, on the other hand...


"God wasn't always so keen on the whole 'free will' thing - he went seriously, genocially nuts whenever his 'Chosen People' politely announced that thanks very much, but they'd really rather worship this nice golden cow..." - Emily
Not at all. They used their free will, made a choice, and recieved the consequences of it freely. Just because God will not take away their right to choose does not mean that all choices are unpunishable.


"Yeah, but I have. And whichever one of us is right (NB: that would be me) I have very few decades in which to fit in everything I want to do..." - Emily
Fair enough; I'm not forcing you to stay. Just saying I'll be around whenever you want to discus it.
By the by... "NB?" I've seen you use the acronym a few times, but I'm not familliar with it...?


"but you can still explain God's multiple sons, if you want." - Emily
I'll check it out, but I'm pretty sure that's just a translation thing; we are all called the children of God, but sometimes the nuance between the 'sons and daughters of God' (lowercase plural) and 'Son of God' (capitalized singular) get lost in this clumsy language of ours. :-)


"Allow me to break the news that 'Worship me or fry' does not constitute non-interference." - Emily
Yes, but again- as stated numerously above- this worship-me-or-fry is part of your scenario, not a part of what God is actually saying. Read my lips- errr... text, I guess... which you are, regardless... hmmm... that saying loses a little something on the internet, doesn't it? :-) Hear what I'm saying, then (yes, I know... metaphorically speaking)- it's not about worship. It's about accepting or non-accepting of a freely offered gift. Worship is not one of the issues. And it's not 'do this or die,' it's 'you're dying, but I don't want you to- say yes, and I'll save you from it.' Big difference- your scenario is "Do this, or death comes from me!" The reality is "Death comes from your own choices... but let me, and I'll prevent it!"

I guarantee you this- God is not saying to you in any way, shape, or form "Emily, worship me or die!!!" He is saying "Emily, the path you're on leads to terrible things; I love you dearly as My daughter and I don't want that for you- if you will let Me, I will take you off of it, right this second! Please, say yes!" God will not, cannot force it on you; He has promised you free will as a condition of your existence and He won't violate it, whether you use it to choose good or evil; that is the non-interference He has promised, and it is not in His nature to be a liar or break His promises- but He is begging you to use that free will to accept what He is offering. There's no threat, no 'Love me or ELSE!!!' There's just a freely offered gift and a God who loves you, imploring you to take it.

So all those poor people who WANT to believe, and go through the motions, but sadly are cursed with critical faculties...are THEY gonna crisp like the Master on Sarn?

Yep, that's me. Hell-baby. Except I don't even go through the motions.

Let me put it this way- not a single person is going to Hell if they believe in Odin but have otherwise done absolutely nothing wrong in their life.

I don't know what version of the Bible you've been reading, but it sure isn't one I've seen. I was under the impression it spends several hundred pages saying exactly the opposite.

Yes, but again- as stated numerously above- this worship-me-or-fry is part of your scenario, not a part of what God is actually saying.

Andrew, it doesn't matter how many times you state otherwise, but that's exactly what the Bible says. Believe in me or go to hell. There's no room for reinterpretation or side-stepping the issue.

Now if it said believe in me and I'll give you eternal life, that would be okay, because those who choose not to believe would simply die. No problem. It's the stick part of God's carrot and stick approach that I object to.

Let's not forget that it's not God that wrote the Bible (or the Torah, or the Koran, or any of them), rather it was humans. Humans who, to push their own agendas, put their own spin on the writings. Truth is we just don't know how God, if such a being exists, truly operates. To assign human values to this is totally crazy, we're talking about a being totally beyond our comprehension. It's all guesswork, folks, that's all we have.

Anyway, Who is not the only sc-fi series to dabble with this. the excellent, and sadly underappreciated, Space: 1999 also explored the idea of a higher power, a cosmic intelligence. You got the impression that the destiny of the denizens of Moonbase Alpha was not entirely their own, something seemed to be watching over them, guiding them to some unknown destiny. Several excellent Season One episodes, such as The Black Sun, Collision Course, and Testimate of Arkadia tied in with this idea very nicely. If you've never seen 1999, check it out.

"Let me put it this way- not a single person is going to Hell if they believe in Odin but have otherwise done absolutely nothing wrong in their life. - Zarm

I don't know what version of the Bible you've been reading, but it sure isn't one I've seen. I was under the impression it spends several hundred pages saying exactly the opposite." - Mandy
You're right, that was a poor way of phrasing it, since worshiping other Gods happens to be a sin as well, so it IS one of those 'wrong things.' Perhaps I should have put it this way:
Choosing to believe in another god is not going to send you to Hell because of a worship-or-burn scenario. The only reason that it is a sure path to Hell is because it is exclusive and opposite of accepting the freely offered salvation. It is just one among many sins- the same as lying, stealing, or killing- any one of which is a sin, the consequences of which are dead. It just so happens that this particular sin also happens to be one that puts you at direct odds with the one and only way of being SAVED from all sins, which is part (though not all) of why it is so strongly and so fervently prohibited.

Kind of like a person who's been poisoned and is standing before a table full of beakers; if one has the antidote and the rest of them don't, drinking only the wrong beaker is going to result in your death. Not because it killed you, but because in choosing it and not the antidote, you caused yourself to miss the chance for the one thing that would save you- because you were too busy drinking the one that couldn't help you, you didn't get to the antidote in time.


"Andrew, it doesn't matter how many times you state otherwise, but that's exactly what the Bible says. Believe in me or go to hell. There's no room for reinterpretation or side-stepping the issue." - Mandy
Where? I'm sorry, I know that is the popular image for people who don't like the Bible... but it is not supported within the scriptures themselves. What I've just explained is.


"It's the stick part of God's carrot and stick approach that I object to." - Mandy
There is no stick! That's like saying that someone trying to throw you a life preserver when you're drowning is using the river as a stick! The fact of the matter is this: Hell was created for Satan; it was never made as a 'stick' for us. But if we choose to do wrong (sin) and we choose not to accept the free pardon from it (Jesus' freely offered salvation) we can go there. Not by God dangling a do-this-or-else proposition in front of us, but because we've CHOSEN to do so.

Again, as stated above, God does NOT send people to Hell- people send people to Hell- because every action that can land them there and every refusal of a free way out are freely made choices of the individual. It can't be the carrot-and-the-stick routine when He's the one offering the carrot and we're the ones beating ourselves with a stick. :-)

Now, I understand that it's a popular preconception that God is saying worship-me-or-die; but I ask you where in the book you can actually find that. Chapters. Verses. Where is this said? I can give you the chapters and verses for my assertions.

God is not threatening you- God loves you. God WANTS to take you away from Hell, He wants you to go to Heaven, which He has prepared for ALL people. But you, with your freedom of choice, can say 'no.' That is the only way to go to Hell- not God sending you there, but you choosing to refuse His offer to save you from the consequences of your own actions.

Emily and Amanda,

You don't understand. Eternal torture is a natural consequence of sin and God had NOTHING whatsoever to do with it and he CAN'T change it. Just like he has nothing to do with...um...no, wait...just like he can't...uh... Well, anyway, God's omnipotence is just a nasty rumor :-)

Cute.

Eternal torture is for Satan; and he deserves it, plain and simple. If people make the choice to hitch a ride on his wagon, that's not God's fault, especially when He is doing everything possible to save them from it.

Yes, there are things that God 'can't' do, as semantic functions of the English language. For example, if God is omniscient and knows all, that He 'can't' not know something. Does that- the inability to be ignorant- constitute a limit to God' omnipotence and thus a contradiction? Umm... no. God cannot be the opposite of Himself. He is perfect and unchanging, and thus there are things that can't be changed- not because He doesn't have the power, but because by His nature He doesn't contradict himself. This isn't a limitation, it's a function of reality. The 'can't's aren't limitations, they're functions of the language.

So, yes, there is a torturous punishment for Sin, as created for Satan. And yes, as a part of our freedom of choice we can choose to share in it. And yes, it's not going to change because God is carrying out His justice (in punishing the actions of the Devil) and His promise (in giving us our Free Will, without exceptions), and those two intersect in our ability to go to Hell. And God 'can't' change that because He doesn't break His promises nor does He forsake His justice. It would be contrary to His own nature; in essence, a living paradox. Is that a limit to His omnipotence- not contradicting His own unchanging and perfect nature? Somehow, I think not.

Where? I'm sorry, I know that is the popular image for people who don't like the Bible... but it is not supported within the scriptures themselves.

Oh dear, that would require proper research, which I'm too lazy to do (which is in itself a sin). I'm not sure there is a passage that says that specifically; I was referring to the Bible's overall message.

However, using your previous interpretations, the universe seems to go something like this:

- God creates a universe with an apparent default setting of hell for everyone who sins, which is completely unavoidable if you want to keep breathing. (In fact, it's also a sin even if you decide to stop breathing so no escape there.)
- God decides this isn't fair and sets up a path to heaven through a belief in him and that weird Jesus-sacrifice thing (which never did make any sense to me).
- Everyone who doesn't believe stays on their original hell-bound trajectory.

Looks like a pretty big stick to me.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the 25 years or so of TV that I'm not up on... ;-)

That's actually...a very good excuse. Mind you, when you get up to the Colin Baker era...it might be time to explore some of those novels instead. Or even the audios. Or comic strips. Or self-mutilation...

Unless King David is saying he expects to go to Hell soon enough, the story clearly indicates that he will be reunited with his dead-a-few-days-after-birth child.

Exactly. That's what David EXPECTS, but what does that particular sleazebag know about anything? (He's got, what, 600 wives and he STILL murders a man in order to steal his wife!) He probably thinks that God is feeling so guilty about MURDERING A POOR INNOCENT BABY FOR THE SINS OF ITS PARENTS that said baby will go to heaven, go directly to heaven, do not pass 'Go'...but WE all know that God doesn't feel guilty for murdering babies for the sins of their parents. He BOASTS about it.

I don't claim to be an expert on sin nature or the deep particulars of theology

Sunshine, if you're enough of an expert to tell ME I'm heading for Pyrovilia, I expect you to pass judgement on everyone else too.

Through Jesus sacrifice, the way was paved to Heaven.

That was MY point. I.e. that Baby Jesus hadn't even been born in King David's day.

But for those incapable of comprehending the difference between right and wrong (like Adam and Eve before they ate the apple), there is no sin in need of yeilding to be paid for, and no need to accept the payment from their sins, as they haven't comitted any. And so they are bound to Heaven

So what's the cut-off age? And wouldn't it make logical sense for you to pull a King Herod on ALL babies of non-Christian parentage - you'd be doing 'em a favour, they'd be BOUND to burn if you let them grow up a bit...

"WHO or WHAT set up this 'absolute system' before the Terminus anti-matter exploded He created the universe in six days flat?"

In essence, God did

GOTCHA!

You have always maintained that the whole worship-me-or-fry thing was totally not God's fault - He couldn't help it, it was just the nasty system that meant 'Humanity = evil = Burn, Baby, Burn'. NOW you're admitting that your ever-loving God set up the system?!

God is absolute and unhanging, infinite, and perfect. (If there was any one of these that He WASN'T, He couldn't really be God, because there would be room for someone higher, now wouldn't there. :-) )

Don't be ridiculous. The Doctor manages to be a Lonely God without being absolute, infinite, perfect OR, er, unhanging. He's even technically got superiors, though they generally give him a ring whenever they need someone to do the tricky stuff (the Brigadier, the White Guardian and, before he accidentally offed them all, the Time Lord High Council).

an absolute standard of right and wrong are, in essence, defined by God Himself's nature- right is more or less 'what He would do' and wrong is more or less 'what He wouldn't do.'

Blimey. He sounds just like me.

Except that I wouldn't take MY version of right and wrong QUITE so far as to throw all Star Trek fans into eternal hell (frankly I feel they're being punished quite enough already).

Since He is perfect, the list of rights/wrongs or would/wouldnt's is also perfect, not arbitrary or preferential. And since He is, by nature, unchanging, the system is also absolute and unchanging.

Er...except that the Old Testament has a very, very long list of wrongs, nay, abominations straight from the horse's mouth that include eating shellfish and wearing clothes made from more than one type of thread.

Then Jesus merrily announces 'Hey, just kidding guys, tuck into that lobster!'

According to the Bible, Jesus is known as the Lamb Who Was Slain Before the Foundations of the Earth.

Surely Scaroth of the Jaggeroth would be a more appropriate sacrificial Lamb Who Was Slain - oh, never mind.

In other words, God knew everything that was going to happen and made provisions for it before He even started the Universe in motion.

Of course he did. He created a universe destined to have a damned-for-eternity Emily in it billions (um...you probably think it's thousands?) of years before I was even conceived. What a git.

So is God just a puppet? Being omniscient, he knows, like the Doctor in Fires of Pompeii and Parting of the Ways (if nowhere else) 'What is, what was, what could be, what must not'...Except that for the Doc SOME bits of history are in flux. Not for God, presumably. So if he KNOWS what must happen, he can't CHANGE it. So much for omnipotence.

Actually...that's what Waters of Mars was all about, wasn't it? The Doctor deciding to screw his near-omniscience in favour of his near-omnipotence. Didn't go well.

Which is another reason why I do believe that there was a salvation mechanism in place for pre-Jesus peoples too, even if I don't know how it works.

Well, you can guess what my problem is. Had I been born pre-Jesus my moderately blameless lifestyle would almost certainly have ended in haloes-and-harps. Now, just cos Jesus wanted a McGann-style crown of thorns, I get to re-enact The Satan Pit. Forever.

When right and wrong are based on a perfect system and an unchanging origin, it's not like they can or should be changed

You see, SANE people DO change their system when said system is not working very well. Billions of souls lost to hellfire-and-damnation is a fairly clear indication that something isn't working.

and when there's an absolute 100% escape clause that is dependent on the individual only saying yes and NOT holding onto paying the price for their own actions, it's not like you can claim an unfair or cruel system. :-)

Er...yes, actually I CAN claim that torture is cruel. Even George W Bush didn't try to claim that torture wasn't cruel, just that waterboarding didn't count as torture...

There's not a single life that He brought into it that HAD to go to Hell

Actually there isn't a soul who went to hell who DIDN'T 'have' to go there. See above re God's omniscience. (NB: You are SO not gonna solve THAT one. Even Calvin just claimed it was 'God's mystery' and he wasn't exactly noted for wimping out of the big questions.)

It's only if we make the choice not to accept a free pardon- sing the free will that makes us the thinking, sentient beings that we are- and actively choose to hold on to 'paying our own price, thankyouverymuch!' that we could possibly end up there.

What you don't get is that it isn't a choice with me. You're telling me 'Follow Jesus or you'll burn'. A Muslim told me 'Follow Mohammed or you'll burn'. My brains, instincts, emotions, common sense, principles, knowledge of science and history...everything is telling me you're BOTH utterly deluded. But even if I was so scared of hell I was prepared to TRY to start god-bothering...how am I to know which way to jump? There are THOUSANDS of religions out there, most of them proclaiming that they alone are the One True Way...

Choosing good isn't enough to be good. It only takes one drop of cyanide in a jar of water for that watter to be poisoned, even if there are a million drops of water in it. It only takes one imperfection in a million-piece machine for it to be imperfect. And it only takes one sin to be sinful. Sin is sin- 'a sin' is sin, and 'a million sins' is sin. So it really doesn't matter if you choose one bad thing or one million; if the consequence of wrongdoing is death, and only one wrongdoing is still 'doing wrong,' then it doesn't matter how many 'good things' you choose alongside it- right and wrong isn't a scale weighed against each other.

And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfect encapsulation of why I'll never be a god-botherer. Cos in MY eyes, nicking a biro from work will never be as great a sin as gassing six million Jews.

if you're loving another 'god' then you're probably not really believing in God

Course you are! Heard of polytheism?

But while the Ten Commandments makes it clear that loving a false god is a sin, it's not an unpardonable one...

Yeah, God was remarkably lax on that one, wasn't he? It was all about 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me' rather than 'None at all' (so technically speaking I could have your God AND the Doctor, but, let's face it, the Doc would always come first so I'd STILL fry).

I think it depends on exactly what you mean by 'want to believe.' In the end, if they decide they really don't believe it, though... then what are they accepting?

They may not 'decide' they really don't believe. They may be passionate god-botherers who happened to be on a mission to Rwanda in '94. Unless they're devoid of all humanity, they're gonna react pretty badly at having the old 'If God's omnipotent, he's not benevolent; if he's benevolent, he's not omnipotent' dilemma rubbed quite so drastically in their faces. Whereupon they may get run over by a bus before they've worked through all their issues, i.e. succeeded in re-brainwashing themselves.

It's just so bloody SILLY for eternal fate to depend on a few brief decades - or even years - on Earth. Even TennantDoc's always giving people (and Sontarans) second chances, after SPECIFICALLY claiming he didn't do so. Yeah, yeah, I know you're saying Jesus is giving me loads of chances, but why only when I'm on this particular planet? What if, after a thousand years of bubbling in Lucifer's cauldron, I swallow my pride and yelp 'Andrew was right after all! (Blimey who'd've thought it?) Jesus take me for a sunbeam! Kum by Yah, My Lord, Kum By Yah!'

Bet I don't get a second chance THEN.

'doing good' can't save anyone.

That's where the cannibalistic old Catholics have the edge over you. They get brownie points for fitting in a few good works between all those sprogs. Whereas YOUR God judges people like Orwell's Big Brother does, i.e. on Thoughtcrime.

And after all, one could say that's the point of faith- believing in something despite not understanding it fully in the 'critical faculties.' :-)

Ah yes. 'Faith is believing what you know ain't so' as Mark Twain put it.

"he went seriously, genocially nuts whenever his 'Chosen People' politely announced that thanks very much, but they'd really rather worship this nice golden cow..."

Not at all. They used their free will, made a choice, and recieved the consequences of it freely. Just because God will not take away their right to choose does not mean that all choices are unpunishable.

Sorry, but isn't eternal hellfire ENOUGH punishment? Why did Lord 'Adolf' Yaweh decide to exterminate ALL the Israelites? Sure, after much grovelling from Moses he relented - they got off with merely 3,000 people put to the sword, plus a plague.

And you want me to LOVE this guy?

I mean, I have an embarrassingly soft spot for the Master...Scaroth...Yartek Leader of the Alien Voord...Cassandra...but THIS level of evil is just a leetle beyond my forgiveness.

I'm not forcing you to stay. Just saying I'll be around whenever you want to discus it.

I don't WANT to discuss it! I'm just unfortunately unable to let you have the last word...

"NB?" I've seen you use the acronym a few times, but I'm not familliar with it...?

'Nota Bene' or something. Note well.

I see you've quietly avoided responding to any of my quotations vis-a-vis sexual equality in the Bible...

Yep, that's me. Hell-baby.

As Captain Jack says...'See you in hell.' (Except that he's the one person we WON'T see in hell. It'll presumably be the Face of Boe instead.)

Let's not forget that it's not God that wrote the Bible (or the Torah, or the Koran, or any of them)

Well, obviously not. God doesn't exist.

Anyway, Who is not the only sc-fi series to dabble with this.

Who DOESN'T dabble with this. Who steers WELL clear (gods are ALWAYS aliens), aside from one pathetic line in Satan Pit that implies the Doc's some pathetic agnostic. As if! (Obviously I'm ignoring Ghosts of N-Space, Deadly Reunion and Camera Obscura here, as is my right since the new series utterly decanonised them.) Alright, so Torchwood gets itself into a bit of a muddle while claiming there's no afterlife...(I mean, how did THAT happen?! THERE'S NO AFTERLIFE! Simple!)

Kind of like a person who's been poisoned and is standing before a table full of beakers; if one has the antidote and the rest of them don't, drinking only the wrong beaker is going to result in your death. Not because it killed you, but because in choosing it and not the antidote, you caused yourself to miss the chance for the one thing that would save you- because you were too busy drinking the one that couldn't help you, you didn't get to the antidote in time.

Nice analogy, ruined only by the fact that you've admitted God set up the system - i.e. GOD POISONED THE ******* BEAKERS!!!!

The fact of the matter is this: Hell was created for Satan; it was never made as a 'stick' for us.

Why does Satan get special treatment? I want my own hell, then. Roundels not flames, please.

God is not threatening you- God loves you. God WANTS to take you away from Hell, He wants you to go to Heaven

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure my sizzling flesh will hurt him more than it does me...

You don't understand. Eternal torture is a natural consequence of sin and God had NOTHING whatsoever to do with it and he CAN'T change it. Just like he has nothing to do with...um...no, wait...just like he can't...uh... Well, anyway, God's omnipotence is just a nasty rumor :-)



Eternal torture is for Satan; and he deserves it, plain and simple. If people make the choice to hitch a ride on his wagon, that's not God's fault

I'll have you know I haven't made the choice to hitch a ride on Satan's wagon (if Satan had a TARDIS, it would be a different matter, of course). The only people who have are either a) Satanists, or b) Angels. (Didn't, like, half of heaven rise up against God under Lucifer's leadership or something? I'm pretty ignorant of the whole business, but it sounds suspiciously like a democracy revolution that got crushed.)

He doesn't break His promises nor does He forsake His justice.

Didn't Jesus promise that the Kingdom of God would arrive on Earth during the lifetime of some of those listening to him? Either THAT'S a broken promise or there must be some SERIOUSLY elderly Palestinians about the place.

And if accepting innocent blood in return for someone else's crime isn't forsaking justice, I don't know what is.

God creates a universe with an apparent default setting of hell for everyone who sins, which is completely unavoidable if you want to keep breathing. (In fact, it's also a sin even if you decide to stop breathing so no escape there.)

Yeah - what the hell IS it with the Christian suicide-phobia? You'd think God would be FLATTERED if you wanted to join him a bit early...

I'm not forcing you to stay. Just saying I'll be around whenever you want to discus it.

I don't WANT to discuss it! I'm just unfortunately unable to let you have the last word...

Oh, please. I can hear the hollow ring from here. You let him have the last word for 5 months before finally snapping. And let's face it; there's nothing easier to nitpick that the Bible!

Space: 1999 also explored the idea of a higher power, a cosmic intelligence.

Did it? I found the series a bit lame at the time so didn't pay much attention. I think I was probably a bit too young for it.

Just one thing:

So God can't change what he already set in motion, fine. I might buy that. But he is the one who sentenced all of us to eternal torture TO BEGIN WITH. Why should he be praised for it just because he offered a way out? Would you accept that excuse from a human being? "Well, yes, I did threaten to torture those people, and I carried out my promise. They should have avoided it. Since they didn't, I wash my hands of the matter. Not guilty, your honor."

Mandy and I:

Space: 1999 also explored the idea of a higher power, a cosmic intelligence.

Did it? I found the series a bit lame at the time so didn't pay much attention. I think I was probably a bit too young for it.


This was the first season of 1999 that explored this idea. In one episode, the Black Sun, the Moon is sucked into a black hole (called a black sun in this episode). While inside, John Koenig and Victor Bergman (Martin Landau and Barry Morse) commune with some cosmic intelligence. It seems that the universe is a vast living mind, all the stars are but cells. It is hinted that this intelligence is the one protecting and guiding the Moon on its journey.

Well, if the universe is indeed a vast sentient mind, I suppose that could be construded as God. Of course, this being would not be the one in the Christian Bible, rather the Bible (and all the other major religious texts) are just that particular religions idea of a being that they cannot comprehend.

You let him have the last word for 5 months before finally snapping.

Actually I was frantically busy that week and then just forgot all about it. When I remembered, it was sadly few days of arguing with my common sense before I snapped.

And let's face it; there's nothing easier to nitpick that the Bible!

Yeah, OK, the words 'fish' and 'barrel' kinda spring to mind (or 'slimebait' and 'speelfox') The fun bit is seeing how many mentions of Who you can sneak in.

Okay, right now, I'm seeing a conversation that goes like this:
"God says worship me or burn!"
"No, actually, God says 'you're setting yourself on fire, let me help.' It's not about worship. And it's not something He's doing, so..."
"Yeah, but God says worship me or burn!"
"No, see, that's not what's going on at all... God is not threatening to burn anybody, it's the consequences of their own actions..."
"But you're wrong, because God says worship me or burn!"
"Where does it actually say that? God is the one offering you the way out..."
"No, God says worship me or burn!"

In other words... a fairly pointless one. So I'll make you a deal. I'll stop trying to counter repeated, unsupported insistences of 'God is ordering worship or else death'- but I'm also going to ignore that they were even said until someone can actually drum up an evidence-based case on why this is so, and not just a straw-man 'This is what some people told me, so I believe it's true' assertion. Okay? :-) Unless you want me to continue going 'round in circles, in which case I'll happily respond to every instance. :-)


"- God creates a universe with an apparent default setting of hell for everyone who sins, which is completely unavoidable if you want to keep breathing. (In fact, it's also a sin even if you decide to stop breathing so no escape there.)
- God decides this isn't fair and sets up a path to heaven through a belief in him and that weird Jesus-sacrifice thing (which never did make any sense to me).
- Everyone who doesn't believe stays on their original hell-bound trajectory." - Mandy

Not quite. A little more like this:
-God creates a universe with a default setting of heaven on Earth. He also creates a race of humans capable of free-thinking, sentient behavior. Then, humans use that free thinking, sentient behavior to choose to do wrong. The punishment for sin is indeed Hell. God did not create that as the default; humans made- and make- the choice to re-route their trajectory there.
-God knows that this is right and just; and the proper punishment for sins- but He loves His creations so much that even though they've chosen their own fate, He still wants to help them. So, He sacrifices His own Son so that the Son can take that proper punishment on Himself. Now, even though the punishment for sin is Hell, not a single person ever has to pay it, because it's been paid for them.
-Because of that free-thinking, sentient ability, an inviolable Free Will, everyone has the choice whether they will actually ACCEPT that paid-for-them gift- the very ability to choose that makes them capable of being free thinking (and not robots to God's will) allows them to choose to hold on to paying for their own sins instead of allowing Jesus to pay for them Himself, and anyone that CHOOSES that is still on the path to Hell which they, themselves, set themselves on by their sinful actions.

"Exactly. That's what David EXPECTS, but what does that particular sleazebag know about anything? (He's got, what, 600 wives and he STILL murders a man in order to steal his wife!) He probably thinks that God is feeling so guilty about MURDERING A POOR INNOCENT BABY FOR THE SINS OF ITS PARENTS that said baby will go to heaven, go directly to heaven, do not pass 'Go'...but WE all know that God doesn't feel guilty for murdering babies for the sins of their parents. He BOASTS about it."
"So what's the cut-off age? And wouldn't it make logical sense for you to pull a King Herod on ALL babies of non-Christian parentage - you'd be doing 'em a favour, they'd be BOUND to burn if you let them grow up a bit..." - Emily
I'll respond to one or the other, not to both. Either the baby was cruelly murdered, or the baby was better off. Can't have it both ways. :-)
As for the cut-off, I don't think it's an age; it's whatever moment each person becomes capable of understanding the difference between right and wrong and chooses to do wrong. That's the same point at which Adam and Eve were held accountable for their sin; at the moment they became aware of the difference between right and wrong. Before that, they were completely innocent, as the babies, or, for example, anyone too brain-damaged to understand the difference, would be.

"Sunshine, if you're enough of an expert to tell ME I'm heading for Pyrovilia, I expect you to pass judgement on everyone else too." - Emily
I'm not trying to pass judgment on anyone, Emily, you included- I'm just telling you what the Bible says; those standards predate me just a teensy bit; they're not my judgments. :-) And you know, I was headed straight for Pyrovilia too. Still would be- still DESERVE to be- but for the fact that Jesus did pay for my sins, and I accepted that- I let Him.

"Through Jesus sacrifice, the way was paved to Heaven.
That was MY point. I.e. that Baby Jesus hadn't even been born in King David's day." - Emily
True; but I don't think that temporal constraints are necessarily an issue; remember the whole 'Lamb Who was Slain Before the Foundations of the Earth' bit? As you've pointed out, what kind of God would He be if He didn't transcend time and space? :-)

"You have always maintained that the whole worship-me-or-fry thing was totally not God's fault - He couldn't help it, it was just the nasty system that meant 'Humanity = evil = Burn, Baby, Burn'. NOW you're admitting that your ever-loving God set up the system?!" - Emily
Look a little closer. the system was created by God, but also based upon God in an absolute and unchanging system. So, no, it wasn't just arbitrarily set up. Even then, it's not that God couldn't help it, it's that He wouldn't change it, because it is based upon the perfect system, and also based upon an unchanging nature. There's no reason- save that WE don't like it sometimes- to change it. But again... it's not like He said "Well, tough." He came into a limited human body (His own personal chameleon arch, if you will) and DIED to create a method to circumvent the rightful consequences of the system. Is that not enough of a Time Lord victorious cheat-the-universe-on-your-behalf for you? ;-)
And no, the system isn't 'Humanity = evil = Burn, Baby, Burn'. It's simple enough - Evil = Evil = 'Burn, Baby, Burn.' It's giving God just a little too much blame and letting oneself off the hook too easy to ignore the part of the equation that says 'Human is innocent = No Burn.' In other words... Human doesn't = evil... Human CHOOSES evil. There wouldn't be any danger of burning unless we did evil things. That's not God's fault; that's ours.

"an absolute standard of right and wrong are, in essence, defined by God Himself's nature- right is more or less 'what He would do' and wrong is more or less 'what He wouldn't do.'
Blimey. He sounds just like me. Except that I wouldn't take MY version of right and wrong QUITE so far as to throw all Star Trek fans into eternal hell (frankly I feel they're being punished quite enough already)." - Emily
Well, since He is both perfect and omnipotent, I'd think His basis would be a little more fair in that regard, anyhow. :-) However, as a Trekkie, I appreciate your forbearance.

"Er...except that the Old Testament has a very, very long list of wrongs, nay, abominations straight from the horse's mouth that include eating shellfish and wearing clothes made from more than one type of thread.
Then Jesus merrily announces 'Hey, just kidding guys, tuck into that lobster!'" - Emily
True, the Law given the Isrealites did change, because, let's face it, the Son of God coming down to earth and dying for all sins does change the way things work just a little bit. However, that's not an inconsistency. Those laws were designed for the Isrealites at that stage in their development, in an early world that was still taking shape.
Let me put it this way: When your kid is 4, driving the car is wrong. That's the law. When your kid is 16 (at least here in the US) and has a license, driving the car is allowed. The law is still the same, it has not changed, but the circumstances in which it applies are different because the circumstances surrounding your kid have changed. It's not inconsistent, because the law didn't go anywhere- instead, the circumstances changes, and the law applied in a different way. Taking the car out for a spin wasn't forbidden anymore. :-)

"Of course he did. He created a universe destined to have a damned-for-eternity Emily in it billions (um...you probably think it's thousands?) of years before I was even conceived. What a git." - Emily
Now now now... you're not listening. :-) Didn't I just get through telling you all about this catch-22 of Free Will? You are not 'destined' for anything, Emily. That's God's great gift to you- no part of your life is a 'fixed point in time.' Your future-webpage-bio isn't written yet; you have the ability to choose anything. And hey... not to sound like a git myself, but... He's sent you me, hasn't He? :-) Now, admittedly, that's probably the unfair part- sending such a flaky, absurd, given-to-preposterous-analogies representative as me... :-) but nonetheless, He's not only given you the choice, but He's also sent at least one person your way to tell you you have the choice (Hopefully more than just me; a dope like me serving as the linchpin for someone's eternal; future... not THAT would be unfair! ;-) ). So not only are you not destined... I'd say that God's giving you everything you need to make sure that whatever destiny you choose for yourself, it's an informed choice. :-)

"So is God just a puppet? Being omniscient, he knows, like the Doctor in Fires of Pompeii and Parting of the Ways (if nowhere else) 'What is, what was, what could be, what must not'...Except that for the Doc SOME bits of history are in flux. Not for God, presumably. So if he KNOWS what must happen, he can't CHANGE it. So much for omnipotence." - Emily
No, there's a difference. God KNOWS what's going to happens, yes- but it's not that He CAN'T change it, it's that He has promised not to. A vow of noninterference, if you will- but unlike the stodgy old Time Lord's and their noninterference beliefs, His is based specifically on allowing every single individual to make their own decisions and live by their consequences- a principle of respecting their freedom of choice, not of being too lazy or too 'superior' to interfere.
In addition to that, God will not interfere with anyone's Free Will; He will not prevent them from making a choice and living with it's consequences. That doesn't not mean He is bound from, or chooses not to, provide those consequences and intervene in events. Just because He will not force a thought into your head or control your decision-making process doesn't mean that He won't still part the Red Sea; that's not a matter of changing anyone's will.

"Which is another reason why I do believe that there was a salvation mechanism in place for pre-Jesus peoples too, even if I don't know how it works.
Well, you can guess what my problem is. Had I been born pre-Jesus my moderately blameless lifestyle would almost certainly have ended in haloes-and-harps. Now, just cos Jesus wanted a McGann-style crown of thorns, I get to re-enact The Satan Pit. Forever." - Emily
I never said the mechanism was a vacuum, just sucking up everyone until Jesus came along and made it an either/or arrangement. I said 'have no idea how it works.' One thing I'm equally sure of is that God did not make things HARDER by coming down and dying on the cross; that was not a pleasant experience, and He did it because He loved His creations and wanted them to be saved more easily- I am sure He would not have come down and been beaten, whipped, suffocated, mocked, and had a spear shoved through His heart, VOLUNTARILY, if it would have screwed people out of a salvation.

"You see, SANE people DO change their system when said system is not working very well. Billions of souls lost to hellfire-and-damnation is a fairly clear indication that something isn't working." - Emily
It's working perfectly; it's the people who are defective.
What would you change? Make right and wrong no longer right and wrong (even though they're absolute and unchanging)? Take away people's Free Will (and thus break a binding promise to them) so that you can force Heaven on them, but also turn them into mind-controlled zombies who can no longer think for themselves?
It seems harsh because, frankly, we don't like the idea that if we do evil, it is right and just for us to be punished. And it seems like an unfair system because we don't want to accept the notion that it's our own choices that land us there, and we are accountable for actually making the choice as to whether we'll be saved or not. And it seems cruel because people end up in a place of torture even though it's because they refused to make a simple choice otherwise. It doesn't feel 'nice.' It's a harsh reality. But it's also not unfair in the slightest; God did not create evil. We did. God did not cause us to do evil. We did. God does not prevent us from being saved from evil. We do. God does not bar us from accepting his freely offered mechanism to get away from evil that can save every single person on Earth. We do. God does not condemn us to any fate; we do. To say that, because of all that, it's unfair for God to punish evil... well, that reasoning's just a little bit skewed.

"and when there's an absolute 100% escape clause that is dependent on the individual only saying yes and NOT holding onto paying the price for their own actions, it's not like you can claim an unfair or cruel system" - Andrew
"Er...yes, actually I CAN claim that torture is cruel." - Emily
Perhaps so; but you can't claim that God is cruel when He isn't sending you to be tortured; in fact, He's the one saying "You're not meant for this, please, let me get you out of this!"

"Actually there isn't a soul who went to hell who DIDN'T 'have' to go there. See above re God's omniscience." - Emily
See above God's escape clause which is freely-offered, 100% equal opportunity, and offered to absolutely everyone.

"What you don't get is that it isn't a choice with me. You're telling me 'Follow Jesus or you'll burn'. A Muslim told me 'Follow Mohammed or you'll burn'. My brains, instincts, emotions, common sense, principles, knowledge of science and history...everything is telling me you're BOTH utterly deluded. But even if I was so scared of hell I was prepared to TRY to start god-bothering...how am I to know which way to jump? There are THOUSANDS of religions out there, most of them proclaiming that they alone are the One True Way..." - Emily
No, I'm not. I'm telling you that as sinners, we'll all burn- Jesus is offering you a free way out. And yes, it's the only one. I'm not threatening you, I'm telling it like it is.
I understand what you are saying, really, I do. But I also see in that that it is your brain, your instincts, your emotions, and your knowledge. It is a choice you're making, not God. He has not prevented you from making a choice. And yes, there are thousands of counterfeits and lies out there, and they all claim to be the truth. It's up to you, both to choose whether to believe the true one that God is extending is really true or not, and to choose whether the principles and ideals you currently hold to conflict enough- and you are absolutely sure enough of them, that there's no possibility that they could be wrong- to prevent you from believing what the Bible has to say. And those may be difficult choices. And everything in the world may be telling you they're the right ones. I'm not disputing that. But they are, in the end, your choices, freely made.

"And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfect encapsulation of why I'll never be a god-botherer. Cos in MY eyes, nicking a biro from work will never be as great a sin as gassing six million Jews." - Emily
Who ever said it was as great a sin? The point is that both ARE sins. Whatever 'levels' they may be at, both are doing wrong. One may be a little bit of wrong and the other a huge steaming ton of wrong... but both are doing wrong, and by definition, their perpetrators are wrongdoers. No one ever said that an absolute system of right and wrong is based on degrees of right and wrong. Just whether right and wrong are done, period.

"if you're loving another 'god' then you're probably not really believing in God
Course you are! Heard of polytheism?" - Emily
Yes, but since God says He's the onyl God, if you believe in another god, you're not really believing what God said, so you're not really believing in Him; at best you're believing in a made-up being with some resemblance to Him. ("Sure, I believe in Him! He's like the God you believe in, except He didn't really say this, or that. Otherwise completely identical." = Not the same.) :-)

"Yeah, God was remarkably lax on that one, wasn't he? It was all about 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me' rather than 'None at all' (so technically speaking I could have your God AND the Doctor, but, let's face it, the Doc would always come first so I'd STILL fry)." - Emily
Perhaps I make myself unclear again; I'm not saying it's not an unpunishable sin- I'm saying that it's not that it's a 'one way ticket to Hell, exception to Jesus, not even He can forgive that.' It is a sin, and one worthy of Hell, same as rape, murder, theft, etc.
But it is not, in and of itself, a go-straight-to-Hell-do-not-collect-$200 sin; it's not a worship-or-burn situation. It's a sin that can be forgiven by accepting Jesus' freely offered gift. But, it also happens to be a sin that predisposes someone to be less likely to accept Jesus' gift, because they're too busy worshiping a fake god and looking to IT for saving instead; or accepting a feel-good spiel about how they don't need saving in the first place.
Either way, the command to worship no other gods is not in place because of a worship-or-burn scenario. It's in place because, in addition to being A. A sin, and B. An affront (to worship a fake when the real God alone deserves worship), but also because it C. Lures people away from Christ and accepting the gift that can KEEP them from burning.

"They may not 'decide' they really don't believe. They may be passionate god-botherers who happened to be on a mission to Rwanda in '94. Unless they're devoid of all humanity, they're gonna react pretty badly at having the old 'If God's omnipotent, he's not benevolent; if he's benevolent, he's not omnipotent' dilemma rubbed quite so drastically in their faces. Whereupon they may get run over by a bus before they've worked through all their issues, i.e. succeeded in re-brainwashing themselves." - Emily
You don't give their faith enough credit, methinks. :-) But if indeed they are having doubts or questions- which everyone does, including myself, at times- I think that God will be lenient in that. I also happen to believe that if you truly believe and accept Christ, you don't lose your salvation for having doubts or questions.

"It's just so bloody SILLY for eternal fate to depend on a few brief decades - or even years - on Earth. Even TennantDoc's always giving people (and Sontarans) second chances, after SPECIFICALLY claiming he didn't do so. Yeah, yeah, I know you're saying Jesus is giving me loads of chances, but why only when I'm on this particular planet? What if, after a thousand years of bubbling in Lucifer's cauldron, I swallow my pride and yelp 'Andrew was right after all! (Blimey who'd've thought it?) Jesus take me for a sunbeam! Kum by Yah, My Lord, Kum By Yah!'
Bet I don't get a second chance THEN." - Emily
And who's to say we deserve one? Those few brief decades are plenty enough for everything else; to decide on career and marriage, kids and car and house and actions, making thousands of decisions every day for 365 days every year... it's enough to decide to help someone or hurt someone a million times over- enough to decide to accept or reject a million proposals, to aid or discourage a thousand beliefs... and it's all the time that we have. If it's enough to do all that, why is it unfair to suggest that it's also the time allotted to make up our minds?

"That's where the cannibalistic old Catholics have the edge over you. They get brownie points for fitting in a few good works between all those sprogs. Whereas YOUR God judges people like Orwell's Big Brother does, i.e. on Thoughtcrime." - Emily
That would be the palm-slapping made-up stuff. :-) Doing good works is important, no doubt about that. But it can't save you. As we've already established, doing wrong makes you a wrongdoer. Committing sin makes you a sinner. And no matter how much 'right you commit,' it can never actually change that fact. Again, it's not a matter of degrees- do one bad thing, do one good thing to cancel it out. That's not how right and wrong, how being sinful or not sinful, works. Being sinful, a wrongdoer, is a state-change. You go from a sinless state into a sinful state. Other 'mitigating' actions don't change the fact that you've entered that state.
It seems harsh to us, but it is just.

"Sorry, but isn't eternal hellfire ENOUGH punishment? Why did Lord 'Adolf' Yaweh decide to exterminate ALL the Israelites? Sure, after much grovelling from Moses he relented - they got off with merely 3,000 people put to the sword, plus a plague.
And you want me to LOVE this guy?
I mean, I have an embarrassingly soft spot for the Master...Scaroth...Yartek Leader of the Alien Voord...Cassandra...but THIS level of evil is just a leetle beyond my forgiveness." - Emily
Well, heck, it wasn't ALL of them- like you just said, there was Moses. :-)
But honestly, now... these people have just been delivered from generations of slavery by 10 divine miracles that overruled the laws of nature, have escaped through an entire sea that's parted down the middle for them, have been traveling through the desert with God PHYSICALLY leading them as a giant pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, being fed in the desert by water coming out of solid rocks and food literally raining from the sky, reach a mountain where God invites them all to come up to hear Him speak, where they are so terrified of how powerful He is that they beg Moses to go up all by himself and just relay whatever God has to say, and while they are still down there waiting with God visible, shining and thundering on top of the mountain they're camped at the face of, LITERALLY visible every time they look up... and after God has done all this and provided them with THAT MUCH proof of His existence and His provision for them, they decide to make up a statue of a cow, calling it 'god,' and start worshiping it and thanking it for saving them... and you ask why they deserved that? (And people ask why God doesn't just come show Himself on earth today to 'prove Himself?' Yeah, THAT works...)

And that aside, who are you to decide it's evil? They did wrong; very, very, inexcusably wrong (see 'the circumstances,' last paragraph- there is literally no excuse for that) and they received the consequences. God is the King of the Universe. Does He not have the right to decide life and death? Is He not sovereign enough to decide when to punish and when to spare? There were people in that camp who had just proved that, even in the direct presence of God himself, they were going to lead others astray and go on blatantly sinning and dragging others down with them. Was God not justified in eliminating them from the people before they dragged even more down with them? Was their absolute, 100% rejection of God in the face of His undeniable presence and absolutely miraculous provision not deserving of punishment? No human has the right to decide such things, that is true; and a man who does so would rightly be called evil. But no human is perfect or omnipotent either.

"I don't WANT to discuss it! I'm just unfortunately unable to let you have the last word..." - Emily
Well then we're well and truly stuck, aren't we? :-) (Until I get fired for doing all of this posting at work, at least. ;-) )

"I see you've quietly avoided responding to any of my quotations vis-a-vis sexual equality in the Bible..." - Emily
I didn't want to give you a "flip answer" - 'God's got it sorted, that doesn't mean what you think it means.' I wanted to actually go through the verses and give your points proper study and consideration. It's taking a bit longer than I expected, though- so I should've posted a note to that effect. Sorry. I guarantee you the points will not be ignored. I just want to give you a proper answer, not a non-answer.

"Kind of like a person who's been poisoned and is standing before a table full of beakers; if one has the antidote and the rest of them don't, drinking only the wrong beaker is going to result in your death. Not because it killed you, but because in choosing it and not the antidote, you caused yourself to miss the chance for the one thing that would save you- because you were too busy drinking the one that couldn't help you, you didn't get to the antidote in time.
Nice analogy, ruined only by the fact that you've admitted God set up the system - i.e. GOD POISONED THE ******* BEAKERS!!!!" - Emily
Nope. We brewed the poison; sin. That's our creation, not His. He created the antidote; Jesus' sacrifice, paying for our sins Himself. And we, in the case of greatest tragedy, created the other beakers filled with nothing but empty promises and false hopes; other religions, man-made counterfeits, the very cause of the "THOUSANDS of religions out there, most of them proclaiming that they alone are the One True Way" that you pointed out... those are the direct consequences of our inventions. The 'beakers full of death' are not God's creation, nor is the poison... both were manufactured- and willingly drunk- by us.

"Why does Satan get special treatment? I want my own hell, then. Roundels not flames, please." - Emily
Ummm... weren't you just arguing that it would be unfair for you to deserve one? :-)

"God is not threatening you- God loves you. God WANTS to take you away from Hell, He wants you to go to Heaven
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure my sizzling flesh will hurt him more than it does me..." - Emily
It will hurt Him to lose you, yes- He loves you, and He doesn't want to see you in such agony; He WANTS Heaven for you. It's up to you to accept it or not.

"Eternal torture is for Satan; and he deserves it, plain and simple. If people make the choice to hitch a ride on his wagon, that's not God's fault
I'll have you know I haven't made the choice to hitch a ride on Satan's wagon (if Satan had a TARDIS, it would be a different matter, of course). The only people who have are either a) Satanists, or b) Angels. (Didn't, like, half of heaven rise up against God under Lucifer's leadership or something? I'm pretty ignorant of the whole business, but it sounds suspiciously like a democracy revolution that got crushed.)" - Emily
Not his bandwagon as in 'following him in principle'- his bandwagon as in 'following him down to the same place.' And yes... if you're choosing not to accept Jesus' freely-offered salvation... then you are choosing to hold on to paying the price for your sins yourself, in which case you are, essentially, choosing to follow Satan to wherever he may end up. Not following his ideologies; but following his exact path, including his final destination.

I think it was a third, actually. And it was more of an armed revolt against the king by one of those evil adviser/second-in-command types. More akin to when what's-his-name tried to take over the Sensorites because he didn't like outsiders and decided to do so by usurping the rank of the next-higher-up guy. Except, you know... unsuccessful. And with one dopey lackey standing in for 1/3 of the angels. :-) (Funny enough, it's the exact same story as the whole Golden Calf thing above; directly there in God's presence, with a direct display of His power ongoing 24/7... and yet somehow deciding rebelling against Him would be a 'good idea.')

"Didn't Jesus promise that the Kingdom of God would arrive on Earth during the lifetime of some of those listening to him? Either THAT'S a broken promise or there must be some SERIOUSLY elderly Palestinians about the place." - Emily
He promised they would see it; which they did, both during the Transfiguration ont he Mount of Olives and during the events of Revelations (which John the apostle saw).

"And if accepting innocent blood in return for someone else's crime isn't forsaking justice, I don't know what is." - Emily
Who else could pay for a sinner but someone who has no sin? You can't pay off someone's debt when you're stuck in debt yourself. Only an innocent could choose to take the price upon himself, because only he could pay for someone's sins without having to pay for his own.
If he offers that payment freely; if he offers his blood and takes it upon himself to die, what is unjust about God accepting it?

"Yeah - what the hell IS it with the Christian suicide-phobia? You'd think God would be FLATTERED if you wanted to join him a bit early..." - Emily
Suicide is a sin because, essentially, you're deciding to take the power, and the right, of deciding life or death into your own hands when it doesn't belong to you. God may still have a plan for your life, something He wants you to do, and you're in essence rejecting that and saying "to heck with you, I'm doing it my way!" - same as, well, Satan and the Golden Calfers above. Prideful rebellion ("To heck with you- I know better!") is the root of most sins, in some form or another.
But, the idea that it's an 'unforgivable' sin; that's just a human invention.

"So God can't change what he already set in motion, fine. I might buy that. But he is the one who sentenced all of us to eternal torture TO BEGIN WITH. Why should he be praised for it just because he offered a way out? Would you accept that excuse from a human being? "Well, yes, I did threaten to torture those people, and I carried out my promise. They should have avoided it. Since they didn't, I wash my hands of the matter. Not guilty, your honor."" - Nove
There was no sentencing; He did not make a single choice that could land a person in Hell; only the people did.
Let's put it this way. Say Bob builds a smokestack inside a big ditch. Or firepit inside a big ditch. Or some other industrial complex that is necessary for a purpose, but completely unpleasant to fall in to. Now, because Bob doesn't want you falling in, he builds a covered bridge overtop of it. Sturdy supports, covered sides and roof- there is no chance of falling in or ending up anywhere near this smokestack from the bridge.
Bob tells you "Look, I've made a smokestack, but it's not meant for you. Stay on the bridge I've built for you and don't leave this path, and there's no danger of falling in." And then you, having a mind of your own, decide "Well heck... that looks like a pretty nifty ditch there." So, instead of going up on the bridge, you walk around and start playing around the slope of the ditch.
Then the edge crumbles and you start to slide down towards the open maw of the smokestack. In what way has Bob 'sentenced you to fall in?' He created the smokestack, yes- but he also created and put you on a perfect path that would keep you entirely safe from it- you're the one who chose to leave the path, right? And you're the one that got yourself down there by doing what Bob already told you not to do.
Now, Bob shows up at the rim of the ditch and says "Hold on! I'll throw you a rope!" His aim is true, and the rope lands right next to you. It's not to far to reach, all you have to do is grab it. Is Bob not supposed to be thanked for trying to save you because he built the stack you're falling into, even though you're the one who put yourself in harms way? And if you refuse to grab the rope- whether you don't believe Bob is strong enough to pull you up, or you don't want anything to do with Bob because you think he's a cruel man, or you're just plain stubborn- and you fall into the smokestack... in what way did Bob 'sentence you' there? In what way did he do ANYTHING WHATSOEVER to land you in that smokestack, except create it? And even if he was the one who made it, how is he in any way responsible when your own choice puts you near it, and you refuse his help getting out of it?
The principle is apt. God doesn't sentence anyone to Hell; their own actions do. All God does is offer a way out; that's what He's to be praised for- offering the solution- which came at great cost to Him (dying of asphyxiation and grievous wounds on a cross)- even when He DIDN'T CREATE THE PROBLEM; Or to put it more simply, He paid the price for OUR mistakes.

If this keeps up, we're gonna need chapter breaks... :-)

I'll stop trying to counter repeated, unsupported insistences of 'God is ordering worship or else death'- but I'm also going to ignore that they were even said until someone can actually drum up an evidence-based case on why this is so

2 Thessalonians 1:8-9
He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power.

Psalm 9:17
The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.

John 3:18
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

And there are dozens of similar passages. These particular ones come from the New International Version of the Bible which is quite a bit easier to read than King James and his torturous language.

One could argue the various meanings of "know god" or "forget god" or what it means to believe in him, but for us laymen, "worship me or go to hell" pretty much sums up our take on it.

It's irrelevant whether God physically throws us into the hell-fire or not. He set up the system so he's responsible.

OK, I have a question for Zarm which may clear up some of these issues, including Mandy's last post. I'm just not too clear on this:

TRUE OR FALSE:

God decided that eternal torture would be the appropriate punishment for human sin.

"One could argue the various meanings of "know god" or "forget god" or what it means to believe in him, but for us laymen, "worship me or go to hell" pretty much sums up our take on it." - Mandy
You said it yourself, Mandy. None of those verses mention worship or in fact ANY ACTIONS required of the people. Which does not support a 'worship or die' message in any way, shape, or form. On the other hand, what I've been saying- believe (a.k.a. know or 'come to know') and accept... John 3:18 specifically spells out exactly what I was saying;
people stand, already condemned by their OWN actions, but whoever believes and accept's Christ sacrifice stands no longer condemned, because the price has been payed for them.

"New International Version of the Bible which is quite a bit easier to read than King James and his torturous language." - Mandy
You'll find no argument from me- I always say "what loyalty do we owe King James? Just because he was the first translator doesn't make him the best translator by a long shot!" :-)

"He set up the system so he's responsible." - Mandy
Now that's just not true.
If the death penalty is mandated under the law of the land, is the individual who set up the laws responsible if you go out and kill someone and thus earn the death penalty? No, because, just as in the case of sin, the actions that land you there are yours, made by your own free choice. That makes it your responsibility, not His.

"TRUE OR FALSE:
God decided that eternal torture would be the appropriate punishment for human sin." - Nove
God is perfect. Perfection, by nature, cannot exist with imperfection; therefore, sinful things cannot exist with God. So having someone sinful in Heaven is just not an option. A separation from God; and, by definition, everything (as God is in fact omnipresent) once away from the 'grace period' of mortal existence is pretty much inevitable for something sinful.
That qualifier noted, God created Hell- who's nature we don't exactly know, despite popular depiction- and the Lake of Fire (who nature is a bit closer to the more popularly defined Hell, and which no one has been sent to yet as it won't kick in until after the end of the world- not '5.5/Apple/26' end of the 'world,' but more approriately 'Utopia' end of the Universe proper) as a punishment for sin. However, your true/false statement notes 'human sin,' making the answer technically 'false.' Sin is sin, period; a doing of wrong, a violation, etc.- and this was comitted by the Angels (Satan chief among them) long before humanity. Humans, meanwhile, were created completely apart from Sin, a condition relegated completely to the fallen angels. It was only by man's choice that he did- and continues to- buy into the state of imperfection which never applied to him, and thus earn a share of the punishment- Hell- associated with it, also not made for, or meant for, him.

So no, the answer is FALSE in that is mis-states the question; God created Hell as punishment for sin, but not for 'human sin,' because 'human sin' is a human-created condition that was never in God's original design and originates solely in humans' choice to commit sin, which they are also not supposed to do.

Which, again, God does all that He can to address the issue by having taken a punishment that was certainly not meant for Him- that selfsame Hell- even though he never bought into the sin that it was attached to- so that man, despite his choice to fall under the umbrella of sin, could choose to have the attached consequences paid for him and opt back out of the attached consequences- Hell- without ever having to undergo them himself. The only thing God does not do is force it on any person, keeping the promise of Free Will that He established to man- the selfsame Free Will that man used to buy into the sin that he was not meant for, of his own accord. If you can find a culpability for God in a human going to Hell as punishment for his sins after also refusing a free gift of NOT GOING THERE, then congratulations.

But please don't claim that it is God's fault for creating Hell that people can end up there when it is their choice to get on that path, which they were NOT created to 'default' to, but instead used their freedom of choice to change their own course, and use that same freedom of choice not to get off the path when freely offered the chance to do so.

Oh, and on a tangentially related note, since it marks the beginning of that self-same process of taking the punishment for each of ours sins even though He did not deserve it... Merry Christmas to one and all- and especially you, Emily, Amanda, Tim, and Nove- in case I don't post again before then. And a happy New Year! (And last, but most certainly not least, Happy Who Specials associated with both events! Long live Tennant!) :-)

I give up. We're not speaking the same language. I literally cannot understand what you've written, it's so convoluted.

I did, however, understand Merry Christmas!

God creates a universe with a default setting of heaven on Earth. He also creates a race of humans capable of free-thinking, sentient behavior. Then, humans use that free thinking, sentient behavior to choose to do wrong.

It wasn't 'humans' though, was it? Just Adam and Eve munching on a nice apple after listening to that helpful snake (who was, incidentally, totally correct when it told them 'God was lying through his teeth with the whole "eat fruit and DIE!!!!" message').

So why should I suffer just cos great-great-granny didn't get the whole 'Apples are evil, an apple a day keeps the Doctor away' thing?

The punishment for sin is indeed Hell. God did not create that as the default

Even if he didn't (and frankly I have my doubts - which bit of HE KNOWS THE FUTURE, HE KNEW THEY WERE GONNA EAT THAT STUPID APPLE are you just not getting?) God - still - created - hell. NAUGHTY God!

God knows that this is right and just; and the proper punishment for sins

Your problem is that your brain has been conditioned like Leela's in Underworld to find EVERYTHING God does fluffy and adorable. Plague; genocide; slaughtering first-born sons; eternal damnation...they're all like Tennant-clutching-a-kitten to you. (Or, at the absolute worst, like Tennant-condeming-the-Family-of-Blood.) The question you maybe should be asking yourself is, if EMILY created hell would I think it was such a fantastic idea? The answer would almost certainly be 'No'.

(There was an experiment on Israeli schoolkids mentioned in the excellent AND CANONICAL Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion (PLEASE read it. He was right about those planets in the sky, he's right about God too!). When told the happy story of the walls of Jericho tumbling down so God's Chosen People could slaughter every woman, man, child, and animal, not a single innocent little kiddie expressed the slightest moral qualm about this particular behaviour (there were a few suggestions that maybe it was a bit of a waste not to keep the animals for food). When presented with an identical story in which it was an African king (or something) doing said slaughtering, those kids were OUTRAGED at the genocide!)

Religion: it destroys the moral centres of your brain. I love my Doctor just as much as you love your God, but at least I've managed to retain some vestiges of sanity. I don't go round saying 'Acid baths are good! And the Sixth Doctor's costume is the height of sartorial elegance!' (Doctor Who itself is extremely encouraging of using your own brain (well, maybe not so much in Wheel in Space or Evolution of the Daleks) - just look at the expression on the Doc's face when Kerensky admits to 'not asking questions'. As opposed to the Bible, which (for EXTREMELY good reason) gives you strict instructions NOT to 'lean on thy own understanding'.)

Either the baby was cruelly murdered, or the baby was better off. Can't have it both ways. :-)

Actually I can - let's say that David's baby, what with David being God's Favourite Pet, would have got to heaven even if he'd lived to a ripe old age. Whereas it's pretty unlikely for, say, the kids of Hindu parents.

or, for example, anyone too brain-damaged to understand the difference

Ooh! You could BRAIN-DAMAGE all those babies if you didn't want to kill 'em! (Though there's obviously nothing immoral about killing babies. God did it to the Egyptians, after all. Though only the male first-born ones, for some reason...)

I don't think that temporal constraints are necessarily an issue; remember the whole 'Lamb Who was Slain Before the Foundations of the Earth' bit?

Yeah, and it doesn't make sense. If you can only grab salvation through Jesus, there's a rather clear line between humans who died BEFORE he was born (well...before he FINALLY got round to stopping sawing up wood and starting to open his big gob on the 'God' thing) and those who died AFTERWARDS. (Jesus doesn't have a TARDIS, you know. Yet another clear example of his inferiority to our Doctor.)

the system was created by God, but also based upon God in an absolute and unchanging system. So, no, it wasn't just arbitrarily set up. Even then, it's not that God couldn't help it, it's that He wouldn't change it, because it is based upon the perfect system, and also based upon an unchanging nature.

SO not helping. I now find myself thinking of Davros creating the Daleks in his own image. 'Hey - I am perfect! And I don't have legs! Therefore not having legs is perfect too!'

And actually Davros scores over God - he was right. Daleks made in Davros's image are (contrary to the DECADES of persecution we suffered before and even AFTER Remembrance of the Daleks) perfectly capable of getting up stairs sans legs. Whereas the vast majority of humans made in God's image are obviously incapable of climbing the stairway to heaven...

There's no reason- save that WE don't like it sometimes- to change it.

I'll admit it's tricky for atheists to start talking in terms of absolute good or evil. But I'm gonna stick my neck out here and say that the eternal torture of billions of people is EVIL. Not just something 'we don't like sometimes' but more evil than Davros trying to destroy every universe while the Master's dancing to the Scissor Sisters, the BBC's taping over Power of the Daleks and the Sixth Doctor's choosing that coat.

He came into a limited human body (His own personal chameleon arch, if you will) and DIED to create a method to circumvent the rightful consequences of the system. Is that not enough of a Time Lord victorious cheat-the-universe-on-your-behalf for you? ;-)

Frankly, no. For one thing, the Doc's way better at this sort of thing - he usually manages to save the universe without going splat in the process - and for another, the Doctor doesn't insist someone BELIEVES in him in order to get saved. He might call you a stupid ape for not acknowledging his reality - OR whatever alien monstrosity he's just saved you from - but he's honestly not that fussed. (In fact, when the Doc demanded a thank-you in Waters of Mars it was a clear sign he was cracking up.)

And no, the system isn't 'Humanity = evil = Burn, Baby, Burn'. It's simple enough - Evil = Evil = 'Burn, Baby, Burn.'

There's no de facto difference if merely the state of being a human-capable-of-reason inevitably means you're evil. 'Evil' including having so much as a single sexual thought crossing your mind, presumably.

It's giving God just a little too much blame and letting oneself off the hook too easy to ignore the part of the equation that says 'Human is innocent = No Burn.'

That's cos, according to you, NO human is innocent. At least once they reach the age of reason.

There wouldn't be any danger of burning unless we did evil things.

Or THOUGHT evil things. (Catholics are the silly-billies who think mere ACTIONS affect your redemption, remember?)

That's not God's fault; that's ours.

I'm afraid that if God programmed us in his own image he's gotta take a LOT of the blame. (I know you're gonna start waffling about 'free will' but let's face it, if we ARE made in the image of Mr Perfection himself it's funny we're all so bloody EVIL isn't it? Did he screw up like Tom in Face of Evil and accidentally leave us schizophrenic? Or is the divine spark within us driven mad by the stench of our own humanity, like Parting of the Ways' contaminated Daleks?)

True, the Law given the Isrealites did change, because, let's face it, the Son of God coming down to earth and dying for all sins does change the way things work just a little bit.

I fail to understand why 'the way things work' included a hatred of shellfish and mixed fabrics in the first place.

Let me put it this way: When your kid is 4, driving the car is wrong. That's the law. When your kid is 16 (at least here in the US) and has a license, driving the car is allowed. The law is still the same, it has not changed, but the circumstances in which it applies are different because the circumstances surrounding your kid have changed. It's not inconsistent, because the law didn't go anywhere- instead, the circumstances changes, and the law applied in a different way.

Sorry, no can do with the analogy. 'You're an abomination if you eat that prawn...oh no you aren't!' is completely different from no four-year-olds being allowed to drive cars...ever.

It's more like the time Tom abandoned Sarah in Aberdeen cos humans weren't allowed on Gallifrey, and then brought Leela to Gallifrey...to marry and settle there...i.e. someone changed their mind.

You are not 'destined' for anything, Emily. That's God's great gift to you- no part of your life is a 'fixed point in time.' Your future-webpage-bio isn't written yet; you have the ability to choose anything.

So God DOESN'T know the future, then? So much for omniscience. Yet AGAIN he proves inferior even to a Hartnell Doctor.

And hey... not to sound like a git myself, but... He's sent you me, hasn't He? :-)

*Points and laughs like the Tenth Doctor confronted with an archaeologist*

He's not only given you the choice, but He's also sent at least one person your way to tell you you have the choice

Yeah - it's thanks to YOU I won't be able to plead ignorance before the Throne of God. It'll be YOUR fault when I fry! (I suppose you'll claim that ignorance wouldn't serve as an excuse, which is, of course, grotesquely unfair on GENUINELY ignorant-of-baby-Jesus people living in Bhutan or wherever.)

No, there's a difference. God KNOWS what's going to happens, yes

Aha! So he DOES know whether I'm gonna fry or not!!!

"You see, SANE people DO change their system when said system is not working very well. Billions of souls lost to hellfire-and-damnation is a fairly clear indication that something isn't working." - Emily
It's working perfectly; it's the people who are defective.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

What would you change? Make right and wrong no longer right and wrong (even though they're absolute and unchanging)?

Nope - I'd abolish hell altogether. God doesn't want me in heaven - fine by me! I'll just STAY dead when I die, no skin off my nose. Or, if for some bizarre reason there HAS to be a hell, I'd exercise a LOT more discrimination about who goes there. I'd accept the blatantly obvious fact that there are DEGREES of sin, and that only the very worst of said degrees should result in eternal torment.

(I mean - if you had a kid, would you chop its hands off for eating a biscuit after you told it not to spoil its supper...? (If it did something REALLY bad like chew on a City of Death DVD or pull a cat's tail, it would be a different matter, of course...))

Take away people's Free Will (and thus break a binding promise to them) so that you can force Heaven on them, but also turn them into mind-controlled zombies who can no longer think for themselves?

Er...no. I'd just ensure that 'thinking for yourself' didn't carry an automatic hellfire sentence.

It seems harsh because, frankly, we don't like the idea that if we do evil, it is right and just for us to be punished.

I have nothing against a reasonable degree of punishment to teach someone a lesson. I just fail to see the benefit of said lesson in these particular circumstances, i.e. when it's TOO LATE.

"Er...yes, actually I CAN claim that torture is cruel." - Emily
Perhaps so; but you can't claim that God is cruel when He isn't sending you to be tortured; in fact, He's the one saying "You're not meant for this, please, let me get you out of this!"

Y'know...if I wired a baby up to a machine that gave it an electric shock every time it cried...and then stood there smugly saying 'This is all your fault, kiddo! You're bringing the pain upon yourself! All you have to do is stop crying!' then I'd rightfully be considered a raving loony.

It's up to you, both to choose whether to believe the true one that God is extending is really true or not, and to choose whether the principles and ideals you currently hold to conflict enough- and you are absolutely sure enough of them, that there's no possibility that they could be wrong- to prevent you from believing what the Bible has to say. And those may be difficult choices.

Frankly said choices are easy as pie. Pi. Whatever.

And yes, thanks, my principles are strong enough to get me through a Haemovore encounter, no problem.

"And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfect encapsulation of why I'll never be a god-botherer. Cos in MY eyes, nicking a biro from work will never be as great a sin as gassing six million Jews." - Emily
Who ever said it was as great a sin? The point is that both ARE sins.

Deserving of exactly the same punishment.

since God says He's the onyl God, if you believe in another god, you're not really believing what God said

Yeah, but no one - even you - can believe EVERY word God says all the time. Trying to believe six impossible things before breakfast like Alice - or the Fifth Doctor - wouldn't BEGIN to cover it.

And when did he say he was the only God, anyway?

An affront (to worship a fake when the real God alone deserves worship)

Oi! Have you actually been WATCHING any Doctor Who...??

You don't give their faith enough credit, methinks.

Actually I'm probably giving their faith a bit too MUCH credit, suggesting that any REAL event, like genocide, would be allowed to impinge on their imaginery world...

I also happen to believe that if you truly believe and accept Christ, you don't lose your salvation for having doubts or questions.

You used to imply that you had to LOVE Christ for salvation - now it's the (equally-impossible-to-me) matter of BELIEVING in him. So suppose someone believed the Bible's every word - but decided they HATED God because, say, their spouse and kids would undoubtedly be heading straight to hell on account of believing in the Lonely God instead?

Bet I don't get a second chance THEN [if I repent in hell]." - Emily
And who's to say we deserve one? Those few brief decades are plenty enough for everything else; to decide on career and marriage, kids and car and house and actions, making thousands of decisions every day for 365 days every year... it's enough to decide to help someone or hurt someone a million times over- enough to decide to accept or reject a million proposals, to aid or discourage a thousand beliefs... and it's all the time that we have.

I know it's all the time we bloody have! You're the one claiming it's just the opening credits!

And besides...that may be fair enough for ME, but what about the people who don't HAVE decades? The kids who gets run over by a bus on the very DAY they reach this 'age of reason' state that makes them accountable for their terrible, worthy-of-hellfire sins of picking their little noses and pulling other kids' hair?

But honestly, now... these people have just been delivered from generations of slavery

Wasn't it God who sent them to Egypt to be enslaved in the first place? Worshipping him for getting 'em out of it is like applauding the Doctor for curing the cold HE brought to the Ark to decimate its population (of course, the Doc DID get applauded - those people were THICK).

by 10 divine miracles that overruled the laws of nature

Ah yes. Personally I'm not that fond of frogs or locusts or whatever they were. I'm also not that fond of slaughtering babies either, however much I dislike the little creatures.

have been traveling through the desert with God PHYSICALLY leading them as a giant pillar of cloud by day and fire by night

Yeah...is it just me or does God have a typically male attitude towards admitting he's lost and doing the sensible thing of looking at a map or asking for directions? Forty years, FORTY YEARS wandering around a bloody DESERT being told to commit EXHAUSTING genocide against its innocent inhabitants on a regular basis...all to get to a land that not only turns out to NOT be running with milk and honey as advertised, but is (as Golda Meir once complained) the only place in the Middle East that doesn't have any oil?

being fed in the desert by water coming out of solid rocks and food literally raining from the sky

If you drag people into a desert you've pretty much got a DUTY to feed 'em, if you ask me.

reach a mountain where God invites them all to come up to hear Him speak, where they are so terrified of how powerful He is that they beg Moses to go up all by himself and just relay whatever God has to say

'Terrified' was their excuse, was it? Maybe God was just a really rubbish public speaker.

and while they are still down there waiting with God visible, shining and thundering on top of the mountain they're camped at the face of, LITERALLY visible every time they look up... and after God has done all this and provided them with THAT MUCH proof of His existence and His provision for them, they decide to make up a statue of a cow, calling it 'god,' and start worshiping it and thanking it for saving them...

Well, QUITE. Your God is obviously WAY more popular with the Jews when he's leaving them to be gassed than when he's standing before them in all his glory. He's obviously an AWFUL guy to have around. (Now I'm picturing him as Colin Baker.)

and you ask why they deserved that?

I've been (metaphorically) knifed in the back by 'friends'. And I'm still deeply pissed off about it. But I somehow manage to resist the temptation to run them through with a sword and then set fire to them forever.

(And people ask why God doesn't just come show Himself on earth today to 'prove Himself?' Yeah, THAT works...)

So basically you're admitting that nothing puts off God-botherers more than the sight of God...? I'll admit that when The Announcement was made in 2003 I had - amidst my hysterical outpourings of utter joy - a little trepidation that He may not quite live up to expectations but...He did He did He did! Of course your God would never exceed your wildest imaginings like the Doctor did mine, but given that you think everything he does is perfect, I'm sure you wouldn't be TOO critical an audience...

God is the King of the Universe. Does He not have the right to decide life and death? Is He not sovereign enough to decide when to punish and when to spare?

Not according to you he doesn't - it's all the victims' faults when they get tortured, not God's. Admittedly this is a more difficult position for you to maintain when God is personally ordering people smited.

There were people in that camp who had just proved that, even in the direct presence of God himself, they were going to lead others astray and go on blatantly sinning and dragging others down with them. Was God not justified in eliminating them from the people before they dragged even more down with them?

Whatever happened to that 'free will' thing you were peddling?

Was their absolute, 100% rejection of God in the face of His undeniable presence and absolutely miraculous provision not deserving of punishment?

No. He obviously did SOMETHING to put them off.

I mean, people don't usually reject THE DOCTOR that drastically once they've got to know him a bit, and when they do (Waters of Mars, Midnight) they've got a reason.

No human has the right to decide such things, that is true; and a man who does so would rightly be called evil. But no human is perfect or omnipotent either.

Stuff n'nonsense! If mass-murder is evil when YOU do it, it's evil when GOD does it. And if eliminating people for spreading an anti-God message is right, then what are you waiting for? (You'd bloody better wait till after End of Time Part II, however.)

"I don't WANT to discuss it! I'm just unfortunately unable to let you have the last word..." - Emily
Well then we're well and truly stuck, aren't we? :-) (Until I get fired for doing all of this posting at work, at least. ;-) )

Ooh, really? *Perks up* Who are your employers? Would you care to share their e-mail address...;)

We brewed the poison; sin. That's our creation, not His.

Fair enough...but GOD was the one who deliberately ensured that said poison led to eternal agony instead of a mild stomach-ache.

Ummm... weren't you just arguing that it would be unfair for you to deserve one? :-)

Of course it is! But if I end up in TOTALLY UNFAIR hell, I WANT ROUNDELS!

I think it was a third, actually. And it was more of an armed revolt against the king by one of those evil adviser/second-in-command types. More akin to when what's-his-name tried to take over the Sensorites because he didn't like outsiders and decided to do so by usurping the rank of the next-higher-up guy. Except, you know... unsuccessful. And with one dopey lackey standing in for 1/3 of the angels. :-)

I think you're confusing coups with revolutions. There's generally a clear distinction. Two evil guys trying to seize ultimate power by, um, stealing someone's sash = coup. One third of the population putting their eternal lives on the line to take to the streets...er, skies...to overthrow the tyrant = revolution. (Of course, there's a bit of overlap - those Bolshevik scum were remarkably successful in claiming their October 1917 coup was a revolution, and the Madagascans, bless 'em, are so keen at taking to the streets that the crazy DJ got away with claiming his coup was a revolution...but I digress.)

(Funny enough, it's the exact same story as the whole Golden Calf thing above; directly there in God's presence, with a direct display of His power ongoing 24/7... and yet somehow deciding rebelling against Him would be a 'good idea.')

Yeah, FUNNY THAT, isn't it...?

"Didn't Jesus promise that the Kingdom of God would arrive on Earth during the lifetime of some of those listening to him? Either THAT'S a broken promise or there must be some SERIOUSLY elderly Palestinians about the place." - Emily
He promised they would see it; which they did, both during the Transfiguration ont he Mount of Olives and during the events of Revelations (which John the apostle saw).

*Does double-take* Visions - don't - count! Those poor suckers were expecting Heaven on Earth to arrive any minute (isn't that why they left it decades to write down anything about Jesus? They didn't think there was any point!) and instead they got a few TV pictures? My God, no one (outside this board) would let ME get away with claiming that the TARDIS really did tow Earth across the skies cos I've seen it! Right there on the screen!

"And if accepting innocent blood in return for someone else's crime isn't forsaking justice, I don't know what is." - Emily
Who else could pay for a sinner but someone who has no sin?

The sinners could pay the price themselves - if God hadn't set the price so insanely, horrifically high. He's worse than Sun Makers' Gatherer and Collector put together...

Anyway, the Doctor's always managing to save people from the consquences of their own actions without having to be whiter-than-white himself.

If he offers that payment freely

Not THAT freely. There was a lot of begging to get out of it the night before...he's almost as bad as TennantDoc...

if he offers his blood and takes it upon himself to die, what is unjust about God accepting it?

What would be so unjust about judges agreeing to imprison a volunteer in place of the real criminal? Quite a lot, actually.

Suicide is a sin because, essentially, you're deciding to take the power, and the right, of deciding life or death into your own hands when it doesn't belong to you.

So...just like if you dodge out of the way of a falling boulder, then? Or take radiotherapy for your cancer?

If the death penalty is mandated under the law of the land, is the individual who set up the laws responsible if you go out and kill someone and thus earn the death penalty? No, because, just as in the case of sin, the actions that land you there are yours, made by your own free choice. That makes it your responsibility, not His.

Actually the fact you end up in an electric chair is due to the murder's choice COMBINED with whoever-set-up-the-death-penalty's choice. In this example the lawmakers could happily accept partial responsibility without any blame. But if the lawmakers had set up a death penalty for Thinking Impure Thoughts, then frankly they'd have to take a LOT of blame...

God is perfect. Perfection, by nature, cannot exist with imperfection; therefore, sinful things cannot exist with God. So having someone sinful in Heaven is just not an option.

Say WHAT?! You've just admitted that a third of the population of heaven - and that was in the days before any filthy human scum were admitted, these people were ANGELS - that THEY committed big, BIG sins by rebelling against God!

And surely Jesus's blood only washes you clean of all the filthy sins you committed as an Earthling? Can't do anything for you once you're at your, er, ultimate destination. So presumably either you guys just can't help sinning away in heaven or you've had your ability to sin - i.e. everything that makes you human - surgically removed...

...Ah. You get upgraded...

Oh ****. HEAVEN'S FULL OF CYBERMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe I should stop arguing with you about whether I deserve to go to hell. Maybe I WANT to go to hell. At least I'd still be ME, even if my response to pain is even more wimpish than Tom's ('If there's one thing I can't stand, it's being tortured by a man with cold hands').

A separation from God; and, by definition, everything (as God is in fact omnipresent) once away from the 'grace period' of mortal existence is pretty much inevitable for something sinful.

GRACE PERIOD?????????? Life for most people on this planet resembles life in a Varos torture dome!! 'Grace period' isn't exactly the phrase I'd use...

It was only by man's choice that he did- and continues to- buy into the state of imperfection which never applied to him, and thus earn a share of the punishment- Hell- associated with it, also not made for, or meant for, him.

So if every single teddy-bear coming from a factory throttled its owner in the night like an Auton troll-doll...would you REALLY believe the factory-owner's claims that a) the teddies were absolutely not designed to do that, honest, and b) there had been absolutely no flaws in executing said design?

'human sin' is a human-created condition that was never in God's original design

Blowing up half the universe wasn't the Fourth Doctor's design either, but he took the Master to Logopolis. And, like God, sacrificed his life to atone for his hideous mistake. The difference being that your God KNEW what was gonna happen whereas Tom (presumably - though who knows WHAT the Watcher said to him) didn't.

and originates solely in humans' choice to commit sin

But you hold us responsible for Thoughtcrime too! Which we don't CHOOSE!

Happy Who Specials associated with both events! Long live Tennant!) :-)

You sadistic monster...;)

We're not speaking the same language. I literally cannot understand what you've written, it's so convoluted.

Yeah - Wheel in Space eat your heart out!

Hey, everyone, let's call a Christmas Truce on this. We can always pick it up again later.

Besides, this conversation died out last summer. Why did Emily decide to revive it all of a sudden. Maybe this is a case of "Let sleeping dogs lie." In fact, Emily should close this thread, it really has nothing to do with Doctor Who.

Hey, everyone, let's call a Christmas Truce on this. We can always pick it up again later.

Hear, hear. We have WAY more important things to think about over Christmas than Jesus...

Besides, this conversation died out last summer. Why did Emily decide to revive it all of a sudden.

I TOLD you - unfortunately I spotted that the god-botherer had had the last word...

In fact, Emily should close this thread, it really has nothing to do with Doctor Who.

Certainly not! It's the most popular part of the board! And religion has a lot to do with Who when I'm talking about it! And even Andrew's making an effort and slipping in a few Sensorite references...

Yikes! Seems I'm just a little behind after Christmas... let me jump to what I can with the time I have...

"(who was, incidentally, totally correct when it told them 'God was lying through his teeth with the whole "eat fruit and DIE!!!!" message')." - Emily
Not at all; Adam and Eve were created as sinless, perfect, and immortal. After they ate the apple, they were none of the above, and they did die where previously they would not have. God never said "Eating will be instant death." Only that they would die if they ate, which is perfectly true.

"So why should I suffer just cos great-great-granny didn't get the whole 'Apples are evil, an apple a day keeps the Doctor away' thing?" - Emily
Not exactly, no. Every single one of us still chooses to do wrong things; we all lie, steal, and cheat, I should think, at the very least. And I think it'd be the rare person even then who's never done any more than that... No, Adam and Eve may have put humans on the sinful path- but no one is paying for their wrongdoings- everyone has wrongdoings of their own.

"Even if he didn't (and frankly I have my doubts - which bit of HE KNOWS THE FUTURE, HE KNEW THEY WERE GONNA EAT THAT STUPID APPLE are you just not getting?) God - still - created - hell. NAUGHTY God!" - Emily
And why is that wrong, prey tell? Because people don't LIKE it? Because it's not 'fair' by an arbitrary human standard? Because it seems too 'harsh' based on a human perspective that is guaranteed to be just a little 'fudge-it' when it comes to absolutes standards of right and wrong or justice? :-) I understand Hell is not a popular palce, nor a desireable destination; but where exactly do we- as decidedly imperfect humans- get off assuming it's wrong in the first place?

"Your problem is that your brain has been conditioned like Leela's in Underworld to find EVERYTHING God does fluffy and adorable. Plague; genocide; slaughtering first-born sons; eternal damnation...they're all like Tennant-clutching-a-kitten to you. (Or, at the absolute worst, like Tennant-condeming-the-Family-of-Blood.) The question you maybe should be asking yourself is, if EMILY created hell would I think it was such a fantastic idea? The answer would almost certainly be 'No'." - Emily
I'll grant the possibility- but offer one in return- that your brain- all of ours- are being conditioned by a purely invented human entitlement notion; that, because it is detrimental to us, it isn't "fair." And that if we, from a limited, fixed-point-in-time, non-teleptathic, non-omniscient, not-able-to-see-alternate-possible-futures perspective, cannot understand the reason for something, it has no good reason or is unfair. (I mean, let's face it... if Time Lord Victorious decided to right a few more wrongs by going back and killing Hitler in the cradle, and thus the horror of World War II never happened, all he'd go down in history as was a child murderer. Because the public at large couldn't see, from their temporaly-locked position, the suffering and deaths that now would never happen, they'd deem the act 'unjustifiable.' Just sayin'...)

But yes, I will admit that I take some things on faith. It's kind of a part of the package that if you believe that: A. God is perfect, B. God understands everything while you don't, and C. God knows everything while you don't, that you also kinda take D. 'You won't understand all the reasons God does things' as part of the equation. :-) I'm not saying I have the reason for why God does/did everything He does/did. It would be intellectually dishonest of me to expect that; if everything God did made perfect sense and I understood every reason, then either I'm omniscient and infinite, or He isn't; either way would be self-contradictory to the beliefs I hold. And unfortunately, it's why debating the existence of God or His actions is never going to lead anywhere conclusive- because by definition if you can know everything about the infinite being that you are discussing, then he's not an infinitie being and you've got the wrong bloke. And if there really is an infinite, omniscient, perfect God... then there's simply no way that everything is going to be clear. It's self-consistent and intellectually honest- but not so great where concrete answers are concerned- hence the appelation 'faith.' :-)

Unfortunately, it's also why I'm never going to be swayed by a person saying "God doesn't exist or isn't good because of X that He did." It's Richard Dawkins' delusion- or anyone else's- to think that they can criticize God from a basis of actions. It would be like Kelsey Hooper attempting to both comprehend and criticize all of the Doctor's actions because she assumes she knows everything that he does and has a solid bases to criticize his actions. She simply hasn't got the knowledge or understanding to have sufficient grounds to begin a criticism. Likewise, expecting God to be accountable to an infinitely-limited human understanding of right and wrong or morality, when He knows it all and we know just a fraction, is not an logically consistent concept. As you point out, "...the Bible, which (for EXTREMELY good reason) gives you strict instructions NOT to 'lean on thy own understanding'." It is for an extremely good reason. Not to discourage you thinking- how often did Jesus go in for a good debate? How many in the Bible are comended and instructed on the importance of being teachers, studying, and learning? - but because our own understanding is such a limited slice of knowledge, especially when compared to all knowledge as possessed by God. In fact, it's saying the very same thing I have been- Don't assume you know more, or know better, than God... that's just... well, not possible where an omniscient God is concerned. :-)

"(Though there's obviously nothing immoral about killing babies. God did it to the Egyptians, after all. Though only the male first-born ones, for some reason...)" - Emily
The reason being, I believe, that the Egyptians had done the same to the Hebrews they had enslaved- thus the need to hide baby Moses in a basket, etc.

"I'll admit it's tricky for atheists to start talking in terms of absolute good or evil. But I'm gonna stick my neck out here and say that the eternal torture of billions of people is EVIL." - Emily
Well, I think we'll have to disagree on that one, then; since the torture was not made for them, but rather their own choices... you know what, rather than my take up another three pages spelling out my think all over again, see the Bob story, earlier, and the associated December 21st post... unless it's simply too incomprehensible, then I can attempt to paraphrase. :-)

"he usually manages to save the universe without going splat in the process - and for another, the Doctor doesn't insist someone BELIEVES in him in order to get saved" - Emily
Leaving aside the word "Logopolis"- presumeably that's why you said 'usually?' :-) I'll remind you of, for example, Fires of Pompeii. Or various other 'come with me if you want to live' or 'I'm giving you a chance, leave this planet' moments. The Doctor didn't just materialize the TARDIS around his rescue victims, he opens the door and gives them a choice. Same as Jesus, he isn't forcing his offer to save on anybody; thus those like Davros in Journey's End can choose of their own free will to turn it down. But he does pretty much everything else so that all his intended rescuees have to do is agree, take his hand, and follow him. That sounds... pretty darn close. :-)

"There's no de facto difference if merely the state of being a human-capable-of-reason inevitably means you're evil. 'Evil' including having so much as a single sexual thought crossing your mind, presumably." - Emily
But it doesn't. Jesus was fully human and yet never comitted a sin. It is not a state of being evil that condemns humans- it's evil actions. And no; there's a difference between temptation (a lustful thought crossing your mind) and sin (choosing to dwell on it after it's crossed). Despite what you may think, God isn't unfair; He's not looking for every opportunity to snuff you out. He knows the difference between a stray thought and a choice to think about something wrong. (Which, incidentally, a sexual thought isn't if it's within the proper sexual context of marriage). 'What infraction constitutes a single sin' talk is generally pointless, though, since it's a fair bet that nobody in all of history has ever stopped at just one. :-)

"It's giving God just a little too much blame and letting oneself off the hook too easy to ignore the part of the equation that says 'Human is innocent = No Burn.' - Zarm
That's cos, according to you, NO human is innocent. At least once they reach the age of reason." - Emily
No human is innocent once they sin. But no sin is committed without a choice to committ. And if you choose to committ the crime, you aren't innocent. ("You do the crime, you do the time," etc.)

"(I know you're gonna start waffling about 'free will' but let's face it, if we ARE made in the image of Mr Perfection himself it's funny we're all so bloody EVIL isn't it? Did he screw up like Tom in Face of Evil and accidentally leave us schizophrenic? Or is the divine spark within us driven mad by the stench of our own humanity, like Parting of the Ways' contaminated Daleks?)" - Emily
We were created in God's image, but since Sin is the opposite of God, when we sin we get pretty far away from that original image. Part of that image is the aforementioned Free Will- and yes, if we use it to choose un-godlike things, then we're going to be pretty un-godlike ourselves. :-)

"You are not 'destined' for anything, Emily. That's God's great gift to you- no part of your life is a 'fixed point in time.' Your future-webpage-bio isn't written yet; you have the ability to choose anything.
So God DOESN'T know the future, then? So much for omniscience. Yet AGAIN he proves inferior even to a Hartnell Doctor." - Emily
Eh? Sorry, no. God knows what you will choose; that doesn't change with the fact that you have the free ability to choose it. God knows the future, but the future He knows is made up of the free choices you make- it's not a 'I've seen the future so it's set in stone' issue, it's an 'I see what you chose to do with your future.' :-)

"*Points and laughs like the Tenth Doctor confronted with an archaeologist*" - Emily
Ouch. Thanks. :-)

"I'd accept the blatantly obvious fact that there are DEGREES of sin, and that only the very worst of said degrees should result in eternal torment." - Emily
Again, though... that's not really an absolute system of right or wrong, is it? It's kind of like saying that there are 'degrees' of cyanide in a tablet; as if the cup of water only contaminated with one teaspoon is better than the one contaminated with one cup. Unfortunately, in a realistic system, contaminated is contaminated, regardless of degrees; and death is the outcome regardless.

"Er...no. I'd just ensure that 'thinking for yourself' didn't carry an automatic hellfire sentence." - Emily
As we've been though, it doesn't. Only choosing to do wrong with that selfsame 'thinking for yourself.'

"Y'know...if I wired a baby up to a machine that gave it an electric shock every time it cried...and then stood there smugly saying 'This is all your fault, kiddo! You're bringing the pain upon yourself! All you have to do is stop crying!' then I'd rightfully be considered a raving loony." - Emily
Just a teeny bit different. A. The baby doesn't know what it's doing; you do. B. God didn't make you sin (I.e. hooked you up), you did. C. God isn't standing by doing nothing, He wwent and flipping DIED so that you wouldn't have to; the only thing standing in His way from 'unhooking' you is your own freedom of choice. The analogy would be a little more accurate if a grown man had hooked himself to the machine and locked you out of the room, and you were there pounding on the door and begging him to unlock it.

"Yeah, but no one - even you - can believe EVERY word God says all the time. Trying to believe six impossible things before breakfast like Alice - or the Fifth Doctor - wouldn't BEGIN to cover it.
And when did he say he was the only God, anyway?" - Emily
Try me. :-) No, I'm not saying I never have doubts- like I said, I think everyone does- but yes, I do believe that whatever He says is true.
As for your second question... I don't recall chapter and verse at the moment, but I doubt it'll be all that difficult to find, if you'd like me to look. :-)

"You used to imply that you had to LOVE Christ for salvation - now it's the (equally-impossible-to-me) matter of BELIEVING in him. So suppose someone believed the Bible's every word - but decided they HATED God because, say, their spouse and kids would undoubtedly be heading straight to hell on account of believing in the Lonely God instead?" - Emily
Well, first I'd say that it'd be pretty foolish of that someone to hate God for the choices that the spouse and kids were making... and second, in that case, I doubt they'd be accepting anything from Jesus, now would they? It is a matter of believing and ACCEPTING- you could almost say accepting only, except of course you can't truly accept something you don't believe in. So just believing- but rejecting- would not be enough.

"Wasn't it God who sent them to Egypt to be enslaved in the first place?" - Emily
They went to Egypt so that they wouldn't die of a famine; it was only after a regime-change that the new ruler decided "Oh, a bunch of foreigners... what handy slaves."

"God is the King of the Universe. Does He not have the right to decide life and death? Is He not sovereign enough to decide when to punish and when to spare? - Zarm
Not according to you he doesn't - it's all the victims' faults when they get tortured, not God's. Admittedly this is a more difficult position for you to maintain when God is personally ordering people smited. - Emily
There were people in that camp who had just proved that, even in the direct presence of God himself, they were going to lead others astray and go on blatantly sinning and dragging others down with them. Was God not justified in eliminating them from the people before they dragged even more down with them? - Zarm
Whatever happened to that 'free will' thing you were peddling?" - Emily
As I said, Free Will is the freedom to choose whatever we will and live with the consequences, be they good or bad. This does not preclude God delivering the consequences personally. This does not mean there are no consequences. This does not mean every choice is a good one. I use Free Will to decide to jump in front of a bus. I had freedom to choose, that doesn't mean I'm exempt from the consequences. Likewise, I use freedom to choose to offend against God and lead scores of people astray; that doesn't mean I'm exempt from being struck down for it. I still had my freedom fo choice, and I still got my results of it- they just happened to be lethal. Some choices we can make are.

"I mean, people don't usually reject THE DOCTOR that drastically once they've got to know him a bit, and when they do (Waters of Mars, Midnight) they've got a reason." - Emily
Hang on, wait... the people in Midnight had a REASON?!? And here I thought the whole thing was about senseless paranoia... :-)

"Stuff n'nonsense! If mass-murder is evil when YOU do it, it's evil when GOD does it. And if eliminating people for spreading an anti-God message is right, then what are you waiting for? (You'd bloody better wait till after End of Time Part II, however.) " - Emily
Stuff n'nonsense right back at you! God is omnipotent, perfect, King of Creation, and Lord of the Unvierse. If he's says "I am God," that's right. If I say "I am God," that's wrong. The same rules do not apply to Him as they do to me. Look, here's a thought... if it helps, picture your phrasing applied to The Doctor. Would you honestly say that I'd be right in doing everything he does? Would I have the right to demand you abadon your life to fly around in my little blue box (supposing I were fortunate enough to have one...) Would you say that I deserve your unending adoration the way he does? :-) I think not; the same things do not apply to us both. Same principle. :-)

"Suicide is a sin because, essentially, you're deciding to take the power, and the right, of deciding life or death into your own hands when it doesn't belong to you.
So...just like if you dodge out of the way of a falling boulder, then? Or take radiotherapy for your cancer?" - Emily
Doing your best to preserve your life is operating within the circumstances. Comitting suicide is actively deciding to end your life. Bit of a difference.

"God is perfect. Perfection, by nature, cannot exist with imperfection; therefore, sinful things cannot exist with God. So having someone sinful in Heaven is just not an option. - Zarm
Say WHAT?! You've just admitted that a third of the population of heaven - and that was in the days before any filthy human scum were admitted, these people were ANGELS - that THEY committed big, BIG sins by rebelling against God!" - Emily
Exactly; and were immediately cast out of it. :-)

"And surely Jesus's blood only washes you clean of all the filthy sins you committed as an Earthling? Can't do anything for you once you're at your, er, ultimate destination. So presumably either you guys just can't help sinning away in heaven or you've had your ability to sin - i.e. everything that makes you human - surgically removed..." - Emily
Been perfected, more or less. And I'm sorry, but I've just finished explaining that Sin is an add-on never meant for humans; so it's removeal is hardly taking away everything that makes you human. It's not a removal of free will, though, if that's what you're asking.

"So if every single teddy-bear coming from a factory throttled its owner in the night like an Auton troll-doll...would you REALLY believe the factory-owner's claims that a) the teddies were absolutely not designed to do that, honest, and b) there had been absolutely no flaws in executing said design?" - Emily
The analogy doesn't hold, because we do not sin by design. We sin by choice. The design included choice, but the nature of choice makes it the responsibility of the chooser.

"And, like God, sacrificed his life to atone for his hideous mistake. The difference being that your God KNEW what was gonna happen whereas Tom (presumably - though who knows WHAT the Watcher said to him) didn't." - Emily
Wrong; God died for OUR hideous mistakes- and the fact that it was premeditated seems to me a lot more indication that God cares about us- I mean, honestly, why would an imortal being be tortured and die if He can help it- if He's even scared enough of it to, as you alluded to, beg and plead not to have to do it... and yet do it anyway- unless He had a darn good reason- than an accidental, incidental death.

"and originates solely in humans' choice to commit sin
But you hold us responsible for Thoughtcrime too! Which we don't CHOOSE!" - Emily
As I said earlier, there's a difference between what thought pops into your head- which I don't believe is a sin- and what you dwell on or decide to keep thinking about, which is a Sin. The same god who went through everything mentioned above because He didn't want you tormented is not going to be punishing you for an action you couldn't help; and He knows the difference between what you can and can't. Rest assured, not a single person is going to hell for a thought or action that he or she couldn't help.

More when I have time (I.e. the stuff that takes a LONG time to reply to :-) )... meanwhile, happy new year, all!

Adam and Eve were created as sinless, perfect, and immortal.

Evidently not. A perfect person wouldn't have disobeyed dear old God.

After they ate the apple, they were none of the above, and they did die where previously they would not have. God never said "Eating will be instant death."

His emphasis was SERIOUSLY misleading - you didn't need to be as thick as Adam n'Eve to get the impression you'd eat the fruit and promptly keel over. (You know...like the whole 'Donna's brain will explode' stuff...)

Every single one of us still chooses to do wrong things

If every single human being ever does so, does it really constitute a 'choice'? Any more than breathing is a 'choice'?

Re hell:

And why is that wrong, prey tell? Because people don't LIKE it? Because it's not 'fair' by an arbitrary human standard? Because it seems too 'harsh' based on a human perspective that is guaranteed to be just a little 'fudge-it' when it comes to absolutes standards of right and wrong or justice? :-)

Well, YEAH.

When human concepts of justice are a lot more merciful than divine concepts of justice, god-botherers should start getting, well, bothered.

where exactly do we- as decidedly imperfect humans- get off assuming it's wrong in the first place?

The same place I 'get off' assuming that the massacre of Tiananmen Square was wrong.

your brain- all of ours- are being conditioned by a purely invented human entitlement notion; that, because it is detrimental to us, it isn't "fair."

Not in the least. Death seems a grossly detrimental thing to me - since Who came back, anyway, I didn't have NEARLY such a problem with it before - but I still regard it as the only truly 'fair' thing in the universe.

(I mean, let's face it... if Time Lord Victorious decided to right a few more wrongs by going back and killing Hitler in the cradle, and thus the horror of World War II never happened, all he'd go down in history as was a child murderer.

Only if he didn't SAY 'By the way, that brat would have slaughtered millions'. Which he WOULD have done (see Genesis of the Daleks). And we'd all have taken his word for it. The way we - and even Adelaide - did over HER death before the Doc went nuts.

It's kind of a part of the package that if you believe that: A. God is perfect

Not necessarily. I've got a Catholic friend who cheerfully admits that God can be bribed ('What would be the point of prayer otherwise?').

B. God understands everything while you don't

Just OBVIOUSLY not in the 'to understand all is to forgive all' sense...

C. God knows everything while you don't

It's his very knowledge that turns him into a monster. (See above re my - and billions of others' - forthcoming date with hell everlasting.)

you also kinda take D. 'You won't understand all the reasons God does things' as part of the equation.

If THE DOCTOR does things, I'm prepared, on past (universe-saving!) evidence, to accept that he's got a good reason. But I expect an explanation sooner or later. See him EVENTUALLY coming up with a good excuse for his Invasion of Time apparent insanity. (See, also, Nick Walters totally failing to come up with a PROPER explanation for him raping Compassion in Fall of Yquatine...though at least he turned up on Nitcentral and TRIED, unlike a certain deity I could mention.)

And unfortunately, it's why debating the existence of God or His actions is never going to lead anywhere conclusive- because by definition if you can know everything about the infinite being that you are discussing, then he's not an infinitie being and you've got the wrong bloke.

This argument would work great on someone who wasn't a Doctor Who fan, i.e. who hadn't lived their life in the televisual presence of someone who managed to combine being infinite with being understandable.

And if there really is an infinite, omniscient, perfect God... then there's simply no way that everything is going to be clear.

Of COURSE there will be grey areas. Sadly (for you) the whole 'women are inferior, gays should be stoned to death, rape and slavery are great!' stuff is pretty clear.

It's Richard Dawkins' delusion- or anyone else's- to think that they can criticize God from a basis of actions. It would be like Kelsey Hooper attempting to both comprehend and criticize all of the Doctor's actions because she assumes she knows everything that he does and has a solid bases to criticize his actions. She simply hasn't got the knowledge or understanding to have sufficient grounds to begin a criticism.

But surely if Kesey saw the Doc openly admitting to destroying a planet for financial gain like a Slitheen she'd have a PRETTY good case for a 'That Doctor is a GIT!' claim...at the very least the onus would be on the Doc to prove his innocence...

Likewise, expecting God to be accountable to an infinitely-limited human understanding of right and wrong or morality, when He knows it all and we know just a fraction, is not an logically consistent concept.

True. It's only logically consistent if you're claiming that God is Good.

how often did Jesus go in for a good debate?

Credit where it's due - Jesus was really keen on a good debate (unlike our Doctor, where you were liable to get called a 'stupid ape' if you got on his nerves). His dad, however...not so much.

How many in the Bible are comended and instructed on the importance of being teachers, studying, and learning?

Providing they're not WOMEN, of course...

Don't assume you know more, or know better, than God... that's just... well, not possible where an omniscient God is concerned.

Sorry, but a fifteen-year obsession with human rights doesn't go away so easily (though God knows, I've TRIED to jettison all that nonsense now my Doctor has come back to give REAL meaning to my life). The fact is, if it's wrong for Pol Pot to torture a third of Cambodia's population to death, it's wrong for God to torture 99.9% of humanity FOREVER...(NB: IS it forever? Didn't Jesus say something about 'Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away'?? Passing over his complete lack of modesty (cos, let's face it, this particular trait is shared by my Doctor) does that apply to hell too?)

The reason being, I believe, that the Egyptians had done the same to the Hebrews they had enslaved

Er...yes...the Eyptians killing the first-born sons of the Hebrews being generally accepted to be Not A Nice Thing To Do...certainly not something a beneficent God should emulate. You'll note that the Doc hardly ever stoops to his opponents' tactics...

"I'll admit it's tricky for atheists to start talking in terms of absolute good or evil. But I'm gonna stick my neck out here and say that the eternal torture of billions of people is EVIL." - Emily
Well, I think we'll have to disagree on that one, then

Fair enough. 'Atheists say torture is evil: Christians say torture is good' is a synopsis I can live with...

"he usually manages to save the universe without going splat in the process - and for another, the Doctor doesn't insist someone BELIEVES in him in order to get saved" - Emily
Leaving aside the word "Logopolis"

In Logopolis the Doctor DIDN'T save the universe - I hold him personally responsible for destroying half of it, the total git. (HE led the Master there!!!) Though in Tom's defence, at least he didn't require anyone to 'believe' in him as he went jumping off radio telescopes to save us all.

I'll remind you of, for example, Fires of Pompeii. Or various other 'come with me if you want to live' or 'I'm giving you a chance, leave this planet' moments. The Doctor didn't just materialize the TARDIS around his rescue victims, he opens the door and gives them a choice.

True. And such occasions are vanishingly rare (and forcibly prompted by his human Companions) compared to his usual 'Oh, I might as well save this entire planet, who cares if the few people who believe in me hate my guts' attitude...

thus those like Davros in Journey's End can choose of their own free will to turn it down.

Interesting, isn't it, that the Doc took insane, genocidal Davros's accusations so seriously he actually exiled his other self to another universe, and deprived himself of the love of his lives...? Pity your God feels a lot more sure of his own righteousness.

But he does pretty much everything else so that all his intended rescuees have to do is agree, take his hand, and follow him. That sounds... pretty darn close. :-)

Except that your God resembles a Dalek/Master/Sycorax/Slitheen a lot more than he does the Doctor. And would YOU clutch their blood-stained claws - even for the promise of eternal happiness...?

Jesus was fully human and yet never comitted a sin.

Like hell he was. MY parents taught me that treating your mother with THAT amount of contempt was pretty big on the 'sin' scale (See 'What's your problem WOMAN?' re Mary asking him to turn water into wine, not to mention his temple-related shenanigans as a teenager.)

Plus Jesus himself said that fancying anyone was as bad as adultery. So either he was sinful as hell or he was asexual.

It is not a state of being evil that condemns humans- it's evil actions.

In which case, isn't it grossly unfair that mere belief in Jesus should atone for any amount of evil actions?

And no; there's a difference between temptation (a lustful thought crossing your mind) and sin (choosing to dwell on it after it's crossed).

OK, which bit of 'But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart' are you just not getting?

The DOCTOR, now...HE judges people on their ACTIONS. (OK...except with Androgums in Two Docs, where he was entirely correct, and Ice Warriors in Curse of Peladon, where he soon repents of his racist ways.)

Despite what you may think, God isn't unfair

Me burning in hell for eternity = unfair.

The Dalai Lama burning in hell for eternity = unfair.

Aung San Suu Kyi burning in hell for eternity = unfair.

The Doctor burning in hell for eternity = unfair.

Etc etc...

(Incidentally...Muslims. Will their recognition of Jesus as a 'prophet' atone for the fact they don't recognise him as the 'Son Of God'?)

He's not looking for every opportunity to snuff you out.

Gosh, thanks, God!

He knows the difference between a stray thought and a choice to think about something wrong. (Which, incidentally, a sexual thought isn't if it's within the proper sexual context of marriage).

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Sorry.

Frankly, if I was inventing the human race I'd find a MUCH better way of reproducing than sex, if I found it so repulsive outside of marriage.

I mean, what's wrong with LOOMS?

'What infraction constitutes a single sin' talk is generally pointless, though, since it's a fair bet that nobody in all of history has ever stopped at just one.

Actually, statistically speaking...tens of thousands of kids must have died before commiting more than one.

And if you choose to committ the crime, you aren't innocent. ("You do the crime, you do the time," etc.)

"You do ANY 'crime', you do ETERNAL time" is blatantly unjust.

Even we mere humans have come up with a better justice system than THAT.

We were created in God's image, but since Sin is the opposite of God, when we sin we get pretty far away from that original image.

Still not getting it. NONE of those six-and-a-half-billion Masters made in the image of the Master acted out of character.

Part of that image is the aforementioned Free Will- and yes, if we use it to choose un-godlike things, then we're going to be pretty un-godlike ourselves.

But according to you, EVERY god-like human has chosen pretty un-godlike actions. It's as if BILLIONS of Doctors turned into COLIN BAKER. Deliberately. Instead of a mere one-in-eleven of them going hideously wrong.

God knows what you will choose; that doesn't change with the fact that you have the free ability to choose it.

It SO does! My destiny is as set in stone (pun intended) as Pompeii's.

Again, though... that's not really an absolute system of right or wrong, is it? It's kind of like saying that there are 'degrees' of cyanide in a tablet; as if the cup of water only contaminated with one teaspoon is better than the one contaminated with one cup. Unfortunately, in a realistic system, contaminated is contaminated, regardless of degrees; and death is the outcome regardless.

THE DOCTOR survived cyanide poisoning (Unicorn and the Wasp)...

"Er...no. I'd just ensure that 'thinking for yourself' didn't carry an automatic hellfire sentence." - Emily
As we've been though, it doesn't. Only choosing to do wrong with that selfsame 'thinking for yourself.'

It comes to the same thing in the end. 'Being human' equates to 'committing sin' equates to 'eternal hellfire'. The only opt-out clause involves loving some Jesus bloke more than the Doctor. As if!

"Y'know...if I wired a baby up to a machine that gave it an electric shock every time it cried...and then stood there smugly saying 'This is all your fault, kiddo! You're bringing the pain upon yourself! All you have to do is stop crying!' then I'd rightfully be considered a raving loony." - Emily
Just a teeny bit different. A. The baby doesn't know what it's doing; you do.

But I DON'T know that what I'm doing is wrong. No matter how many times you (or those godawful hymns) tell me I'm a pathetic sinner...

B. God didn't make you sin (I.e. hooked you up), you did.

Nope. We've already established that God set up this incredibly nasty system.

C. God isn't standing by doing nothing, He wwent and flipping DIED so that you wouldn't have to

Er...I'm pretty sure I DO have to die.

And the get-out clause you're offering is as totally WRONG as the one Rassilon offered the Time Lords.

the only thing standing in His way from 'unhooking' you is your own freedom of choice.

I literally have no more chance of loving Jesus than a baby has of stopping its caterwauling. Or than the Tenth Doctor has of NOT sacrificing his life for Wilf's.

No, I'm not saying I never have doubts

Fingers crossed you don't go and DIE during said doubts...

like I said, I think everyone does- but yes, I do believe that whatever He says is true.

What, including the bit about stoning gays?

PLEASE don't.

Though better now that RTG's left Who, I suppose...

So suppose someone believed the Bible's every word - but decided they HATED God because, say, their spouse and kids would undoubtedly be heading straight to hell on account of believing in the Lonely God instead?" - Emily
Well, first I'd say that it'd be pretty foolish of that someone to hate God for the choices that the spouse and kids were making...

I think if parents were forbidden to indoctrinate their brats with any kind of religion till they were 18, you'd be in a LOT better position to talk about 'choice'.

As it is, humans are unfortunately evolutionarily programmed to believe what their parents tell them. (VERY useful in humanity's 'Don't play on the edge of that cliff/don't mess with that snake' days. Considerably less useful NOW.)

(Of course, I managed to cast off my childhood Catholic indoctrination, but then I was blessed in having the Doctor to help me. Not everyone is as lucky.)

and second, in that case, I doubt they'd be accepting anything from Jesus, now would they?

Why not? Supposing a Christian had fallen in love with - and married, and had children by - a Buddhist?

"Wasn't it God who sent them to Egypt to be enslaved in the first place?" - Emily
They went to Egypt so that they wouldn't die of a famine; it was only after a regime-change that the new ruler decided "Oh, a bunch of foreigners... what handy slaves."

Right...like God couldn't have seen THAT coming.

Or stopped the famine in the first place.

At least the Doc - in, say, Face of Evil - was prepared to face up to his mistakes (less so in Genesis of the Daleks, admittedly - 'a great good will come' my ****.)

As I said, Free Will is the freedom to choose whatever we will and live with the consequences, be they good or bad. This does not preclude God delivering the consequences personally.

Well, QUITE. As far as I'm concerned, God ALWAYS delivers the eternal torture personally. Compared to THAT, cutting a few thousand lives drastically short is no big deal.

This does not mean there are no consequences.

There was this British bloke who once got sentenced to 'death plus ten years' by an Iraqi court.

Just thinking of him for some reason...

I mean, which bit of ETERNAL TORTURE is somehow not enough???

Or, if God IS all in favour of genociding anyone who leads others 'astray'...why are, say, the Doctor and Richard Dawkins still breathing...? Cos I'm telling you, those guys are SERIOUSLY leading me astray...

I still had my freedom fo choice, and I still got my results of it- they just happened to be lethal. Some choices we can make are.

Yet again....I actualy have CONSIDERABLY less of a problem with 'lethal' than the Tenth Doctor does. Did. *Sob*. It's the post-lethal torture stuff that's the problem.

Hang on, wait... the people in Midnight had a REASON?!? And here I thought the whole thing was about senseless paranoia...

HELL, yeah! He was an utterly arrogant ALIEN. Plus he was WRONG. The whole chuck-the-*****-out-the-airlock was, with the benefit of hindsight, TOTALLY the right choice...

God is omnipotent, perfect, King of Creation, and Lord of the Unvierse.

If he's trying to impress me...tell him to make an appearance in Doctor Who.

Not that that would work. The Doc would undoubtedly kick him back to wherever he came from.

If he's says "I am God," that's right. If I say "I am God," that's wrong. The same rules do not apply to Him as they do to me.

I think they do. I think you both sound equally mad.

Look, here's a thought... if it helps, picture your phrasing applied to The Doctor. Would you honestly say that I'd be right in doing everything he does?

YES!

Would I have the right to demand you abadon your life to fly around in my little blue box (supposing I were fortunate enough to have one...)

The ONLY time the Doc did that was when he kidnapped Ian and Barbara. And it was wrong for him to do that, as it would be wrong for you to do that. In all other cases, he offered a choice...even if Leela didn't offer HIM one.

Would you say that I deserve your unending adoration the way he does? :-)

If you look, and act, like any of the non-Colin-Baker Doctors...•••• right you do!

I think not; the same things do not apply to us both. Same principle.

Nice try, but unfortunately for you, I DO happen to apply the same principles to my time-travelling immortal beloved that I do to anyone else.

Which is why I hate the Sixth Doctor's guts.

"Suicide is a sin because, essentially, you're deciding to take the power, and the right, of deciding life or death into your own hands when it doesn't belong to you.
So...just like if you dodge out of the way of a falling boulder, then? Or take radiotherapy for your cancer?" - Emily
Doing your best to preserve your life is operating within the circumstances. Comitting suicide is actively deciding to end your life. Bit of a difference.

No, actually, they're both operating within the circumstances. The only difference is if you think death is intrinsically worse than life, which YOU certainly shouldn't. Wings...haloes...THOUSANDS of series of Ecclestonian happiness!)

Sin is an add-on never meant for humans; so it's removeal is hardly taking away everything that makes you human. It's not a removal of free will, though, if that's what you're asking.

So supposing you fancied a bit of sin while you were in heaven...? You know, just a bit of an ogle at Rose/the Tenth Doctor/Amy Pond/Alonso...?

Wrong; God died for OUR hideous mistakes

Your God CREATED us in his image knowing full well that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US would make said hideous mistakes!

Sure, there's a certain surface similarity with Tom ensuring that the Jaggeroth exploded so we could crawl out of the primordial slime...

...The difference being that the Doc believes the worst we'd face is eternal nothingness.

I mean, honestly, why would an imortal being be tortured and die if He can help it- if He's even scared enough of it to, as you alluded to, beg and plead not to have to do it

Well, QUITE. *Casts VERY bitter look at The End of Time Part Two*

The same god who went through everything mentioned above because He didn't want you tormented is not going to be punishing you for an action you couldn't help

What, like being reared a Hindu?

happy new year, all!

MY TENNANT IS DEAD!

And all to buy one geriatric an additional few years of life...

Don't see your Jesus nailing himself up for THAT.

(NB: for once, this isn't a criticism. Your Jesus had the right idea - that at least his life was worth a few million immortalities...)

Doctor bring the TARDIS home,hallelujah.
Doctor bring the TARDIS home, hallelujah.

Nyssa help to work the panel, hallelujah.
Nyssa help to work the panel, hallelujah.

Deep space is chilly and cold, hallelujah.
Chills the body, but not the soul, hallelujah.

Doctor bring the TARDIS home,hallelujah.
Doctor bring the TARDIS home, hallelujah.

N-Space is deep and wide, hallelujah.
See friend Adric on the Other Side, hallelujah.

Doctor bring the TARDIS home,hallelujah.
Doctor bring the TARDIS home, hallelujah.

Okay, here is a slight revised version. Sung to the song of Michael Row Your Boat Ashore.


Doctor bring the TARDIS home, hallelujah.
Doctor bring the TARDIS home, hallelujah.

Nyssa help to work the panel, hallelujah.
Nyssa help to work the panel, hallelujah.

Gulfs of space are chilly and cold, hallelujah.
Chills the body, but not the soul, hallelujah.

Doctor bring the TARDIS home, hallelujah.
Doctor bring the TARDIS home, hallelujah.

Vast N-Space is deep and wide, hallelujah.
See friend Adric on the Other Side, hallelujah.

It's gonna rain one of these years, hallelujah.
Won't be water, but sweet Tegan's tears, hallelujah

Doctor bring the TARDIS home, hallelujah.
Doctor bring the TARDIS home, hallelujah.

Moderator's Note: Moved from 'New Series: Amy's Choice' thread:



I've never understood the religious attitude towards suicide - surely IF you actually BELIEVE in an Afterlife, the only sensible course of action would be to top yourself, swapping this nasty-brutish-and-short-like-a-Sontaran life for a wings-and-halo upgrade...?

From what I understand, Catholic objection to suicide started in the aftermath of The Plague, when 1/3 of the workers died off. The church wanted to discourage the loss of any more tithers... er, devotees.

"But what if what's best for the other person isn't the same as what's important to them? I'm thinking Ten/Rose relationship here, obviously..." - Emily
Hmmm. Good question! I think that, if you're absolutely certain the two are in conflict, then you'd probably do what you thought was best for them, not what they wanted most- but like any situation where you're helping another adult, I imagine it would be a case by case basis- I.E. If they want a fancy desert and a piece of celery is best for them, well... you're not their mum. :-) On the other hand, if they're stumbling drunk and what they'd LIKE is to drive... ;-) So I dunno. I'd say supporting them in what they want unless you are certain it's going to be harmful to them... but one of the nice things about the relationship between to adults is that you can discus it, after all, so the choice doesn't have to come down to 'what you've unilaterally decided is better.' :-) In the end, though- putting them first should cover either- what's best or what they want most- whichever ends up applying in the individual situation.

In the case of Tennant/Rose, what would you see as the application of this conundrum?


"I've never understood the religious attitude towards suicide - surely IF you actually BELIEVE in an Afterlife, the only sensible course of action would be to top yourself, swapping this nasty-brutish-and-short-like-a-Sontaran life for a wings-and-halo upgrade...?" - Emily
Only thing is- A. God has the right to decide life and death; it's not our choice to make; B. There are poor to be helped, lost to be reached, hungry to be fed, etc.; the Bible makes it very clear that this should be what we do with our lives. Sadly, too many of us don't; never reaching out beyond our level of convenience... but either way, deciding to leave this life to reach a better, perfect afterlife on your own terms would be the ultimate in selfishness & shirking of that responsibility- arrogantly deciding that your life has no further purpose nor yourself any more work that you're responsible for before shuffling off to your 'reward'- like a worker who decides to quit at 10 a.m., and then demands his day's pay anyway.

And most of all, as Christians believe that anyone who doesn't come to Christ won't be reaching that same perfect afterlife, spreading the word and reaching people who aren't believers is of tantamount importance. As Penn Gillette said in his podcast, (paraphrased) "I don't agree with Christians, but I'm not offended by being prosthelatized- I mean, if you DO believe that anyone who doesn't believe in Jesus is going to spend an eternity in Hell, then how heartless are YOU not to tell me about it? I may not think there's anything to it- but it least it shows me that you care enough to try and help me from what you think is going to happen."

If everyone who believed just topped themselves right off to go get into Heaven right away, there'd be no one to do that telling. We have a purpose, a duty to other people if we're anything other that uncaring, heartless monsters- and so it's isn't our right to remove ourselves from this Earth- and from that purpose- before God so chooses.

Hence the religious attitude on suicide. :-)


"Suppose you were in Amy's place - knowing there was AT LEAST a 50/50 chance that the only way of surviving was, paradoxically, to top yourself...would you do it?" - Emily
Based on the mitigating circumstances- namely that one reality is a dream, and, more significantly, doing nothing will result in my death anyway, then yes, I probably would. And yes, I'd probably share Amy's bias; the life in which my wife had just died would not be one I'd want to keep living through anyhow- so if I had a 50/50 chance of picking the right one, that would make my choice for me. But again, due to the inactivity = death and if you choose right, you're not really dying at all- thus not making real suicide intentional if it does occurr, I'd think it's a little different than your average suicide.


"Yeah, but why should romantic/sexual love be MORE powerful than love for the Doctor?
Sure as hell isn't as far as I'm concerned..." - Emily
Well, I'd say that love- true love, as opposed to being in love- requires actually knowing the person; you can't really love them if you don't actually know them- the best you can do is have feelings for an image you've created. Much as Amy has spent her life obsessing over the Doctor, she's hasn't spent it knowing the Doctor, knowing him as a person- it's like he's a celebrity she met as a child, and now she's been invited to tour with his band; she loves him in the way that teenagers 'loved' Elijah Wood- not very deeply, because they didn't really know him. Rory, on the other hand, she's spent more than a few weeks of her life actually getting to know, forming an attachment of caring (rather than just a fanish obsession), etc.

You, on the other hand, have spent a lifetime getting to know the Doctor (by virtue of seeing him 'as he really is' week after week, in a way that only televised fiction can deliver, since what you see is the entirety of who he is, as opposed to, say, reality TV where you only see an act put on for the cameras), so clearly your feelings are going to be stronger for the Doctor... ;-)

since what you see is the entirety of who he is, as opposed to, say, reality TV where you only see an act put on for the cameras

Now that's an interesting idea, that a fictional character should show more depth and sincerity than actual people in a reality show.

In the case of Tennant/Rose, what would you see as the application of this conundrum?

Judging by his utterly disgusting actions sneaking the yellow thingamajig round her neck in Doomsday, Ten made a unilateral decision that Rose's life would be better lived in the wrong universe in the company of JACKIE TYLER (of all people!) rather than roaming time and space and saving planets alongside the man she loves, viz, HIM. Judging by the look on his face (and his subsequent words and actions (unless he was just putting 'em on to wind up Martha)) he sure as hell wasn't doing it for his OWN sake.

But frankly, what made him presume to understand HUMAN feelings? She was prepared to destroy two universes to get back to him (and that was when her presence in Pete's World was an alternative to eternity in the Void, rather than to a life with the Doc - you'd think that would have made her feel a BIT better about the situation...)

And don't get me started on him dumping her on Bad Wolf Bay AGAIN...

Only thing is- A. God has the right to decide life and death; it's not our choice to make

So if a boulder fell down a hill towards your head, you wouldn't get out of the way, on the grounds that would be usurping God's decision? And if you got cancer you wouldn't have chemotherapy?

And anyway...are you SURE you want to tell me that your God personally offed everyone who died of natural causes? Cos I REALLY don't find that...endearing.

deciding to leave this life to reach a better, perfect afterlife on your own terms would be the ultimate in selfishness & shirking of that responsibility

You could try taking a good few poor sick needy people with you ;)

And most of all, as Christians believe that anyone who doesn't come to Christ won't be reaching that same perfect afterlife, spreading the word and reaching people who aren't believers is of tantamount importance.

Well, OF COURSE you should be tying me to a stake and setting fire to me. Pour encourager les autres.

Rory, on the other hand, she's spent more than a few weeks of her life actually getting to know, forming an attachment of caring (rather than just a fanish obsession), etc.

Nice point, but DO bear in mind that she might never have formed that attachment to Rory if he hadn't gone along with her fannish obsession of dressing him up as Raggedy Doctor...

You, on the other hand, have spent a lifetime getting to know the Doctor (by virtue of seeing him 'as he really is' week after week, in a way that only televised fiction can deliver, since what you see is the entirety of who he is

You're quite right. AND I STILL love him AFTER THE COLIN BAKER ERA! So it's not like I have any illusions left...

"Only thing is- A. God has the right to decide life and death; it's not our choice to make
So if a boulder fell down a hill towards your head, you wouldn't get out of the way, on the grounds that would be usurping God's decision? And if you got cancer you wouldn't have chemotherapy?" - Emily
Maybe I should re-phrase- only God has the right to decide when your life ends; it's not our choice to make TO END IT PREMATURELY. Of course, you do what you can to save your own life- as in those situations. But it's not your right to choose to cut it off voluntarily. To sacrifice it- I.E. the Doctor with Wilf, or to put yourself in a life-threatening situation to help others (I.E. Going into a burning building to rescue someone), yes. But to simply end it because you've decided to, no.

"And anyway...are you SURE you want to tell me that your God personally offed everyone who died of natural causes? Cos I REALLY don't find that...endearing." - Emily
Well, frankly that's because you have a bad attitude and would find a way to be offended no matter what God did. :-) People who died of natural causes died of natural causes; nobody lives forever. What I am saying is that God has the right to choose the end of someone's life- to choose to end it prematurely (and through laws He set forth, to set the criteria for which that should happen- I.E. capitol punishment for murder)- and that we don't. Not that He is bumping off old people. :-)

"And most of all, as Christians believe that anyone who doesn't come to Christ won't be reaching that same perfect afterlife, spreading the word and reaching people who aren't believers is of tantamount importance.
Well, OF COURSE you should be tying me to a stake and setting fire to me. Pour encourager les autres." - Emily
Ummmm... no. Look, I can't help what a group of medieval and colonial ignorants did; doesn't mean that their actions have any bearing on what the Bible says or what we're supposed to do... it just means that they were a bunch of loons who were history's biggest recorded case of "didn't do their research," with lethal results. Come on now... bad attitude, like I said. :-)


"Judging by his utterly disgusting actions sneaking the yellow thingamajig round her neck in Doomsday," - Emily
Gotta say... I don't actually remember the particulars well enough to comment on this; where in the order of events this was. Was this before he tried to close the void, leaving her in Pete's world, or just before they went to close it, in our world, as a backup/life-preserver just-in-case?

As often as this keeps happening, I gotta figure one of us is baiting the other... I'm just not sure which is which... ;-)

But it's not your right to choose to cut it off voluntarily. To sacrifice it- I.E. the Doctor with Wilf, or to put yourself in a life-threatening situation to help others (I.E. Going into a burning building to rescue someone), yes. But to simply end it because you've decided to, no.

But where do you draw the line? What if you're ancient and rapidly going senile, and in extreme pain, and there's no new season of Who on the horizon - and you want to put yourself out of your misery for your own sake AND for the overpopulated society and family who'd have to pay through the nose to some godawful old folks' home to eke out your miserable existence for another few years?

Or to put it another way, supposing Time-War-scarred Eccyn'Tennant had been DESPERATE to die rather than being SERIOUSLY pissed-off about it - would you still have been happy about them sacrificing themselves for their Companions?

Well, frankly that's because you have a bad attitude and would find a way to be offended no matter what God did. :-)

Believe you me, once someone says 'Lurve me or I TORTURE you', I don't have to go LOOKING for reasons to hate 'em...you might as well accuse me of picking on poor old Davros...

Well, OF COURSE you should be tying me to a stake and setting fire to me. Pour encourager les autres." - Emily
Ummmm... no. Look, I can't help what a group of medieval and colonial ignorants did; doesn't mean that their actions have any bearing on what the Bible says or what we're supposed to do...

But THEY made PERFECT LOGICAL SENSE and you...don't. If I'm gonna (deservedly!) fry for eternity, what's another half-an-hour being barbequed on Earth - especially if that might persuade me (or rather a lot of my audience) to convert to Protestantism forthwith...?

And don't tell me God DIDN'T tell the Israelites to wander round the desert for forty years slaughtering anyone who didn't worship their God...

Was this before he tried to close the void, leaving her in Pete's world, or just before they went to close it, in our world, as a backup/life-preserver just-in-case?

Doc announces he's gonna permanently close the Void, and Rose ought to be on the other side with Jackie n'alt-Pete. Rose implies 'over my dead body' in no uncertain terms. The Doc sneaks a teleporter-thing round her neck and Pete activates it. Rose manages to get back (THAT time!) and explains that 'I made my choice a long time ago and I'm never gonna leave you.' The Doctor's arrogance in deciding what's best for her is breathtaking. Remember Parting of the Ways? Rose's OWN MOTHER AND BOYFRIEND actively HELP her sacrifice her life diving back into half-a-million Daleks because they respect her wish to be with the Doctor (i.e. the man who ruined BOTH their lives). But in Doomsday, the Doc decides that He Knows Best (yeah...cos he's SUCH an expert on teenage human female feelings).

As often as this keeps happening, I gotta figure one of us is baiting the other... I'm just not sure which is which... ;-)

Oh, it's DEFINITELY all your fault...of course, you can't help yourself, you're trying to save our souls...whereas I have WAY more important things to talk about than some ludicrous fictional god - I have our Doctor...

"But where do you draw the line? What if you're ancient and rapidly going senile, and in extreme pain, and there's no new season of Who on the horizon - and you want to put yourself out of your misery for your own sake AND for the overpopulated society and family who'd have to pay through the nose to some godawful old folks' home to eke out your miserable existence for another few years?
Or to put it another way, supposing Time-War-scarred Eccyn'Tennant had been DESPERATE to die rather than being SERIOUSLY pissed-off about it - would you still have been happy about them sacrificing themselves for their Companions? " - Emily
Right where I said the line was drawn; it's not your right to decide. Even when it may feel like your life is opver, who are you to decide if God has any purpose left to your life or not? Still, I understand the point. (Well, I never am HAPPY about the Doctor sacrificing himself in the first place... :-) ) I think, like so many things, it really does come down to a mindset. If a practically suicidal person throws themself in front of a bullet or absorbs a lethal dose of radiation because it's the right thing to do, because they want to save the other person, because in that moment they aren't thinking about themselves- then I don't think it's wrong. Like Rory in Cold Blood, your mindset and long-term goals don't necessarily factor into a split-second decision- or even a more gradual choice.

On the other hand, if the person is thinking "Ah, good! A way to die! Some good may even come of it as a side effect!", then it would be wrong. It all comes down to reasons and intentions.


"Believe you me, once someone says 'Lurve me or I TORTURE you', I don't have to go LOOKING for reasons to hate 'em..." - Emily
Except, again, that's a viewpoint you invented that I have attempted to point out the untruth of multiple times... so again I say to ye, madam... bad attitude! ;-)


"But THEY made PERFECT LOGICAL SENSE and you...don't. If I'm gonna (deservedly!) fry for eternity, what's another half-an-hour being barbequed on Earth - especially if that might persuade me (or rather a lot of my audience) to convert to Protestantism forthwith...?" - Emily
First of all... and foremost of all... because that's not what God commanded. Believe it or not, God loves you as His own child and gladly would (and did) DIE for you... so I think He might have just a little bit of an issue with folks setting you on fire. :-) Second of all, as in the debate above, 'what's another half-hour' doesn't hold true- who are they to decide that God doesn't still have a plan for your life, some good to come from you, or some good to come TO you, or both... especially when some further point in your life may well lead to your believing and not ending up in said 'frying for eternity' anyhow! Thirdly... ummm, it's murder. And murder condoned by a mob or a ruling church it still murder. Fourthly, I'd like to hope if anything I've sqaid over the last few years has sunk in, it'd be evident that such 'conversion to Protestantism forthwith' would mean nothing anyhow. Salvation sin't about "Convert to the right religion" any more than it is about "Love me or burn". Honestly, religion is a sham. It's a flawed concept, an absurd human invention. It's a bunch of knock-offs and frauds so prevalent and fanatically loved that they invented a new genre called 'religion' to encompass it. All there was ever meant to be was us, and God, and our relationship with Him. Other religions, religious traditions, organized religion... all of these were man's inventions. Salvation, and our relationship with God, is solely about His love for us; He wants us to follow His laws- because He loves us, and our lives would be better off with them. He wants us to know Him and grow closer to Him- because a fundamental design of our beings is that we will be happier the closer we are to Him; we are made to be fulfilled by that. And He wants us to believe in Him and accept salvation, to put our faith in Jesus, because He loves us- and because our own actions have condemned us, not any actions of His. But because He loves us, He died for us, and now is offering us a free gift of escaping the consequences of our own foolish actions- even though He had no responsibility in comitting them, nor any obligation to resolve them, He's done so because He loves us, and He wants that one-on-one personal relationship with each of us. That's what it's about- and since a conversion-by-fear to an organized church sect is totally and wholly devoid of any element of that- it would be as worthless to them as placing their faith in a rutabaga.

"And don't tell me God DIDN'T tell the Israelites to wander round the desert for forty years slaughtering anyone who didn't worship their God..." - Emily
No, that is true. Unlike the crusades, there have been times in history where God has commanded His people to go to war. That is immaterial to any current discussions- as He is not commanding or conding such actions now or since. However, in addressing it- I would not claim to udnerstand the purpose of what God has done in history without at least a Doctor-like overview of time and space that can see the impact of various changes, but my thought it this (and this is just my own personal opinion)- look at how much modern civilization has been influenced by ancient cultures- Greece, Rome... so many elements, from justice systems to legal systems to culture and language have been influenced by them. Who's to say what the world and culture would be like today had some of those empires become the dominant forces? Or, to put it another way, as I may have mentioned here before- if someone goes back in time and kills Hitler in his crib, all that a WWII-less world sees is some monster who traveled back in time just to murder a baby. Because there is no WWII, they have no idea of what horror or how many deaths have been avoided by stopping the Nazis before they started- all they can see is the apparently-undeserved death of an early source for the evil that would one day blossom- an evil they've never experienced. Likewise, let's remember- these weren't happy-bunny-and-flowers civilizations we were looking at here...


"Doc announces he's gonna permanently close the Void, and Rose ought to be on the other side with Jackie n'alt-Pete. Rose implies 'over my dead body' in no uncertain terms. The Doc sneaks a teleporter-thing round her neck and Pete activates it. Rose manages to get back (THAT time!) and explains that 'I made my choice a long time ago and I'm never gonna leave you.' The Doctor's arrogance in deciding what's best for her is breathtaking. Remember Parting of the Ways? Rose's OWN MOTHER AND BOYFRIEND actively HELP her sacrifice her life diving back into half-a-million Daleks because they respect her wish to be with the Doctor (i.e. the man who ruined BOTH their lives). But in Doomsday, the Doc decides that He Knows Best (yeah...cos he's SUCH an expert on teenage human female feelings)." - Emily

Right! Okay, coming back to me now. Yeah, I'm gonna call that, like Amy's Choice and suicide above, loving intentions extremely missaplied. He does want what's best for her- good- but completely decides that HE knows what that is, which is, as you say, arrogant, as well as selfish and presumptuous - bad. So, he's taking a good motivation, a loving motivation... and acting on it in totally the wrong way.

"Oh, it's DEFINITELY all your fault..." - Emily
Fair enough. :-)

"Believe you me, once someone says 'Lurve me or I TORTURE you', I don't have to go LOOKING for reasons to hate 'em...you might as well accuse me of picking on poor old Davros..." - Emily

In fact... let's explore this notion in particular once and for all, shall we?

Let's posit, for the sake of argument, that it is wholly and fully God's responsibility for creating a universe with an absolute system of right and wrong, by which any and all wrong must be punished, and by which punishment for any wrong is only and ever Hell, 'eternal torture,' as you put it. (Lest you decry this as already a point of condemnation, let me remind you that with examples like Family of Blood (and one might say Love & Monsters- life as an immortal paving slab with a face?!), the Doctor has done no less...). He then creates a race of beings who have done no wrong. He gives them an understanding of right and wrong, so ignorance is no excuse, and a freedom to choose, so that there can be no compulsion to do wrong. In short, they are perfectly and 100% equiped to make their own choices and choose to do no wrong. And in fact, He arranges it so that no wrong can be done without their having made a conscious choice to do it. Meaning that these beings, with complete free will and ability to choose right and wrong can only do wrong by conscious choice to take an action. (Sounds like 100% culpability on the part of the beings to me, but...) To further this scenario, let us say that God, at great cost to Himself because He loves these beings, creates a scapegoat in Himself, so that even if these beings do use the 100% freedom of choice they have to choose to do wrong, diverting from the path He set them on and making themselves subject to the punishment they were never intended for, they can STILL avoid it, the sole and ONLY requirement being that they actually use that complete freedom of choice to choose to accept it (since the complete 100% freedom of choice means that they can no more have a satisfaction fo their debt forced on them than they can the compulsion to do wrong forced on them.) In this way, yes, God has created the universe and the punishment system (for Satan and rebelious angels who, frankly, have no excuse.) He has also created humans, put them on a path that would never lead them anywhere near said punishment that isn't meant for them, given them the tools and freedom to navigate the path on their own, given them unrestricted choice so that they cannot be made to do anything, but allowed to choose everything for themselves, make it so that they cannot deviate from the path and towards that punishment they're not meant for unless they consciously choose to do so (using the same unrestricted freedom of choice that allows them to choose their own destiny and avoid coercian in the first place), and even if they DO for some reason choose to stray off that path and towards the punishment they weren't meant for by their own conscious choices, for which they and they alone are responsible, He has STILL set up an escape for them which is as simple as using their 100% freedom of choice to let Him help, since He can no more coerce them to that than to anything else- or in Who terms, not only has He given them a Tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator to protect them from any external threat, but He has also set up a resce system in case they should threaten themselves or steer themselves towards deadly peril, in which the only requirement to them is to drop the extrapolator's unbreachable sheild long enough to let Him in to save them.

So, all that posited... in what way is God in any way responsible if you or anyone else goes to Hell? In what way is it a 'love me or burn' scneraio? In what way does He have any culpability in that? In what way is He threatening to 'torture' anyone? It seems to me that He built multuiple redundancies into the nature of existence to prevent this, gives you complete freedom of choice- what you choose to do with it is solely on your own head- and altogether does everything EXCEPT take away your freedom of choice and make you a nonsentient zombie akin to a Family of Blood scarecrow in order to FORCE you not to do anything wrong, or to accept the salvation He's designed to save you... in which case there wouldn't even be a 'you' left to save in the first place, since 'you' would be gone the moment you lost sentience anyhow.

So please... no more of this "God's running a 'Love me or burn' protection racket" bit, please? It just doesn't jibe with the facts.

it's not your right to decide. Even when it may feel like your life is opver, who are you to decide if God has any purpose left to your life or not?

Duh - you're the person whose LIFE it is.

On the other hand, if the person is thinking "Ah, good! A way to die! Some good may even come of it as a side effect!", then it would be wrong. It all comes down to reasons and intentions.

In other words, God has to read your mind. But, let's face it - God is RUBBISH at reading people's minds. Or he wouldn't have gone through all that 'Sacrifice your son to show me how much you lurve me, Abraham!' stuff. Unless he was a TOTALLY sadistic maniac, of course *hint hint*...

so again I say to ye, madam... bad attitude! ;-)

This is reminding me of that scene in So Vile A Sin where the Doctor is accused of regicide AND contempt of court. Frankly I may as well get my moneys-worth out of my eternal damnation.

because that's not what God commanded.

Really? Cos I've gathered sticks on the Sabbath. (Metaphorically speaking.) And Our Lord was pretty •••• specific about what happens next...

Believe it or not, God loves you as His own child and gladly would (and did) DIE for you...

Put it this way...I'd be a LOT less impressed by Tennant's self-sacrifice if HE'D been the one who locked Wilf in the box in the first place...

so I think He might have just a little bit of an issue with folks setting you on fire. :-)

You're so sweet. But he obviously doesn't have a problem with the devil setting me on fire for eternity. Plus, I wear clothing made of more than one thread...I'm a gonner, I can tell you...I'm Pertwee in The Daemons, and he's that bloke in the newspaper...

Though as your lord's big on the whole cutting-out-the-righteous-as-well-as-the-wicked-with-his-sword stuff, you should be feeling rather nervous too...

who are they to decide that God doesn't still have a plan for your life, some good to come from you, or some good to come TO you, or both...

Exactly! The good would come from people sickened by the stench of my burning flesh turning to whatever-god-was-credited-with-burning-me...

And surely no good that would come to me on Earth would compare with the heavenly joy of MORE seasons of Ecclestonian goodness, anyway...

especially when some further point in your life may well lead to your believing and not ending up in said 'frying for eternity' anyhow!

Your omniscient god would know...SO not gonna happen.

Thirdly... ummm, it's murder. And murder condoned by a mob or a ruling church it still murder.

I agree. But then, I extend the definition of 'murder' to 'murder condoned by God'. Do you?

Honestly, religion is a sham.

Hear, hear!

Well, except for the Evil One from Face of Evil, obviously. Sure, he's a kind of sham...but WHAT a face!

Salvation, and our relationship with God, is solely about His love for us

Er...in which case, I have nothing to worry about! He loves me! So there's no need for you to worry so much about the fact I don't love, respect, or believe in him...it's not like that'll land me in hell...oh, wait...

He wants us to follow His laws- because He loves us, and our lives would be better off with them.

Hint for if you have a daughter: selling her into slavery according to God's Law is highly unlikely to improve her life.

He wants us to know Him and grow closer to Him- because a fundamental design of our beings is that we will be happier the closer we are to Him; we are made to be fulfilled by that.

Ah! So the Doctor IS God! I knew it! (Even before he immodestly started spouting that 'Lonely God' stuff in New Earth.) Because nothing, but NOTHING makes me feel happier than being closer to him...

No, that is true. Unlike the crusades, there have been times in history where God has commanded His people to go to war. That is immaterial to any current discussions- as He is not commanding or conding such actions now or since.

How would YOU know? I mean, if some evangelical nut on TV told you to get out there and do a bit of smiting, how would you KNOW he (I'm assuming 'he') wasn't as true a prophet as when dear old Moses hung all those heads against the sun, on the Lord's orders...?

if someone goes back in time and kills Hitler in his crib, all that a WWII-less world sees is some monster who traveled back in time just to murder a baby. Because there is no WWII, they have no idea of what horror or how many deaths have been avoided by stopping the Nazis before they started- all they can see is the apparently-undeserved death of an early source for the evil that would one day blossom- an evil they've never experienced.

Very true, and doesn't that happen somewhere in the Bible - a religious nut slaughters a baby, his disciple asks WTF!!! and gets that very explanation? I don't actually have a problem with that. (Well, obviously I DO, not being a total nutter, but let's just say I have LESS of a problem with that that with the Doctor faffing around with 'Do I have the right' and all the universes subsequently being VERY NEARLY wiped out...)

But - this isn't the case with the forty-years-wandering-in-the-desert-genociding-everyone situation. Sure, you can speculate that it MAY be, but then you could justify any atrocity on Earth with that. And even Hitler's most ardent admirers haven't tried arguing that 'Oh, if he hadn't shoved six million Jews into the gas ovens one of 'em would have a great-great-granddaughter who'd kill quite a lot of people.' You could also justify all that raping God's Chosen did by claiming that some wonderful descendant came of it, but...in the absence of anything in the Bible even hinting at ANY this, it remains seriously desperate speculation on your part. There's no shred of evidence to suggest that the decades-long Middle Eastern genocide was caused by anything other than your God feeling SERIOUSLY pissed-off with EVERYONE who lived there.

Plus - hasn't your God ever heard of a TARGETED strike? What is he, the Atraxi?

Likewise, let's remember- these weren't happy-bunny-and-flowers civilizations we were looking at here...

They were almost certainly a lot happier and bunny-and-flowers-ier BEFORE the Israelites arrived to slaughter, rape, and/or enslave them...I mean, take Jericho, where they slaughtered all the animals too...(There had BETTER not have been any cats in the Middle East in those days...)

Let's posit, for the sake of argument, that it is wholly and fully God's responsibility for creating a universe with an absolute system of right and wrong, by which any and all wrong must be punished, and by which punishment for any wrong is only and ever Hell, 'eternal torture,' as you put it.

Yes, let's!

(Lest you decry this as already a point of condemnation, let me remind you that with examples like Family of Blood (and one might say Love & Monsters- life as an immortal paving slab with a face?!), the Doctor has done no less...)

Unlike you with your God, I can luckily say, yup, the Doctor was way out of order there. I don't quite understand why he reacted so drastically to the fact the Family had killed a few people and upset a woman-he-didn't-love-any-more. (I also don't understand HOW he did ANY of that.) And Ursula might be very happy with her paving-slab existence NOW, but just wait till Elton's been dead a few years...such desperation to preserve life at all costs is strange...I prefer my Doc in 'Everything has its time, and everything dies' mode.

He then creates a race of beings who have done no wrong.

A RACE? Two people only, surely. If you're going by the Adamn'Eve rather than the (totally conflicting) OTHER, 'male and female he created them' Creation story in Genesis. (Yes, I realise that you can throw the Dals in my face if we're talking contradictory Genesis stories...)

(Sounds like 100% culpability on the part of the beings to me, but...)

BUT, of course, the Doctor would approve of people trying to gain knowledge, no matter what death threats were put in their way...

(Plus, eating an apple isn't THAT evil! Even if an apple a day keeps the...oh, never mind.)

To further this scenario, let us say that God, at great cost to Himself because He loves these beings, creates a scapegoat in Himself, so that even if these beings do use the 100% freedom of choice they have to choose to do wrong, diverting from the path He set them on and making themselves subject to the punishment they were never intended for, they can STILL avoid it

Look, I'm used to self-sacrifice. (Bloody Eccy. Bloody Tennant. Bloody Davison, given what came next...) I RESPECT it.

But...there's simply NO WAY any Doctor of mine would nail HIMSELF to a tree in an attempt to persuade HIMSELF that humans were worth saving YET AGAIN. He's just...bloody well get on with saving them. Whatever total gits they were.

OK, except for Pertwee topping hismelf to prove that he wasn't scared of spiders.

And how stupid was THAT?! All because he listened to a god-botherer...

the sole and ONLY requirement being that they actually use that complete freedom of choice to choose to accept it (since the complete 100% freedom of choice

I think we have slightly differnt definitions of 100% freedom of choice. We are all the products of our nature AND our nurture. What chance has a someone who dies at two years old to love Jesus? What chance someone who died before Jesus was born? What chance someone who has known nothing but Muslim indoctrination since birth? What chance ME, a born nitpicker and feminist...?

I can no more worship your god than YOU could worship Allah because a Muslim told you that if you didn't stick your head in a burqa and start prostrating yourself pronto, you'd burn like you were living in the year five billion.

(yes, God has created the universe and the punishment system (for Satan and rebelious angels who, frankly, have no excuse.)

As I'm quite sure I've already said...if THAT large a percentage of your wonderful (one might almost say angelic ;) population decides to risk their necks by rising up against you...you're doing something SERIOUSLY wrong. And might like to consider introducing this thing called multi-party democracy...

Plus 'I only set the trap for angels, it's not my fault that 99.9% of humanity happened to fall into it' is the most pathetic excuse EVER. Ace's fiasco of a cat-trap in Survival doesn't BEGIN to cover it...

He has also created humans, put them on a path that would never lead them anywhere near said punishment that isn't meant for them

Aren't we forgetting the whole 'omniscient' thing??

I mean, I blame the Doctor bitterly for what he did to the Morestran Empire, even though a) he meant well, b) it would have taken REAL hindsight to see how badly he sent them off the rails, and c) the new series has decanonised Zeta Major ANYWAY.

they cannot deviate from the path and towards that punishment they're not meant for unless they consciously choose to do so

You're talking like I'm deliberately choosing 'Ooh, hellfire and damnation - that's for me!' the way I'll decide which Who DVD to watch.

Just for the record, I dislike pain. It distracts me from the important thing in life, viz, Doctor Who.

And you SO over-estimate the consciousness of love. I couldn't love your Jesus even if I wanted to. Any more than I could love Mohammed.

not only has He given them a Tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator to protect them from any external threat, but He has also set up a resce system in case they should threaten themselves or steer themselves towards deadly peril, in which the only requirement to them is to drop the extrapolator's unbreachable sheild long enough to let Him in to save them.

But given that a) he knows perfectly well most people are too thick to make use of said TWMKE, and b) he created the deadly threat in the first place...SO not good enough.

My Doctor saves everyone he possibly can, with no conditions attached. And HE never asks to be thanked. (Well, except in Waters of Mars, and THAT was a clear sign he was going off the rails.)

So, all that posited... in what way is God in any way responsible if you or anyone else goes to Hell?

Call me hyper-critical, but the whole 'creating hell' thing is kinda springing to mind...

In what way is it a 'love me or burn' scneraio?

In the way that if you don't love him, you burn.

(AND you have to love a specific incarnation of him, I mean, it just HAS to be Baby Jesus, a crush on the Holy Ghost just won't cut the mustard...god, what if I can't get into Who-Heaven unless I love Colin Baker...? It doesn't bear thinking about.)

In what way is He threatening to 'torture' anyone? It seems to me that He built multuiple redundancies into the nature of existence to prevent this

So what percentage of humanity (and alienity) would you estimate managed to take advantage of these alleged multiple redundancies...?

Cos my Doctor doesn't generally worry too much about multiple redundancies but he STILL manages to save a lot more of the population than your guy...

gives you complete freedom of choice- what you choose to do with it is solely on your own head- and altogether does everything EXCEPT take away your freedom of choice and make you a nonsentient zombie akin to a Family of Blood scarecrow in order to FORCE you not to do anything wrong

No-one's volunteering to be a scarecrow, but there's something SERIOUSLY amiss with the scenario that, for example, 'Having a sexual thought' or 'Slagging off Colin Baker' = WRONG! = ETERNAL TORTURE!

And if YOU can't see that...YOU'RE scarily similar to a zombie.

So please... no more of this "God's running a 'Love me or burn' protection racket" bit, please? It just doesn't jibe with the facts.

Well, of course it doesn't. The facts being that God doesn't exist.

Moderator's Note: This continues a conversation from The Pandorica Opens, regarding River Song's 'You've been a soldier too long to believe the gods are watching over you' comment:

much as that sounded like an "writer's soapbox" statement, it may well have simply been a character moment.

Most atheists don't bother with soapboxes to declare the non-existence of God/Allah/fairies at the bottom of the garden. (Obviously I'm an exception.)

And yes, it was a character moment. River's an archaeologist - her JOB is to find evidence and draw the logical conclusions.

I didn't expect River to have any religious beliefs. That doesn't make her statement any less foolish, however.

It had a certain logical flaw - the assumption that a god-botherer's faith is likely to be shaken by any amount of evidence to the contrary - but River presumably knew that Romans didn't tend to be fanatical about their religions. (At least till those Christians REALLY started getting on their nerves.)

"Plus...River's the Doctor's bloody WIFE." - Emily
Well, if this is what it takes to get that admission out of people... ;-)

Hey! Don't take me out of context! I added a '(Or whatever)' IMMEDIATELY afterwards!

"What is so intrinsically stupid about expecting a god to actually ANSWER prayers?" - Emily
Nothing stupid about it at all. What is stupid is expecting the answer you were looking for every time,

River wasn't talking about EVERY time, she was talking about ANY time.

(Let's say, for example, that Rickston Slade from VOTD popped up to the Doctor as the Titanic was being towed home and started requesting that the Doctor use his miraculous little blue box to, say, go make it snow (which we know he can do) on some crops on the planet Zilx (because that will drive his stock's up). If the Doctor refuses, wouldn't Slade- the best example I could think of as having an extremely limited, narrow understanding of the universe for a very confined perspective- be rather stupid in using this refusal to justify the belief that the Doctor was powerless, nonexistent, or a sham?)

Of course he would. Because he can SEE the Doctor himself, and he has witnessed the Doc's awesome planet-saving powers. (Well, actually, South-of-England saving powers.) Whereas this Roman soldier - and indeed, anyone ever (or anyone in the last 2000 years, according to you) hasn't had the dubious pleasure of a personal encounter with their deity of choice.

So, again- nothing stupid about expecting an answer to prayer. Only expecting the specific answer you were looking for, and taking the lack of it to mean something other than the fact that you don't always know best, is.

But THIS soldier has witnessed so much he IS able to draw reasonable conclusions. And I suspect it's not so much the 'Oh, why didn't God alter the universe to suit my whim!' people he looks upon with contempt - but those who have won a battle due to superior training/courage/discipline/generalship/numbers/armaments/luck etc etc...who then promptly give all the credit to their god(s)...

"Has it occurred to you that, like the Doctor, River Song lies? She needs to persuade this hard-bitten soldier of things beyond his imagination. A good start would be to prove that SHE isn't superstitious, and what better way than to slag off the gods themselves?" - Emily
Also a good point.

It is indeed. Though admittedly it relies on River being a swift and excellent judge of character. Which is yet to be proved. Sure, the very fact River's still alive suggests she's great at manipulating other people to do as she says, even in the most unpromising of circumstances...but this IS the woman who regarded TennantDoc as a bit of a loser. Not to mention all that killing-the-best-man-she's-ever-known stuff...

and the condescending tone "a fool might call it..." rankles.

Suffering fools gladly has never been one of River's talents. If the TENTH DOCTOR isn't good enough for her...(You can think of her being trapped for eternity in a 'heaven' largely consisting of the moronic Miss Evangelista and three moronic children as a punishment for her condescension, if you like. (I still can't BELIEVE the Doctor did THAT to her!))

"The fact that, in dozens of battles, thousands of deaths, and countless prayers to loads of gods, there's not the slightest evdiance of divine intervention on anyone's side." - Emily
A. I think some of the Hebrews might disagree with you. :-)

Oh, THEM. Did they ever actually SEE their God lead them in battle? Or did he just pick good generals and tell 'em to get on with it - only occasionally helpfully knocking down the walls of some innocent town like Jericho so every woman, man, animal, and child inside could be slaughtered?

B. And why is divine intervention a required proof? What does it's lack prove? That's not any evidence of anything... that's like saying that because I haven't visited London, I don't exist. (Well, not EXACTLY like saying that... :-) )

Well, quite. There's plenty of evidence that London exists. (There's even some non-Doctor-Who-related evidence for REALLY fussy people.) There is, however, no evidence whatsoever that Jsesoooalfph Town exists (cos I've just made it up) so until you actually see a shred of evidence, you might want to be a bit sceptical on that point.

So... God gives humanity Free Will, promising to let them make their own choices and live with the consequences. He then... allows them to make their own choices and live with the consequence, not stepping in to interfere. And... this is proof of His non-existence?

Well, the most sensible conclusion to draw from 'No sign whatsover of any god' is 'There is no god'. Not 'There IS one, he used to hang around ordering various genocides and looking like a burning bush, but for the last couple of millennia he's put his feet up and just WATCHED a third of Cambodia get tortured to death, 40% of Europe die of bubonic plague, etc etc. It's his thrilling new non-interference policy, you see.'

(What kind of god worth its salt could DO that? Any more than the Doctor could have remained on Gallifrey forever?)

"And neither was your Old Testament god." - Emily
Shouldn't take the bait, shouldn't take the bait...

Oh really? How do you figure? :-)

Well, is THIS ringing any bells:

GOD [in mass-Ood-chanting voice]: YOU WILL WORSHIP ME!
HEBREWS: No, actually, there's this LOVELY Golden Cow we'd prefer, if it's all the same to you...
GOD: DIE, SCUMBAGS!

(I mean, having thousands of people put to death by plague AND the sword is hardly hands-off, non-interfering, free-will-respecting behaviour, is it?)

I have heard that Hell is different for everyone who ends up there. Hmmmmmm...

Emily's version of Hell, one where they show nothing but Colin Baker who stories

Satan couldn't POSSIBLY be THAT cruel...

From Andrew in The Daemons thread:

"good people do good things, evil people do evil things, but it takes religion to make good people do evil things." - Dawkins, via Emily
Pfah. That's the biggest load of rubbish I've ever heard. People do evil things because it's in their nature, religious, atheist, 'good,' 'bad,' regardless. If that's what Dawkins believes... Dawkins is an idiot.

So you seriously think Mary I would have burnt three hundred people alive if she hadn't been a Catholic - just for the FUN of it?

Dawkins always backs up such assertions with plenty of solid evidence. For example, from my December 23rd 2009 post:

There was an experiment on Israeli schoolkids mentioned in the excellent AND CANONICAL Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion (PLEASE read it. He was right about those planets in the sky, he's right about God too!). When told the happy story of the walls of Jericho tumbling down so God's Chosen People could slaughter every woman, man, child, and animal, not a single innocent little kiddie expressed the slightest moral qualm about this particular behaviour (there were a few suggestions that maybe it was a bit of a waste not to keep the animals for food). When presented with an identical story in which it was an African king (or something) doing said slaughtering, those kids were OUTRAGED at the genocide!

I will not deny that religion can be used- usually by another person to manipulate the first, but sometimes by itself and in a vacuum- to do evil. Certainly there have been religions where evil actions have been inbuilt- child sacrifice of the Moabites, human sacrifice of the Aztecs, etc. and others in whose name evil actions have been done, regardless of accuracy to the source material- the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and (some would claim) Jihadists. (The funny thing being that most of those major 'twistings' for large scale atrocity seem to have at their center powerful figureheads or movements telling the people that such a thing must be done due to largely political and cultural motivations, and would seem to be more a consequence of the common people being poorly educated about their own faith and accepting a figurehead's word about what it says- making the case that such atrocities would be far less likely if people were more deeply immersed- and educated- in their own religions. Anyhow...)

That said, the idiotic statement made is "but it takes religion to make good people do evil things." And that, I'm sorry, is nonsense. First, I would question what standard Dawkins has to define 'good' people- second, I would question the assumption that there are good people who don't do evil- or in fact any person on Earth who doesn't do evil- even if on what the world would consider a 'small scale.' And third of all, I would question the evidence that Dawkins has that in fact religion is the only thing that would ever cause these theoretical good people who wouldn't do evil otherwise to do evil? That is the statement I find utterly moronic- a completely unsuported claim that A. There's such a thing as 'good people' in the first place (at best I would say "Less evil people"- and even then, it's by a pretty subjective standard) B. That these people ONLY do good things unless acted upon by religion, and C. That religion is the only thing ever that makes these good people do evil. I suppose anyone else that does evil in any cited example would simply be dismissed as having been 'evil people' from the get-go? :-)


"When told the happy story of the walls of Jericho tumbling down so God's Chosen People could slaughter every woman, man, child, and animal, not a single innocent little kiddie expressed the slightest moral qualm about this particular behaviour (there were a few suggestions that maybe it was a bit of a waste not to keep the animals for food). When presented with an identical story in which it was an African king (or something) doing said slaughtering, those kids were OUTRAGED at the genocide!" - Emily
Well... yeah. There's kind of a difference between the God who has authority over life and death and the right to make all decisions- what with being perfect and all- (and before you object, I'm talking about conceptually in-built perfection, not a personal interpretation of His actions; I mean that it's part and parcel of His concept that He is, intrinsically built into the same source as the Jericho story, and thus must be accepted as a factor in the story construct) ordering the conquest, and a human being with a sense of entitlement taking it upon themselves. The two are very different situations, even taken from a theoretical non-believing perspective- I would not expect the reactions or reservations to be the same.

In much the same way that a policemen ordering you out of your car and threatening to handcuff you if you fail to comply and a man off the street ordering you out of your car and threatening to handcuff you if you fail to comply, the authority wielded does affect the justification of the action. :-)

I would not expect the reactions or reservations to be the same.

You see, therein lies the difference. I would. Quite frankly, we hold God to a lesser standard than we do ourselves. Critical thinking is suspended whenever he pops up.

(How stupid am I, to pick this up again?)

Errrr... how do you figure? That an infinite, omniscient, future-seeing, omnipresent, perfect being with the authority over all life ought to be held to the same standard? Or that standards we hold are really relevant from a decidedly non-perfect, non-omniscient, single-time, single-place view in applying to such a being? It's not just the peasants demanding that the king be held to the same account- it's also the ants demanding that the people be beholden to their standards- based on a milimeter-high perspective of a small clump of dirt under a tree in a back-alley somewhere. There simply isn't necessary perspective- much less right- to apply those standards to anyone or anything so far beyond us. Not only as a matter of authority, but simply as a matter of logic; critical thinking suggests questioning the assumption that finite, temporally-bound, single-viewpoint, and ignorant (at least, ignorant compared to omniscience) standards would apply to something so far beyond any of those realms. And logic would suggest that, by nature, they most certainly wouldn't apply.

And again, that's barely brushing the issue of authority, just of practicality and logic. :-)

Certainly there have been religions where evil actions have been inbuilt- child sacrifice of the Moabites, human sacrifice of the Aztecs, etc. and others in whose name evil actions have been done, regardless of accuracy to the source material

So how accurate is YOUR source material about the treatment of...say...witches like our delightful Miss Hawthorne?

(The funny thing being that most of those major 'twistings' for large scale atrocity seem to have at their center powerful figureheads or movements telling the people that such a thing must be done due to largely political and cultural motivations, and would seem to be more a consequence of the common people being poorly educated about their own faith and accepting a figurehead's word about what it says

Oh, absolutely. Reading the Bible directly certainly clarified MY thoughts on right and wrong. 'If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father', for example. Or 'When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are'. Or 'But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to use authority over the man: but to be in silence.'

(You realise that if it wasn't for Jane Tranter and Lorraine Heggessey having authority over men WE WOULDN'T HAVE GOT OUR WHO BACK???????????)

making the case that such atrocities would be far less likely if people were more deeply immersed- and educated- in their own religions.

Sorry, but I don't really rate Captain Jack's - or RTG's - chances of survival any higher if people read for themselves 'If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death.'

(Still, Captain John might be OK - at least there's no mention of lying with poodles.)

That is the statement I find utterly moronic- a completely unsuported claim

Dawkins supports ALL his claims extremely thoroughly. (Occasionally mentioning Lalla Ward in the process.) READ THE BOOK before you accuse him of moronic unsupported claims. He was right about Earth moving when everyone else thought it was the planets-in-the-sky that had moved, wasn't he?

that A. There's such a thing as 'good people' in the first place (at best I would say "Less evil people"- and even then, it's by a pretty subjective standard)

Ah yes. You're into original sin. Someone only has to be born - sorry, conceived - human and they're so filled with filth that they're gonna burn in hell for all eternity. Because Granny ate an apple.

B. That these people ONLY do good things unless acted upon by religion,

Of course not. Good people do bad things all the time. But Dawkins was using the powerful and specific word 'evil'.

and C. That religion is the only thing ever that makes these good people do evil. I suppose anyone else that does evil in any cited example would simply be dismissed as having been 'evil people' from the get-go? :-)

Not necessarily from the get-go, but certainly once they'd committed their horrendous crimes they'd be, by definition, evil.

Though I happen to agree with you that it's not JUST religion - political power also makes good people commit serious evil. I'm thinking of the number of Pakistanis that rather nice Obama has slaughtered with his remote drones...

Well... yeah. There's kind of a difference between the God who has authority over life and death and the right to make all decisions- what with being perfect and all- (and before you object, I'm talking about conceptually in-built perfection, not a personal interpretation of His actions; I mean that it's part and parcel of His concept that He is, intrinsically built into the same source as the Jericho story, and thus must be accepted as a factor in the story construct) ordering the conquest, and a human being with a sense of entitlement taking it upon themselves.

In other words, you're proving Dawkins' point. Murdering children is wrong, except when God does it, cos he's perfect and therefore right.

In much the same way that a policemen ordering you out of your car and threatening to handcuff you if you fail to comply and a man off the street ordering you out of your car and threatening to handcuff you if you fail to comply, the authority wielded does affect the justification of the action. :-)

Yeah, but...not by much. If I was doing something wrong in my car then ANYONE would have the moral and legal right to make a citizen's arrest on me. And if I wasn't, the policeman would be appallingly abusing his position of authority. (Or would be an Auton.)

But sure - give your God the benefit of every possible doubt, the way I do my Doctor. The difference being that when my Doctor tips someone into an acid bath I say what a total git he is. Whereas if your God did so you'd immediately proclaim the perfect righteousness of acid baths.

Critical thinking is suspended whenever he pops up.

Critical thinking, sanity, basic commonsense, the slightest sense of empathy or HUMAN RIGHTS...

(How stupid am I, to pick this up again?)

Not as stupid as me, Sunshine...

Errrr... how do you figure? That an infinite, omniscient, future-seeing, omnipresent, perfect being with the authority over all life ought to be held to the same standard? Or that standards we hold are really relevant from a decidedly non-perfect, non-omniscient, single-time, single-place view in applying to such a being?

Well, God doesn't seem to have much trouble communicating with us (or didn't, it's not like he's bothered for a couple of millennia for some reason). And giving us moral orders. And we WERE made in his image. So it's not a totally incomprehensible gulf, a la The Creature before it gets its communicator hooked up to anything with a larynx. It's more like trying to work out if the inhuman, beyond-our-comprehension TARDIS is incredibly stupid or incredibly intelligent - tricky, but we've got a LOT of info to go on.

It's not just the peasants demanding that the king be held to the same account- it's also the ants demanding that the people be beholden to their standards- based on a milimeter-high perspective of a small clump of dirt under a tree in a back-alley somewhere.

Sure it is. But if us mere ants can tell that rape and child-massacres are wrong, the people should be able to work it out too. And incidentally your analogy is making me think of a scene that yet again proves the utter superiority of Who over any (other) religion:

WILF: We must look like insects to you.
DOCTOR: I think you look like giants.

That an infinite, omniscient, future-seeing, omnipresent, perfect being with the authority over all life ought to be held to the same standard?

Yes, that's exactly what I think. If it's wrong for me to kill someone, then it's wrong for God to do so. What did Jericho ever do to the Israelites? Poor people, they were just in the way so God disposed of them. Yeah, real advanced being....

Actually, most agree that the Battle Of Jericho never happened. Jericho was actually destroyed by an earthquake (it is located in a quake zone) about 500 years before Joshua's time.

However, I do see the hypocracy of the whole thing. It's okay for Joshua to order a city wiped out, but it's evil when Adolf Hitler does it?

That's why, while I'm open to the idea of something larger than us, I don't buy into any one religion.

"So how accurate is YOUR source material about the treatment of...say...witches like our delightful Miss Hawthorne?" - Emily
. How accurate is it...? Not quite sure I can parse the grammar in association with the original statement. Presuming you're asking, in essence, "isn't it true that...?" then yes- and no.

. The word 'witch' was pretty much a times-informed translation by King James at a time when witches were... shall we say, the subject of a bit of a witch-hunt. :-) So, actually, it is once again a partially-twisted for political motivations change; in this case on the part of the translator.

. That said, while I don't believe that we are in any way commanded to follow that (just the opposite, in fact) under the new covenant, yes, that is an accurate statement, that the biblical commandment not to allow... poisoners, is apparently the closest translation- those who would try to poison the community with pagan ways during it's formation... to live. And that can easily be taken in conjunction with your second statement,
. "making the case that such atrocities would be far less likely if people were more deeply immersed- and educated- in their own religions.
Sorry, but I don't really rate Captain Jack's - or RTG's - chances of survival any higher if people read for themselves 'If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death.' " - Emily

. However- and while I know we won't agree on this- there's a rather large difference between declaring practices wrong and punishable, and committing evil. Now, I'm assuming that you'll be taking the position that even in principle, capital punishment *is* some form of evil (could be wrong, though), a notion I obviously disagree with- and in specific, that the declaring of those actions as crimes deserving it is evil.
. Again, we differ in opinions and are not likely to ever see eye-to-eye on that, but even stepping aside from that- as it's not the crux of this discussion- it is STILL not a phenomenon- the declaring of behaviors you consider acceptable as crimes, the death penalty, or any conjunction of the two- limited to religion. Far from it. and thus, the Dawkins statement still doesn't stand.


"Oh, absolutely. Reading the Bible directly certainly clarified MY thoughts on right and wrong. 'If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father', for example. Or 'When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are'. Or 'But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to use authority over the man: but to be in silence.'" - Emily

. 'If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her.' In other words, he is required immediately to take responsibility for providing for her for the rest of her life (rather a necessity, as I believe there wasn't a cultural provision for women to provide for themselves- likely also why the payment went to her father.) Don't believe me? Take it from an anti-bible atheist:
htt p://www.onyxbits.de/content/atheist-dont-make-insanely-stupid-argument (link broken so it won't flag the posting error; just remove the space between 'htt' and 'p')

. And... regardless, this isn't really a counter to my offhand comment that doesn't even affect our main argument anyhow, is it? :-) In fact, it's rather further proving my point- a layman, surface understanding is prone to corruption and misunderstanding, leaving false impressions, and thus easily twisted by those seeking to manipulate into things like "See, the Bible says it's okay to rape if you pay the father," when it says nothing of the sort. And a further understanding will also, once again, clarify what commands are applicable to us in the new covenant- laws governing (not permitting ro condoning, just governing in recognition that such scenarios WOULD be encountered and would need a legal standard by which to judge the pre-existing conditions) slavery, etc. not being among them.

. The new covenant lays it pretty clearly on the line- more or less "As of now, you're beholden to the laws of the nation in which you live. Here are the things that God deems wrong, however, that you're not to engage in even if they're lawful in your land." And yes, rape and slavery are among them.

. 'When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are' This is more or less a failing of the English language and it's catch-all word 'slave.' For further context, see here, about halfway down:
htt p://bibleapologetics.wordpress.com/slavery-in-the-bible-25/ (same break)

. And, yes, Paul did indeed say that it was proper for women to be silent while in church (apparently a problem in the congregation he was writing to, with disruptions in the proceedings). A rather lengthy discourse on the cultural context can be found here, if you can make your way all the way through it:
htt p://ww w.carelinks.net/doc/1timothy2 (same break, plus also the ww and w)

. I know that an agreement between us is unlikely on the Bible and women; it's a longstanding issue between us (and actually... that reminds me... scrolling up, I believe I still have an unfinished promise to respond to some other case-by-case points in this long-standing dissagreement. Shoot- sorry!). But, that aside, this has... what, exactly, to do with the notion that a greater understanding of Biblical teaching will prevent it's usurping or corruption by those in power to twist it for their own ends? :-)


"Dawkins supports ALL his claims extremely thoroughly. (Occasionally mentioning Lalla Ward in the process.) READ THE BOOK before you accuse him of moronic unsupported claims. He was right about Earth moving when everyone else thought it was the planets-in-the-sky that had moved, wasn't he?" - Emily

. To preface- I am only accusing this particular claim as 'moronic unsupported'ness- as cited, and based on countermanding evidence from logic, history, and personal observation.

. If Dawkins made the claim "The sky is green and there's no gravity," I wouldn't have to read his book to decry that as idiotic either. :-)
I might be persuaded to read it- if I was assured that it wouldn't be making intellectually dishonest/inconsistent claims as absolute fact, as I've often seen- to the effect of "If there was a God, I say He'd do X, and He didn't, so there isn't one!" or "Current human science- which hasn't been able to unify gravity, electromagnetism, and the nuclear forces yet, has not found any evidence of an infinite, omnipresent, extra-temporal, extra-physical being that exists beyond our planes of reality, thus He doesn't exist" and the like. That's most of what I see from claimants- claims of nonexistence based on inconsistent or logically unfounded premises. If Dawkins were any different... I might read it. Though in all truth I'd probably be as receptive as you'd be if I suggested you read a Bible Study book... :-)


. "that A. There's such a thing as 'good people' in the first place (at best I would say "Less evil people"- and even then, it's by a pretty subjective standard)
Ah yes. You're into original sin. Someone only has to be born - sorry, conceived - human and they're so filled with filth that they're gonna burn in hell for all eternity. Because Granny ate an apple." - Emily

. Uhhh... no, actually. Because people do bad things. All the time. In order for one to be 'good,' one would have to not have any 'bad' in them. otherwise, they are not completely 'good,' just partially. Now, one can say 'good, by X standard' or 'good, compared to Y' but 'good,' by nature and un-elaborated on, an absolute state, I disqualify people from not due to original sin, but due to their own actions. Or, have you ever met a person (old enough to be capable of understanding right and wrong) that's never done anything wrong? :-)


"Of course not. Good people do bad things all the time. But Dawkins was using the powerful and specific word 'evil'." - Emily

. So, evil only occurs because of religion. The Nazis were religious, I assume? Foot-binding was caused by religion? All rapists are religious? Sorry, it's still bunk. As the Bible itself says:
Judges 17:6 In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
Proverbs 14:12 There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

. It's human nature to do what seems best for us, what we want, what we desire- no matter how selfish or harmful to others. And while some curb this nature better than others, no one is free from it. It's for that reason that 'good people' do evil things.


"Though I happen to agree with you that it's not JUST religion - political power also makes good people commit serious evil. I'm thinking of the number of Pakistanis that rather nice Obama has slaughtered with his remote drones..." - Emily

. Well, see... already we're in agreement that the statement is, if not idiotic, at least inaccurate by virtue of being incomplete. So what are we arguing about? :-)

. As a side note- I take issue with the statement that "Religion only makes people do evil" OR "Only religion makes people do evil"- both equally false, I believe, because people do so dang much evil on their own- so I see the statement as naive and trying to blame something solely on an institution one hates instead of accepting reality- and responsibility- for one's own evil actions.

. But aside from that, I have no great love of 'religion.' Religion is, more or less, a set of rules, regulations, practices, and traditions that humans create to clog up their relationship with God with unnecessary minutia and invented rituals. In the ideal, I think God wants a personal relationship with each of us; church being a place for believers to gather, get to know each other, help each other and other people out- not much more than a grand fan convention, a LINDA pre-Absorbaloff- and also to learn more about God from a knowledgeable teacher (the pastor). So much that we've made it beyond that- full of traditions and committees and politics- I'd decry just as much as Dawkins. However, as I suspect that he means "religion" as a stand-in for "believing in God or any gods" (even then, I'd spot him the "any gods" part), I still take umbrage beyond the simple inaccuracy and over-simplicity of the statement.


"In other words, you're proving Dawkins' point. Murdering children is wrong, except when God does it, cos he's perfect and therefore right." - Emily

. God is perfect, and therefore right, yes. It's kind of the nature of perfection- if it was wrong, it wouldn't be perfect. :-) And yes, there are many, many things we do that would be wrong, because we haven't the right- but to which God does indeed have the right and would not be wrong for Him. And, even aside from that, God cannot murder- murder is the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another. Leaving aside the obvious 'human being' caveat, 'unlawful' is very much the point. We, as people, haven't the right to take a life; the power of life and death is out of our jurisdiction. It can be decided by a power higher than us, via the law- hence, capitol punishment. But none of us has that right. The difference is... God does. He is the source of the law. He is the highest authority... ever. He is the only one that lawfully has that right.

. Another part of the nature of perfection, however, is perfect justice. You may have debates against the wars from the Old Testament to establish Israel- despite the fact that many of them were-child sacrificers or worse- fine. We can debate those separately. However, the fact remains that, as a part of the same perfection through which God only does God, he does not unjustly kill anyone. There's a difference between justice- what is deserved- and fairness from our perspective, perhaps- inevitable with the difference in vantage points, methinks, between Him and us- but regardless to this, and all of the other points nonwithstanding, the hypothetical is false because God simply doesn't murder, nor unjustly punish anyone.

. However, this is completely tertiary to Dawkins' point (unless you mean the schoolchildren one rather than the 'makes people do evil' point that we're arguing)- because my belief is very specifically that people DON'T have the right to make any such decisions or take any such actions... and thus would more strongly urge AGAINST actions that would fall into the realm of evil, rather than be 'enabled' by a religion to undertake them.


"But sure - give your God the benefit of every possible doubt, the way I do my Doctor. The difference being that when my Doctor tips someone into an acid bath I say what a total git he is. Whereas if your God did so you'd immediately proclaim the perfect righteousness of acid baths." - Emily

. Heh. Really? Do you think that, just because God makes a decision and I choose to believe that, as He knows more than I, sees more than I, and is perfect where I am not, He has a reason... that automatically I like it? Or understand it? Or laud it? That's most assuredly not the case. I simply know enough to know that I don't know everything... and that expecting to understand, see the reasons for, or agree with the decisions of everything that God chooses would be realistically and conceptually silly, and more or less constitute a proof that God DIDN'T exist- because everything that would happen would be happening on my limited, flawed, sinful, narrow-perspectiv-ed level.

. We're not always going to understand or agree with what He does from our extremely finite viewpoint; that's okay, because He doesn't need our permission. The truth of the matter is, we have no basis, no standards- and certainly, based on our own actions, no moral standing or high horse upon which to judge God, who is so far beyond us- and whose authority is as total as His creation- namely, everything that exists. Romans 11:33-36 puts it pretty well:

. "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen."

. The bottom line is, I don't have to give Him the benefit of the doubt- He isn't accountable to me, beholden to me, doesn't need my approval, or my permission... just as you needn't hold yourself accountable to an ant, nor care what it thinks of your actions. The only difference is- and in some ways this is the greatest miracle of all- unlike a human and an ant, in the case of God and humans... He actually cares for those that are so far beneath Him- cares enough to give laws, to act, to discipline, to inspire, to aid, and to save.

. It's a cliche to quote, but perhaps the most important sentence in all of human history- yes, even moreso than "Wilson, I've got the lot'ry money" or "Wait here, please, Susan, I won't be long" or even "Human history... I tell you, Brigadier, there's nothing to worry about. The brontosaurus is large and placid. "- is the oft-quoted but seldom-heeded John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." That's not the action of a man to the ants, nor of an owner to his property- but of a king who is not only perfectly just, but also merciful- of a Lord who cares, despite having the authority, the position, the power, and every right NOT to- of a God who is as unfathomable and beyond us and unsearchable as we are to the amoeba... and yet loves you, Emily, personally- and you, Amanda, and you, Tim... and yes, as undeserved as it is, even me. :-) That's the miracle. That's the point. And the rest of this- from debates on Old Testament minutia to various religions and the atrocities that have been committed in their names to translation problems and questions of authority and right- are just distraction from what's truly important.


"Sure it is. But if us mere ants can tell that rape and child-massacres are wrong, the people should be able to work it out too." - Emily

. But when you turn that metaphor around, you have to remember that it's the ant-analogues (people) that continue to do those things- clearly NOT yet having figured out that it's wrong- and the person analog (God) that's told them it's wrong- and set laws to punish those who practice it. So... a slightly mixed metaphor, there. :-)


"That an infinite, omniscient, future-seeing, omnipresent, perfect being with the authority over all life ought to be held to the same standard?
Yes, that's exactly what I think." -Mandy

. Based on...? What possible logical precedent or reasoning would place you and I, and a being like God, under the same standard? Because 'we say so'? :-) The divide between conditions, nature of existence, perceptions, power, understanding, and authority are so vast as to be practically unfathomable... and yet somehow equal standards ought to apply?


"If it's wrong for me to kill someone, then it's wrong for God to do so." - Mandy

. Errr... no. Unless we are equivalent to God- which, as just covered, we aren't- that statement does not hold true. And, once again, God holds- by nature, authority, and right- completely authority and power of decision over life and death. We don't. So it is very much a case of two different situations. To use another analogy (Because that's been so successful so far :-) )- if you slip into your house through the window because you forgot a key, that's inconvenience. If someone else slips into your house through the window because they don't have a key, that's breaking and entering. If you take you stereo out to a car and drive off with it, that's your right. If someone else takes your stereo out to a car and drives off with it, that's theft. If you take a painting off your wall and go burn it in the backyard, you apparently really didn't like that painting- but it's your right to do so. If someone else takes your painting out into your backyard and burns it, that's theft AND vandalism. I use property as an example not because we are 'property' to God, but simply because it's a level of relatively universal understanding. Similar scenarios could be drawn based on children, spouses, jobs, and any number of scenarios- all of which illustrate the simple principle that certain actions are indeed regulated by authority- for those with the authority, with the right, those in charge of, creators of, caretakers of, actions are permissible, lawful, and correct- where, for those without authority, the same actions are unlawful and wrong. Take that principle, and multiply it by... about infinity, actually, to account for complete and ultimate authority, and we start to reach the dichotomy between or authority and God's, and the divide between what we have the right to, and what He does.


"It's okay for Joshua to order a city wiped out, but it's evil when Adolf Hitler does it?" - Tim_m

. Er, no, Tim. Actually the whole point, as stated, was that it would be equally wrong for Joshua and Hitler to order it- neither has the authority. God does, as He literally has ALL authority.


. And... we seem to be branching slightly. Any chance we can get back to the original Dawkins statement (in which case the argument is already half over, because we've already agreed that it is a not-fully-accurate statement and are merely disagreeing on the degree of inaccuracy)? I'd much rather argue with the third party I originally called out than with any of you... :-)

I don't even know what the original Dawkins statement was, but I do know that your god isn't good enough for me. "Because he's just better than we are and therefore can do as he sees fit as we're too inferior to understand" is simply a weak argument.

"Current human science- which hasn't been able to unify gravity, electromagnetism, and the nuclear forces yet, has not found any evidence of an infinite, omnipresent, extra-temporal, extra-physical being that exists beyond our planes of reality, thus He doesn't exist" and the like. That's most of what I see from claimants- claims of nonexistence based on inconsistent or logically unfounded premises.

"Inconsistent or logically unfounded premises"? Let me recap the scientific process. It starts with a hypothesis, looks for mathematical or empirical evidence to support it, and when enough evidence is amassed, is formulated into a theory capable of issuing predictions. Anything less is voodoo. No evidence, no god. That's science. (Well, hard science anyway; I have little training in the soft sciences.)

And btw, only gravity has so far defied integration into a universal theory. They combined EM and nuclear forces some time ago.

"I don't even know what the original Dawkins statement was," - Mandy
'good people do good things, evil people do evil things, but it takes religion to make good people do evil things.'


"but I do know that your god isn't good enough for me." - Mandy
The sad truth of the matter is, none of US are good enough for Him.
"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." - Romans 3:23
The amazing thing is, He loves us anyway- and even when we reject Him, continues to offer a free gift of Salvation to us- no matter how often we turn it away, the offer is always there; and so is His love for you.


""Because he's just better than we are and therefore can do as he sees fit as we're too inferior to understand" is simply a weak argument." - Mandy

Mayhaps so- but it isn't really the argument being made. A little more along the lines of "Being infinite, existing beyond time and space, knowing everything, every thought inside every head, every possible alternate future, everything that's ever happened, and the consequences of every possible action, as well as being, quite literally perfect... we're too limited to understand." :-) In conjunction with "Having all power and authority in the universe- He can do as He sees fit, but being perfect, and loving, He chooses to act for our benefit." Which is a pretty amazing thing.

""Inconsistent or logically unfounded premises"? Let me recap the scientific process. It starts with a hypothesis, looks for mathematical or empirical evidence to support it, and when enough evidence is amassed, is formulated into a theory capable of issuing predictions. Anything less is voodoo. No evidence, no god. That's science. (Well, hard science anyway; I have little training in the soft sciences.)" - Mandy

Indeed. And declaring that lack of scientific evidence- which God is by nature beyond the measure of, and if He could be measured by, would be something less than what He's claimed to be, as a "proof that God doesn't exist" is intellectually dishonest. Stating that there's so scientific evidence of His existence? That's accurate. Stating that that MEANS something, when the nature of what's being tested automatically means that no such proof would be evident whether it existed or not because the object being tested was beyond the ability of the observer to measure...? Kind of pointless.


"And btw, only gravity has so far defied integration into a universal theory. They combined EM and nuclear forces some time ago." - Mandy
Poor phrasing- I meant to indicate "All 3 at once" as opposed to "any one of these with any other one of these."

'good people do good things, evil people do evil things, but it takes religion to make good people do evil things.'

Oh. Can't say I have much of an opinion either way. I agree religion does make good people do bad things, but so do a lot of other things. Religion can even make bad people do good things, if only out of fear.

"proof that God doesn't exist"

Science isn't about disproving the unprovable. It strives to codify the universe around us. God simply has no role in this endeavor so for a scientist, God doesn't exist.

Science and faith aren't mutually exclusive, but they are apples and oranges.

Er, no, Tim. Actually the whole point, as stated, was that it would be equally wrong for Joshua and Hitler to order it- neither has the authority. God does, as He literally has ALL authority

I'm sorry, but I cannot accept that answer. Genocide is genocide, no matter who is giving the orders.

As for Joshua saying that God ordained it, well, I'm sure the late Osama Bin Laden said the same thing about 9/11/01.

Science and faith aren't mutually exclusive

I take that back. Science and faith in a holy book are mutually exclusive. Science and belief in a higher being are not.

The word 'witch' was pretty much a times-informed translation by King James at a time when witches were... shall we say, the subject of a bit of a witch-hunt. :-) So, actually, it is once again a partially-twisted for political motivations change; in this case on the part of the translator.

Hadn't you better learn...whatever language the Bible was originally written in (I should know, after all the writing of it appeared in the PDA Byzantium!) and get a copy of the oldest version you can find, and read it for yourself? It's slighly worrying that you're basing your entire life around what you admit is a mistranslated book. This is worse than growing up getting your Who from Target novelisations, and you might be in for a nasty shock - I've literally never got over the Doctor NOT asking for the political prisoners on the Moon to be released in Frontier in Space.

However- and while I know we won't agree on this

Oh, come on! You know, deep down, stoning RTG or Captain Jack to death is WRONG. You just won't admit it. (Well, come to think of it...Jack WOULD get better quite fast.)

there's a rather large difference between declaring practices wrong and punishable, and committing evil. Now, I'm assuming that you'll be taking the position that even in principle, capital punishment *is* some form of evil (could be wrong, though), a notion I obviously disagree with- and in specific, that the declaring of those actions as crimes deserving it is evil.

Nope, I'm not exactly against the death penalty in theory (I have a healthy dose of fascist amongst my liberal-lefty sensibilities) but yes, I would describe as 'evil' the execution of people for engaging in private consensual sexual behaviour between adults.

'If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her.' In other words, he is required immediately to take responsibility for providing for her for the rest of her life

Newsflash, Sunshine! Forcing a rape victim to marry her rapist so that he can rape her with impunity every night is not what most humans would regard as a happy ending. You certainly wouldn't get Barbara standing for it if that tracker/sailor/jailer/Emperor had had their evil ways with her.

In fact, it's rather further proving my point- a layman, surface understanding is prone to corruption and misunderstanding, leaving false impressions, and thus easily twisted by those seeking to manipulate into things like "See, the Bible says it's okay to rape if you pay the father," when it says nothing of the sort.

No, I'm afraid it's an illustration of the fact you've been so brainwashed that you can twist and manipulate the most blatant of horrors to fit your 'perfect' reality.

Sadly you're dealing with fully-trained nitpickers, here...

And a further understanding will also, once again, clarify what commands are applicable to us in the new covenant- laws governing (not permitting ro condoning, just governing in recognition that such scenarios WOULD be encountered and would need a legal standard by which to judge the pre-existing conditions) slavery, etc. not being among them.

1) If God's rules on slavery WERE merely acknowledging its existence rather than condoning it...WHY? He's not exactly shy about laying down daft new laws for the Israelites to live by, if he thought slavery was wrong he could have just utterly forbidden it the way he did eating pork.

2) Though actually, the Old Testament God doesn't just condone slavery, he actively encourages it:

'When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies. This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby. However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.'

Oops, sorry, got slightly distracted from the 'slavery' issue and accidentally went on to address the 'rape' and 'genocide' issues too.

You seriously expect me to LOVE this guy? You might as well tell me to love the Master!

(Oops. Have just realised...I DO love the Master. In my defence, he has a lot of things God doesn't. Style. A sense of humour. Someone to stop him.)

3) Those laws which you claim are just poor, helpless God admitting the existence of this evil and trying to regulate it a bit involve such gems as: 'When a man strikes his slave, male or female, and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be punished; for the slave is his property.'

The new covenant lays it pretty clearly on the line- more or less "As of now, you're beholden to the laws of the nation in which you live. Here are the things that God deems wrong, however, that you're not to engage in even if they're lawful in your land." And yes, rape and slavery are among them.

Really? Do the words 'Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ.' not ring any bells?

And why, exactly, does God tell people to follow the laws made by blasphemous unbelieving scum rather than the laws laid down by his good self?

'When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are' This is more or less a failing of the English language and it's catch-all word 'slave.'

OF COURSE you have to try to believe that this is a mistranslation. But given the rest of the Bible's attitudes to slavery AND to women, I'm afraid I'm taking it at face value.

And, yes, Paul did indeed say that it was proper for women to be silent while in church (apparently a problem in the congregation he was writing to, with disruptions in the proceedings).

And I suppose when he told wives to obey their husbands he was just talking about the shrew next door and had NO IDEA his words would be used to oppress half the human race for millennnia...?

That's right up there with Zeta Major as far as 'Oops!' is concerned.

If Dawkins were any different... I might read it. Though in all truth I'd probably be as receptive as you'd be if I suggested you read a Bible Study book... :-)

Hey - I've done my bit. I got an 'A' in my Religious Studies GCSE...

Because people do bad things. All the time. In order for one to be 'good,' one would have to not have any 'bad' in them.

Absolute nonsense. The Doctor is good. The Doctor does bad things all the time. Bless!

So, evil only occurs because of religion.

No, that is absolutely not what Dawkins said. Read the quote again.

But aside from that, I have no great love of 'religion.' Religion is, more or less, a set of rules, regulations, practices, and traditions that humans create to clog up their relationship with God with unnecessary minutia and invented rituals.

But presumably you follow SOME of those rules, regulations, practices and traditions? You may ignore the 'Don't wear garments made from more than one type of thread, they're AN ABOMINATION!!!' law laid down by Almighty God, but I got the impression you followed the no-sex-before-marriage one.

"In other words, you're proving Dawkins' point. Murdering children is wrong, except when God does it, cos he's perfect and therefore right." - Emily

God is perfect, and therefore right, yes. It's kind of the nature of perfection- if it was wrong, it wouldn't be perfect. :-)

Not necessarily. The Doctor is all the more perfect in my eyes because of his character flaws.

But then, the Doctor doesn't murder children.

Well, except for Racnoss children, obviously.

And yes, there are many, many things we do that would be wrong, because we haven't the right- but to which God does indeed have the right and would not be wrong for Him.

Ah yes, the very essence of megalomania - someone who knows that they can never possibly be wrong. Hell, even THE DOCTOR asked himself 'Have I the right?' when it came to destroying THE DALEKS! (OK, turns out that was a bit of a mistake on his part, but that's beside the point.)

And, even aside from that, God cannot murder- murder is the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.

Of course it isn't. Aliens kill humans all the time. And vice-versa. Even gods do it - if YOU were in that circus ring being vaporised by the Gods of Ragnarok, you'd be screaming 'MURDER!' soon enough.

We, as people, haven't the right to take a life

Of course we have. In self-defence. We just have to try not to get TOO carried away with the janus thorns...

God does. He is the source of the law. He is the highest authority... ever. He is the only one that lawfully has that right.

So the next time the Doc's protecting our planet from Slitheen/Sycorax/Daleks etc, you'll be telling him he doesn't have the right to kill any of them?

Another part of the nature of perfection, however, is perfect justice.

Ah yes. The perfect justice of marrying your rapist.

You may have debates against the wars from the Old Testament to establish Israel- despite the fact that many of them were-child sacrificers or worse- fine.

Don't try to use 'They may have sacrificed the odd child' as an excuse for marching in there and slaughtering every single child.

However, the fact remains that, as a part of the same perfection through which God only does God, he does not unjustly kill anyone.

I'm sure some of those first-born sons (SONS! Such sexism!) of Egypt God slaughtered hadn't had time to commit any worse crime than wetting their nappies.

Heh. Really? Do you think that, just because God makes a decision and I choose to believe that, as He knows more than I, sees more than I, and is perfect where I am not, He has a reason... that automatically I like it? Or understand it? Or laud it? That's most assuredly not the case.

Frankly, yes. The fact you defended every single Godly abomination to the hilt kinda gave me that impression.

We're not always going to understand or agree with what He does from our extremely finite viewpoint; that's okay, because He doesn't need our permission.

He does, however, need us to love him. Which is a bit weird, frankly. The Doctor himself seemed rather uneasy when, say, Malcolm was adoring and worshipping him (or, as Daniel O'Mahony put it, 'humping his leg'.)

The truth of the matter is, we have no basis, no standards- and certainly, based on our own actions, no moral standing or high horse upon which to judge God, who is so far beyond us

I have the temerity to judge the Doctor. So judging God is a LOT easier. If he doesn't like it he can materialise as a bush or something and complain.

and whose authority is as total as His creation

So much for free will, eh?

He actually cares for those that are so far beneath Him- cares enough to give laws, to act, to discipline, to inspire, to aid, and to save.

No, that's the Doctor. Your God hasn't been around to do such things for 2,000 years. (Despite Jesus promising to pop back within the lifetime of some of his followers. But hey, Michael Grade was probably keeping him away or something, not his fault...)

It's a cliche to quote, but perhaps the most important sentence in all of human history- yes, even moreso than "Wilson, I've got the lot'ry money" or "Wait here, please, Susan, I won't be long" or even "Human history... I tell you, Brigadier, there's nothing to worry about. The brontosaurus is large and placid."

The MOST important sentence in all of human history is actually 'By the way...did I mention? It also travels in time.'

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." That's not the action of a man to the ants, nor of an owner to his property- but of a king who is not only perfectly just, but also merciful

Oh-kay:

1) It's the action of a raving lunatic. Getting HIMSELF crucified in order to persuade HIMSELF to 'forgive' everyone (well, everyone who really really lurves him) for the appalling crime of being human...it's the least logical plan since Wheel in Space.

2) It's the least he can do. He was the one who created the universe, either accidentally or purposefully condemning us all to endless torture, it's his job to clean up the mess. Like the Doctor getting rid of the Sontarans HE brought to Gallifrey. You don't see him getting PRAISED for it. (Um, actually, come to think of it, that was about the only time in Old Who history the Doc actually got a round of applause. Ah well, the point still stands. I hope.)

3) It's totally counter-productive. You've admitted yourself that people who died before Jesus was born are unlikely to be roasting in hellfire eternal for the crime of not loving Jesus, so all he achieved by whipping out his Chameleon Arch is condemn ME and billions like me. And to think the Doc was berating himself just for locking in a Rutan...

4) Come on, it's not THAT big a deal. God gets to live it up in heaven for billennia, takes a 33-year break to become human (alright, a bit of a come-down but one with compensations, as Dr John Smith discovered in 1913, not to mention Hand-Doc who went from shrieking about the disgustingness of being human to sticking his tongue down Rose Tyler's throat in ten minutes flat), then he gets tortured for a few hours (you don't notice Romana using this as an excuse to get everyone to worship her after Armageddon Factor, though come to think of it maybe that torture is why she had to regenerate?) then it's back to heaven for a weekend break before slumming it on Earth for another few days being worshipped as a Messiah before dematerialising to sit on his heavenly throne AGAIN.

As sacrifices go, it's hardly 'Spending 2,000 years standing in front of a big box', is it? Let alone 'Sacrificing Colin, McCoy, McGann, Eccy, Tennant, Matt AND Twelve and Thirteen just to stop Nyssa and Tegan having to live on a luxury spaceship'.

and yet loves you, Emily, personally- and you, Amanda, and you, Tim... and yes, as undeserved as it is, even me. :-)

Just not as much as he loves the Jews, eh?

Still, can't complain, even the Doctor has a favourite species, not to mention nationality...*looks smug*

And the rest of this- from debates on Old Testament minutia

Multiple genocide is not minutae.

And the Old Testament might be to the New what Old Who is to New, but that doesn't mean you can cast it aside. It's still canon. And I still watch Dominators and Timelash occasionally...VERY occasionally...though at least unlike you with your Bible I can have the relief of moaning at length about how rubbish they are.

"But if us mere ants can tell that rape and child-massacres are wrong, the people should be able to work it out too." - Emily

But when you turn that metaphor around, you have to remember that it's the ant-analogues (people) that continue to do those things- clearly NOT yet having figured out that it's wrong- and the person analog (God) that's told them it's wrong- and set laws to punish those who practice it.

No he didn't. If consensual gay sex is punishable by death, why not rape? And why did God personally hand-pick men like Abraham (pimped his wife out to two foreign kings...TWO! To pimp your wife out to ONE foreign king may be accounted a misfortune, etc...) and Moses ('And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? ... Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.')

What possible logical precedent or reasoning would place you and I, and a being like God, under the same standard?

The logical precedent of Doctor Who. HE'S not too proud to be judged by humans. And going by 'When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.' the Doc's not the only one to like playing wih Earth girls either...

And... we seem to be branching slightly. Any chance we can get back to the original Dawkins statement (in which case the argument is already half over, because we've already agreed that it is a not-fully-accurate statement and are merely disagreeing on the degree of inaccuracy)?

That argument is pretty much over - very much in your favour - so let's get just back to talking about how ghastly your God is, compared to our Doctor, eh?

"Current human science- which hasn't been able to unify gravity, electromagnetism, and the nuclear forces yet, has not found any evidence of an infinite, omnipresent, extra-temporal, extra-physical being that exists beyond our planes of reality, thus He doesn't exist" and the like.

Nice use of the word 'yet'. Presumably you're trying to imply that science, and therefore EVOLUTION, is flawed, but...evolution has been proven a billion times over, and this gravity stuff will no doubt be solved sooner or later, providing the Church doesn't return to trying to murder scientists every time they point out the Earth is going round the Sun...

And yes, the fact there's not a shred of evidence for the existence of your - or any other - God is certainly what I base my beliefs (if you can even CALL them beliefs) on. The same as my lack of belief that there are fairies at the bottom of my garden. (Bad example - now I have to try REALLY REALLY HARD to believe there ARE fairies at the bottom of my garden. That godawful Torchwood episode told me so.)

That's most of what I see from claimants- claims of nonexistence based on inconsistent or logically unfounded premises.

Actually we are entirely consistent and entirely logical. We just WANT SOME BLOODY EVIDENCE!

and even when we reject Him, continues to offer a free gift of Salvation to us- no matter how often we turn it away, the offer is always there

Only for as long as we happen to live. Which is a ludicrously short span compared to eternity.

And I'm not sure we'd agree on the definition of 'free'. You HAVE to give him something in return - love. Unlike the Doctor who's been attacked a thousand times over by humans but still keeps saving us 'FREE OF CHARGE' (except, sue him, he kept the clothes...)

and so is His love for you.

I'm starting to feel like he's a stalker...

Indeed. And declaring that lack of scientific evidence- which God is by nature beyond the measure of, and if He could be measured by, would be something less than what He's claimed to be, as a "proof that God doesn't exist" is intellectually dishonest.

But even if God is, ultra-conveniently, invisible to science by his very nature, surely scientists can deduce quite a lot by taking a look at the works of his fingers - the entire UNIVERSE - and working backwards?

Stating that there's so scientific evidence of His existence? That's accurate.

Also stating that numerous Bible 'facts' have been disproved by science, and, more importantly, by Doctor Who - THAT'S accurate too.

Good lord, the Bible says things like that? I really need to get around to reading the thing. As it is, I think God just took another step down in my estimation, and I didn't think that was possible.

Is there a difference between a lack of belief and a belief in nothing? I always thought the former fit more with Agnosticism while the latter fit Atheism.

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Emily: Dawkins supports ALL his claims extremely thoroughly. (Occasionally mentioning Lalla Ward in the process.) READ THE BOOK before you accuse him of moronic unsupported claims. He was right about Earth moving when everyone else thought it was the planets-in-the-sky that had moved, wasn't he?

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Emily: Though I happen to agree with you that it's not JUST religion - political power also makes good people commit serious evil. I'm thinking of the number of Pakistanis that rather nice Obama has slaughtered with his remote drones...

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Emily: Or, if God IS all in favour of genociding anyone who leads others 'astray'...why are, say, the Doctor and Richard Dawkins still breathing...? Cos I'm telling you, those guys are SERIOUSLY leading me astray...

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Mandy: I take that back. Science and faith in a holy book are mutually exclusive. Science and belief in a higher being are not.

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Emily: Really? Do the words 'Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ.' not ring any bells?

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Emily: Absolute nonsense. The Doctor is good. The Doctor does bad things all the time. Bless!

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Emily: No, that's the Doctor. Your God hasn't been around to do such things for 2,000 years. (Despite Jesus promising to pop back within the lifetime of some of his followers. But hey, Michael Grade was probably keeping him away or something, not his fault...)

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Emily: Still, can't complain, even the Doctor has a favourite species, not to mention nationality...*looks smug*

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Emily: And I'm not sure we'd agree on the definition of 'free'. You HAVE to give him something in return - love. Unlike the Doctor who's been attacked a thousand times over by humans but still keeps saving us 'FREE OF CHARGE' (except, sue him, he kept the clothes...)

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Emily: But even if God is, ultra-conveniently, invisible to science by his very nature, surely scientists can deduce quite a lot by taking a look at the works of his fingers - the entire UNIVERSE - and working backwards?

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Good lord, the Bible says things like that? I really need to get around to reading the thing.

You might want to skip the 'begats' chapters. If you thought The Dominators was boring...

Is there a difference between a lack of belief and a belief in nothing? I always thought the former fit more with Agnosticism while the latter fit Atheism.

Atheism isn't a 'belief in nothing'! I believe in LOADS of stuff! The Doctor. Multi-party democracy. The infinite superiority of cats.

He was right about Earth moving when everyone else thought it was the planets-in-the-sky that had moved, wasn't he?

Wait, who, Dawkins? Seems like that was something established, you know, centuries before his birth.

Ha ha! Sorry, should have made it clearer I was talking about THAT scene in The Stolen Earth...

I'm thinking of the number of Pakistanis that rather nice Obama has slaughtered with his remote drones...

To be fair, the military is trying to hit the Taliban with those

Sure, but they've managed to kill fifty civilians for every Jihadist. That's hardly an acceptable ratio, and given how many bereaved relatives promptly become Jihadists, it's insanely counter-productive. (Would the U.S. put up with the Pakistani Government dropping bombs on American children on the excuse that they're trying to get rid of a bad guy? I'm thinking...not.)

Or, if God IS all in favour of genociding anyone who leads others 'astray'...why are, say, the Doctor and Richard Dawkins still breathing...? Cos I'm telling you, those guys are SERIOUSLY leading me astray...

I'm not sure how our dear life-saving, evil-fighting, "so sorry" Doctor could lead anyone astray. At least if they follow his example.

Well, I credit the Doctor with getting me to throw off the shackles of my Catholic upbringing. I was only allowed to worship ONE lord and saviour of the Earth so OBVIOUSLY it was gonna be the guy with the long scarf and the robot dog. (Plus, as Lawrence Miles pointed out, 'Jesus only resurrected himself once. Lightweight.')

Well, maybe except when he does things like let Cassandra explode from dryness. Not a good example to follow.

Oh, but I loved seeing that ice-cold side to the Doctor! And anyway...why the hell SHOULD he moisturise Cassandra? It was her own bloody fault the temperature was that high...

Science and faith in a holy book are mutually exclusive.

I think many scientists who are also individuals of faith might not agree with that idea. Mostly due to the fact that, like most theists, they're not fundamentalists.

But either they'll be seriously indulging in Orwellian double-think, or they'll be chucking out most of the Bible as they desperately try to pick the 'good' bits...

(Despite Jesus promising to pop back within the lifetime of some of his followers. But hey, Michael Grade was probably keeping him away or something, not his fault...

Technically, he kind of did do that. Just in the form of little flames on their heads, apparently.

To quote EcclesDoc...you have GOT to be kidding me.

That's okay. We have enough alien species out there who for some reason choose our nationality. Britain should get at least one.

But Britain gets pratically ALL of 'em! The only thing America gets is the Silence and the occasional Dalek.

Unlike the Doctor who's been attacked a thousand times over by humans but still keeps saving us 'FREE OF CHARGE' (except, sue him, he kept the clothes...)

What? Plenty of people love the Doctor. For god's sake, just hearing the dude's story combined with the power of psychic love helps him overcome the Master. But you're right, he doesn't ask or demand those things. He doesn't ask for the love. It just kind of happens. Because he's awesome.

Actually it never seemed to happen in Old Who. He'd awesomely save the day and the people would go 'Let's make this the sweet sorrow of a final parting, eh, Doctor' or 'You attract trouble, Doctor, you always did' or 'Let's just dance round this maypole, why should we apologise for trying to burn him alive' or (if he was really lucky) 'Doctor - Nine out of Ten'. Hell, only about 50% of his own Companions seemed fond of him.

Of course, this completely changes in New Who, but the only time that everyone REALLY gets together to worship the Doctor as he deserves...they totally forget about him five minutes later. And he prefers it that way.

God created the universe, science tells us how he did it

I finally made a start on the Bible someone gave me years ago. I'm about 30 pages into Genesis and in deference to Andrew's feelings, I'll keep my opinions of the rubb-, er, text I've read so far to myself. It certainly was a different world back then!

God created the universe, science tells us how he did it

He flew the Pandorica into the heart of an exploding TARDIS.

Who needs science?

"and so is His love for you.
I'm starting to feel like he's a stalker..." - Emily
On the contrary, He's a gentleman. He'll pursue you for as long as it takes to reach you, because He loves you- but He'll also take no for an answer and never force Himself on you.

He loves you, Emily. He's not the God that you think He is. He's already paid the price for every sin you've ever committed, and He wants to give you the forgiveness, salvation, and eternity in Heaven that He's prepared for you; if only you'll let Him.

"Science isn't about disproving the unprovable. It strives to codify the universe around us. God simply has no role in this endeavor so for a scientist, God doesn't exist." - Mandy
Agreed; and if that is what one chooses to base their beliefs off of, that is their choice. Personally, I don't feel that a lack of proof of something that, by it's nature, would leave a lack of proof whether it did or didn't exist ought to have any bearing on one's belief one way or another. Regardless, I was intially (in the quote that started this mini-discussion) expressing frustration at the people who claim the lack of evidence as positive proof that God doesn't exist (with which to dissaude those who believe in Him) as an argument, when the lack of proof isn't really an indication of anything one way or another (save for the fact that we, as humans, haven't discovered any proof) when discussingsomething that, by nature, is beyond human cpaacity to measure or proof. It's a zero-impact factor on the issue of proof, and I get annoyed by those who treat it like proof of a negative instead. :-)

"As for Joshua saying that God ordained it, well, I'm sure the late Osama Bin Laden said the same thing about 9/11/01." - Tim_m
Well, that is probably true. However, once again, that isn't really the issue being discussed; rather, it is the issue of God ordaining something vs. a human ordaining something, not a human saying God ordained something vs. a human ordaining something. :-) (I understand that you may not believe there is a God to do the ordering, but nonetheless that is the theoretial construct we are discussing).

"Hadn't you better learn...whatever language the Bible was originally written in (I should know, after all the writing of it appeared in the PDA Byzantium!) and get a copy of the oldest version you can find, and read it for yourself?" - Emily
Hebrew for the Old Testament, and Greek for the new. And, yes, I would greatly love to do that, rather than discovering context one verse at a time as I study them in-depth. Perhaps someday I shall, but at present, I've only managed to pick up a few words and phrases.

"It's slighly worrying that you're basing your entire life around what you admit is a mistranslated book. This is worse than growing up getting your Who from Target novelisations, and you might be in for a nasty shock - I've literally never got over the Doctor NOT asking for the political prisoners on the Moon to be released in Frontier in Space." - Emily
I've actually publically decried King James' translation quite loudly and fervently for some years. :-) I do strive to find the most accurate (New American Standard Bible is commonly held to be that)- and in the mean time, I do study the Bible as much as I can to compensate for just such possibilities. Really, that's the primary purpose of a pastor- someone who has spent years studying the Bible expressly for that purpose- to teach accurately, clear up ambiguities of the language and culture, and generally to be a much more useful and interactive guide to what the Bible is saying in it's original context than a side-by-side translation guide would be.
That said, the generally most important passages- about sin and salvation- are gneerally unaffected by the nuances of the language- it's only when sweating the small stuff, like obscure Levitical law, that translation issues and cultural context really become a meaning-changing difficulty... which few people, except those actively trying to find a loophole on which to attack the Bible or it's adherents, worry about too much, since it's really more of a transcript/record of the laws of ancient Israel than it is something intended to be applicable post-Christ. Hence why they haven't recieved nearly as much attnetion in translation and clarification as the issues that actually affect sin and salvation- which are early and central to any new Christian's ciriculum for just that reason- to avoid basing one's life around a mis-translation. :-)

"However- and while I know we won't agree on this
Oh, come on! You know, deep down, stoning RTG or Captain Jack to death is WRONG. You just won't admit it. (Well, come to think of it...Jack WOULD get better quite fast.) " - Emily
Funny, because I was just telling my wife the other week that, I think, deep down, you know that what they practice is wrong. You just won't admit it. :-) That said... I wouldn't want anyone put to death; and don't believe that we are biblically mandated to do so. Was that the law in ancient Israel? Yes. Do I believe it was wrong for that to be the law? No. I don't think I'm in any position to judge. Do I believe that the... errrr... punishable actions... are still wrong? Absolutely. Do I believe that there is a moral reason, Biblical mandate, or innate right to kill, punish, censure, dislike, give a funny look to, turn up a nose at, hold a bias against, or treat any differently than other people, those who practice it? No, absolutely not. Their choices and actions are their business. As Christians, loving people and sharing God's message of love with them is our business. And yes, I am well aware of just how poorly adhered-to that is in the world these days, to my shame. :-(

"Newsflash, Sunshine! Forcing a rape victim to marry her rapist so that he can rape her with impunity every night is not what most humans would regard as a happy ending." - Emily
I don't think there's anything in the command requiring her to engage in... shall we say... 'marital duties' afterwards- and considering the relatively public censure the caught rapist would have faced and the fact that he is being punished for it, I am pretty certain that any judges or authorities involved would back that up for her. What it does require is for the attempted rapist to spend the rest of his life supporting her financially and socially in recompense, whilst having no rights over her. Again, if you take a look at the link, someone who is, themself, blatantly anti-Bible explains- in far better cultural context than I- exactly how the entire arrangement is designed to benefit the woman in the culture of the time than even killing her attacker would.

"No, I'm afraid it's an illustration of the fact you've been so brainwashed that you can twist and manipulate the most blatant of horrors to fit your 'perfect' reality." - Emily
Errrr... no. It demonstrates the fact that you've made up your mind about this, and apparently didn't read the link. :-) The fact that, in cultural context, this was designed to benefit the woman to the maximum potential, in a manner that would remain valid even within any of the other cultures of the time that the Israelites would interact with, is not my 'twisting' of anything- it's kinda a documented fact. And the fact that this is, yet again, no longer the law- allowing whatever culture's punishment one lives under to re-shape the appropriate compensation as it becomes applicable to the increase in women's rights in the various cultures renders it not only a law giving the victim maximum compensation for the time, but also allowing for expansion and updating as cultural development of worldwide nations allow additional benefits to become useful and applicable. (And believe me, if the current law of the land dictated the death penalty for rapists, I'd be all for it.) The point of the matter is that there's nothing to nitpick, nor nothing being twisted- the explanation for which didn't even come from me, or from a 'brainwashed' Christian in the first place.

"1) If God's rules on slavery WERE merely acknowledging its existence rather than condoning it...WHY? He's not exactly shy about laying down daft new laws for the Israelites to live by, if he thought slavery was wrong he could have just utterly forbidden it the way he did eating pork." - Emily
Because other cultures still existed and interacted with the Isrealites. Banning slavery whilst not providing any guidelines to handle it when encountered externally wouldn't do much more than leave the Israelites naive.

"2) Though actually, the Old Testament God doesn't just condone slavery, he actively encourages it:

'When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies. This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby. However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.'

Oops, sorry, got slightly distracted from the 'slavery' issue and accidentally went on to address the 'rape' and 'genocide' issues too.

You seriously expect me to LOVE this guy? You might as well tell me to love the Master!

(Oops. Have just realised...I DO love the Master. In my defence, he has a lot of things God doesn't. Style. A sense of humour. Someone to stop him.)

3) Those laws which you claim are just poor, helpless God admitting the existence of this evil and trying to regulate it a bit involve such gems as: 'When a man strikes his slave, male or female, and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be punished; for the slave is his property."

"Really? Do the words 'Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ.' not ring any bells?" - Emily
Yes indeed. And like I said, that's a part of the new covenant- as opposed to the laws of Israel (the Old Testament Exodus/Leviticus/Dueteronomy stuff), believers were bound under the laws of the nation in which they lived. And in going out into the world and preaching the gospel, there would be some people who came to believe who were also slaves, and would start to ask "Now what?" This is an instruction giving them the answer: It's not time for a bloody slave revolt or uprising. We're supposed to obey the law, be good workers, and trat everyone with kindness regardless of our circumstances. If you're a carpenter, that means being a dilligent and kind hard-working carpenter. If you're a farmer, that means being a dilligent and kind hard-working farmer. If you're slave, that means being a dilligent and kind hard-working slave.

This is not an endorsement of slavery- indeed, the Bible says that "In Christ, there is neither Greek nor Jew (to the target audience, the equivalent of saying 'any nationalities don't matter' using the basic populace they had contact with), slave nor free, male nor female"- the original "All people are created equal." But, realisitically, in going out to preach the gospel to all the world, there would be slaves who became believers and would not suddenly be freed by their masters. There would be slave-owners who became believers and would not suddenly decide to free their (legal and permissable in their nation) slaves, or would only be a member of a household that owned them. And for those that found themselves in those positions- which, throughout the Roman empire and the general known world of the time, widely existed, there needed to be some guidance as to what to do now. And this is it- "Obey the law, work dilligently, and treat everyone kindly"- just the same as everyone else. The book of Philemon is basically about this- Paul interceding on behalf of an escaped slave, who is going back because he doesn't want to act against the laws of Rome- doing the right thing, even though it costs him his freedom (which Paul himself was doing- imprissoned and facing a death sentence because he was preaching the gospel in Rome); simultaneously explaining to the slave-owner Philemon why the guy (Onesimus) was coming back- and pleading on his behalf ("Take it easy on the guy...") by reminding the slave-owner of his own obligations to treat all men like brothers, not like the rest of the world treated slaves. Not an endorsement of slavery- but an instruction on how those that were involved in it should behave so long as the condition persisted in the world at large.


"And why, exactly, does God tell people to follow the laws made by blasphemous unbelieving scum rather than the laws laid down by his good self?" - Emily
Firstly, obedience is a virtue. Secondly, the gospel is open to the entire world. The entire world's governments do not operate off of God's law. So, there are either two options: A. Obey the laws of your nation. Or B. As soon as you become a Christian, start a revolution to overthrow the government. Seems as if God went with 'A.' :-) Thirdly, God does tell believers to follow his laws- that would be the "Here are the things that God deems wrong, however, that you're not to engage in even if they're lawful in your land" part.

"OF COURSE you have to try to believe that this is a mistranslation. But given the rest of the Bible's attitudes to slavery AND to women, I'm afraid I'm taking it at face value." - Emily
Link supported, again, not from me. I'm not throwing interpretations at you, I'm citing facts. And those 'attitudes towards women' seem to be largely composed of single instances, like this one, which are being disproven but because of a certainty that they exist (independant of evidence to the contrary) are not being re-evlauated. You cannot say "God hates women- I have examples of A, B, and C," and then when A is disproven say "Well, I know that he hates women because I still have B and C," and then when B is disproven, say "Well, I know that he hates women because I still have A and C," and when C is disproven, say "Well, I know that he hates women because I still have A and B." :-) God doesn't hate women, Emily; He loves them equally- and indistinguishably- from men. Did He design different roles for each? Yes. Does feminist brinawashing (hey, if you can call my faith brainwashing, turnabout is only fairplay) and cultural mis-notions attempt to tell one that those roles are bad things, that they are 'degrading,' that one set of tasks is somehow inferior to another and that it's insulting to hold them? Sure. Does that mean that they are, or that the interpretations based on those skewed modern norms mena that God somehow didn't love women when creating them, because we've re-interpreted them to be insults? No, it doesn't.

"And I suppose when he told wives to obey their husbands he was just talking about the shrew next door and had NO IDEA his words would be used to oppress half the human race for millennnia...?" - Emily
The fact that people abuse the principle doesn't make the principle wrong. yes, God does place the male at the head of the household- a responsibility more than a privelege- which we've already discussed and dissagreed on in the past- and the wife to obey and respect him. As well as calling the husband to love, cherish, provide for, work on behalf of, and if necessary, DIE for their wives. And yes, the culture has re-interpreted things to say "See, but obedience is a BAD thing- it constrains you and makes you less of a person!" and "Being supported, worked for, provided for, and sacrificed for is insulting, and not important compared to getting to do all the work and bear all the responsibility and put in all the effort and do the suffering and stenuousness yourself!" But the fact that we've said so, or that people have found a way to abuse it (usually only by citing the wife's half of those requirements, and leaving out the far more important responsibilities of the man to serve his wife in every way possible) is not evidence that the command was bad- just that, as usual, human beings have found a way to corrupt something given to them for their benefit; which is pretty much our full-time passtime.

"Hey - I've done my bit. I got an 'A' in my Religious Studies GCSE..." - Emily
Really? That... surprises me, considering your feelings on the subject matter.

"Absolute nonsense. The Doctor is good. The Doctor does bad things all the time. Bless!" - Emily
Then... he's not good. Not fully. Not by logic.

"No, that is absolutely not what Dawkins said. Read the quote again." - Emily
All right, let me try that again- "So, evil only occurs because of religion, OR evil people." Icy sarcasm and eye-rolling disbelief at biased naivette still included. :-)

"But presumably you follow SOME of those rules, regulations, practices and traditions? You may ignore the 'Don't wear garments made from more than one type of thread, they're AN ABOMINATION!!!' law laid down by Almighty God, but I got the impression you followed the no-sex-before-marriage one." - Emily
There's a difference between the laws and traditions laid down by God, and the doznes of others that organized religion tries to throw on the pile. And again... a difference between the original laws of ancient Israel RECORDED in the Old Testament, and the commands applicable to all believers COMMANDED in the New Covenant. (And, I am proud to say, yes I did- if just barely. I recognize the general distaste the world has for that particular commandment- it's not easy, even when both parties are fully committed to it! Which is probably TMI. No... DEFNITELY TMI.)

"Not necessarily. The Doctor is all the more perfect in my eyes because of his character flaws." - Emily
In terms of prefernce, yes. In terms of litteral, actual by-deffinition perfection, the statement still stands. :-)

"Ah yes, the very essence of megalomania - someone who knows that they can never possibly be wrong." - Emily
"A psychopathological condition characterized by delusional fantasies of wealth, power, or omnipotence." See... when you've created everything that ever exists and can make absolutely anything that ever could exist, are all-powerful, and actually ARE omnipotent... that condition cannot actually apply, because those are not delusions, they are accurate. "An obsession with grandiose or extravagant things or actions." When one creates- and will eventually destroy and remake- the entire universe, triggered the Big Bang with the words "Let there be light," and sacrificed yourself to save all of humanity, grandiose or extravagant actions aren't an obsession... they're just kind of what you DO, in general. Standard MO.
And, likewise... if there was any person who was actually perfect and posessed of all power and authority that ever was or will be... then it probably wouldn't be meglomania. :-) Even so, the nature of perfection would blunt the implied definition of meglomania- "knows that they can never possibly be wrong" by quite litteraly making it true, and the being inquestion incapable of doing wrong (which would cancel out the perfection, and thus create a factual paradox.) Yet again, I'm going to have to come back to the "Things that are different if we do them than if God does them"- in our case, it's meglomania- in God's case, it's litterally true, irrevocably by nature and logic.

"Hell, even THE DOCTOR asked himself 'Have I the right?' when it came to destroying THE DALEKS! (OK, turns out that was a bit of a mistake on his part, but that's beside the point.)"
"But then, the Doctor doesn't murder children.
Well, except for Racnoss children, obviously."
You're not exactly making an ironclad case... :-) Seems your lonely god is guilty of pretty much everything you accuse my God of... ;-)

"And, even aside from that, God cannot murder- murder is the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.
Of course it isn't." - Emily
As per the dictionary, it is. Nitpickers' site, remember? :-) And even leaving that asside- sorry, I maintain it isn't. The essence of murder is an unlawful, unjust, or simply don't-have-the-right killing (which separates it from, say, execution of a convicted criminal- done the law, and authorized by someone with the right and authority to do so.) That latter, I maintain, is what is happening with God everytime- as The Law, The Authority, and The Right, He is never without the right to lfie and death- and never kills anyone wrongly, either.

"Of course we have. In self-defence. We just have to try not to get TOO carried away with the janus thorns..." - Emily
Mayhaps I should rephrase. We haven't the right to take life on our own. In some circumstances- self-defense, or the aforementioned executions mandated by law, we are given that right by a higher authority- the law- to do so. But in and of ourselves (say, walking down the street and getting flipped off by a poassing motiorist), we have no such law on our own. Only the situations where a higher authoirty has given us the right, under specific circumstances. Well, when it comes to God... there IS no higher authoirty. :-)

"So the next time the Doc's protecting our planet from Slitheen/Sycorax/Daleks etc, you'll be telling him he doesn't have the right to kill any of them?" - Emily
If he decides to go flat-out murder them? Yeah. Same reason I can't ever condemn the Doctor in Christmas Invasion without the caveat that Harriet's actions straddle the line between self/Earth defense and unprovoked murder so murkily that I'm not entirely sure that she ended up on the right side of the line... more sure than not, actually, that she didn't. But, in the case of self-defense or the defense of others, I do believe that's one of those ares where we were given that right by a higher authority. And no, I don't believe that we have that right because our government says so- but because God said so, and we're fortuante enough to live in a nation where at least SOME of our laws line up with his.

"Don't try to use 'They may have sacrificed the odd child' as an excuse for marching in there and slaughtering every single child."

"I'm sure some of those first-born sons (SONS! Such sexism!) of Egypt God slaughtered hadn't had time to commit any worse crime than wetting their nappies." - Emily
In which case, being innocent of any sin, they would have ended up immediately in Heaven. And, let's face it, after 9 completely supernatural signs to back up commands directly from God, the nation of Egypt would surely have been asking for some of that aforementioned 'genocide;' they're holding slaves in direct defiance of God's orders- against whom they'd already committed infanticide; their targetting was not just in firstborn, regardless of age, or even against firstborn male children- it was against ALL of them. All male children. Born to anyone- of a certain race. Harsh but true justice suggests that, at the very least, the same waqs owed to them in return; instead, even the harshest of God's plagues against them did less to them than they to their victims. Again- because God is not only posessed of a perfect standard of justice, but of mercy to temper it as well.

"Frankly, yes. The fact you defended every single Godly abomination to the hilt kinda gave me that impression." - Emily
If you'd found an abomination, I wouldn't defend it. :-) The fact of the matter is, no- I don't know why, say, the entire nation fo Jericho was wiped out. I don't understand it. I do 'defend' it because I believe that, in principle, God has the right, and in practice, God has a reason. That doesn't mean I understand it. That doesn't always mean I like it. But I do recognize that I have no reason, nor right, to think that I can condemn, judge, or even evaluate God's actions; and what I do know of Him and His nature- the fact that He is all-knowing, that He is perfect, that He is, above all, Good- and the only one who is, tells me enough to know that the things for which I cannot see the reasons, they exist for- even if they are entirely His own and beyond my comprehension from this frame of reference. Just like the trailer for Matt Smith, year one. The ground breaks open, and the Doctor and Amy are falling. He shouts for him to trust her, and she ask's "Why?" (This is because she is a new companion, and doesn't know him very well.) Unlike Amy from the trailer, I think you or I would be less likely to ask why if the Doctor says to trust him, or tells us, like Eccleston, to simply "Run!" (We'd be companions, as River says of the Doctor's friends, that "do as they're told." An important reminder that she hasn't met Donna Noble yet. :-) ) Why? Because we know enough of the Doctor to know that even if we don't understand his reasons- and unless he explains them to us, we seldom do, because he operates on such a higher level than we do- we know who he is enough to trust that he has a good reason for telling us to do so. And just as, after it's all over and the companions are back in the TARDIS, the Doctor will usually explain why, so when it's all over here and we're recapping the adventures up in Heaven, I think all those answers will be open to us; we'll have an eternity to try to understand them. But for now, we're mid-show, the Doctor's shouting "Run, and when you get to the end of the corridor, hold a Jammy Dodger out in front of you!" and even though I don't know why, I trust him enough- from those few aspects of him that I know and understand personally, or have seen revealed in what he does and how he works, to do it in the belief that he has a good reason, and that I don't have to know what it is to know that I ought to follow it. That's, more or less, how it works for Christians, too.

"He does, however, need us to love him. Which is a bit weird, frankly." - Emily
I don't think that He needs us to, no. I think He wants us to love Him, just as He loves us. And I think we were made so that we'd be at our most edified worshiping Him, so that it's a mututally beneficial thing. Not because He craves worship but, because, frankly, He deserves it. (Which is a rather higher and more complex bit of theology that we needn't dive into unless you wish to.) But only because, in essence, if we're doing what we ought to be, we'll be getting something out of it, too. Overall, though, I think God could exist just fine if no one in history ever gave a single thought or care to Him. But not only would we be poorer for it, I think that, just like any of us who loves someone, He wants to see that reciprocated- just as you love your children, and would really HOPE that they'd love you back.

"and whose authority is as total as His creation
So much for free will, eh?" - Emily
Actually, that's the whole gift of Free Love in a nutshell. There's a difference between HAVING total authority over every aspect of everything ever, and choosing to excercise it. God, by authority, has the right over every person, their actions, their choices- there's litteraly nothing He doesn't have authoirty over. But because He's not the dictator you think He is, He doesn't excercise it- He instead gives us the authoirty over our own thoughts and actions, and the freedom to either obey or defy Him. That's why Free Will is such a gift- because even though God has the right to overrule us and render us thoughtless, will-less automotauns who only do as He commands, He chooses to defer those choices to us. As the Magician's Nephew puts it, in the words of Aslan, "My first gift to you is... yourselves."


We've been over this before. If God were choosing to punish people by directing them to Hell out of spite, this argument might be correct. But people are buying themselves a share in Hell- a place not created for them- through their own actions. And because of the Free Will that they've been blessed with, that's their right. (See what I mean about the human passtime of corrupting what was intended for our benefit?) They are litteraly choosing their own fate- even if in ignorance (which is, you know, why the preaching of the gospel is so crucial- so that people can be made to realize the consequences of those decisions)- and receiving the consequences of their choices freely, and unimpeded, as per their Free Will. God isn't choosing to send them there- they are choosing to send themselves there by knowingly and willingly comitting sins. I've said it before and I'll say it again- God doesn't send people to Hell. People send themselves there, and as God has given us the right to self-determination and not have our choicesw or the consequences fo them interfered with, He isn't able to intervene. So instead, at the greatest possible cost to Himself- death and Hell to an eternal, all-powerful being that is the exact opposite of pain and has never done anything wrong himself- He provides a way out so that we can use that choice to accept it- if we so choose- and choose no to recieve the rightful consequences of the choices that we ourselves have made. It's not the actions of a lunatic- it's the action of ultimate, self-sacrificial love. It's not something owed us- it's our own intentional choices that set us on that path, one that was not meant for us- our sins and their consequences our fully our responsibility- one which God, in mercy, has given us this most costly gift to aid with regardless.

"Just not as much as he loves the Jews, eh?" - Emily
Uhhhh...? Sorry, not quite getting the reference. Yes, the nation of Israel were God's chosen people in the Old Testament, and yes, I think that they still have a special place in His future for us- but as of Christ's sacrifice, anyone who accepts His salvationis one fo His chosen people; and even those that aren't are freely offered that opportunity regardless of how often they reject it. Again, "There is neither Jew nor greek, slave nor free, etc." God's love is equal for all people, and His sacrifice was equally for all people- and His offer of salvation is free for all people.

"And the Old Testament might be to the New what Old Who is to New, but that doesn't mean you can cast it aside. It's still canon." - Emily
Nor did I mean to imply it should eb cast asside. However, focussing on records of ancient Israelite law, and picking to death details of the cultural standards that haven't been applied to anyone for just under 2,000 years, whilst the rather crucial details of sin and salvation are rather glossed over as being invalid due to nitpicks of said ancient israelite law... is rather missing the point. :-)

"If consensual gay sex is punishable by death, why not rape?" - Emily
*SIGH* As discussed- multiple times to the point of this becoming extremely tiresome- that would simply have left the woman in that culture without any provision at all. Instead of killing the offender, he was forced to devote the remainder of his life to providing for her and making amends.

"And why did God personally hand-pick men like Abraham (pimped his wife out to two foreign kings...TWO! To pimp your wife out to ONE foreign king may be accounted a misfortune, etc...) and Moses ('And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? ... Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.')" - Emily
Because, honestly, you can't find a man or woman who hasn't done anything wrong in their life. It just can't be done. Yes, every leader that God appointed was flawed. So was every man and woman that they were leader of. And every man and woman that they encountered in their life. And every man and woman that've ever read the account. It's a saying my brother-in-law favors- "God can use a crooked stick to draw a straight line." Unlike our (unreal) TV characters (and even then, precious few), there's no such thing as a flawless human- fi God was simply going to wait for a 'good' man to serve as his instrument... then He'd still be waiting.

"What possible logical precedent or reasoning would place you and I, and a being like God, under the same standard?
The logical precedent of Doctor Who. HE'S not too proud to be judged by humans." - Emily
Being that the Doctor is not all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, perfect, vested of all-authority, etc. of which we were discussing, and as has been brought up numerous times, not perfect... that's not actually a logical logical precedent. It's more like apples and oranges.

"And going by 'When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.' the Doc's not the only one to like playing wih Earth girls either..." - Emily
Yes, those would be the fallen angels commonly refered to in modern culture as "demons" (and not the friendly Eve type, neither). Resulting in the Nephilim, rpimarily- the race of giants of which Goliath of David and Goliath fame came from. However... what this has to do with the notion that a God who is nothing like us in scale, limitations, scope, knowledge or nature being judged by the same standards that we are... I know not. :-)

"That argument is pretty much over - very much in your favour - so let's get just back to talking about how ghastly your God is, compared to our Doctor, eh?" - Emily
Since that discussion is one on which we seem destined to fundamentally dissagree for all time, and be based largely off of opinion- making it relatively impossible to win for either side- mayhaps it would be simpler to break it off here before we just fall back into talking in circles again? :-)

"Nice use of the word 'yet'. Presumably you're trying to imply that science, and therefore EVOLUTION, is flawed, but...evolution has been proven a billion times over, and this gravity stuff will no doubt be solved sooner or later, providing the Church doesn't return to trying to murder scientists every time they point out the Earth is going round the Sun..." - Emily
Ummmm...? I don't see what that has to do with evolution at all, actually. The use of the word 'yet' is not a notion that science is flawed- just a reminder that it is a process for the ongoing accumulation of knowledge, which is nowhere near complete. When there are gaps in our knowledge that we KNOW about- much less howevermany we aren't even aware of yet- I think it's important to remember that it is not exactly an accurate yardstick for measuring the concrete absolutes of reality. Or, to put it more simply- since there are still gaps in our knowledge, noting that 'we do not yet have any evidence for X' is really rather different from saying 'we have concrete evidence that X doesn't exist'- which would rather require one's knowledge base to be complete and gapless, thus leaving no room for anything undiscovered. Lack of proof for a positive is different than proof for a negative. And when the subject of the proof is one that is, by nature, beyond the realm of science's current (or probably EVER) ability to quantify, it's ESPECIALLY pointless and non-impactful to the argument of whether such a thing actually exists. One can certainly say "I haven't seen evidence I trust that it exists, so I've decided it doesn't"- but to say "There's conclusive evidence it doesn't" is something else entirely.

"That's most of what I see from claimants- claims of nonexistence based on inconsistent or logically unfounded premises.
Actually we are entirely consistent and entirely logical. We just WANT SOME BLOODY EVIDENCE!" - Emily
Which (questions of the intellectual honesty of expecting proof in the first place aside) is an entirely valid basis for declaring a lack of belief on. But... not a reasonable basis for claim an objective- rather than subjective- proof of non-existence. Which is what I was complaining about- and suspicious of the Dawkins book's potential for.

"Only for as long as we happen to live. Which is a ludicrously short span compared to eternity." - Emily
It's our entire life. That's not enough of a window for an offer to be given? :-)

"And I'm not sure we'd agree on the definition of 'free'. You HAVE to give him something in return - love." - Emily
As stated in which verse? Yes, I'd call one a reasonable consequence of the other- love and gratitude seem a fairly reasonable response to someone saving your life, so how much more for saving your soul for all of eternity? (actually, Joshm puts it rather well when talking about the Doctor: "But you're right, he doesn't ask or demand those things. He doesn't ask for the love. It just kind of happens. Because he's awesome.")- but all that the Bible places as a 'requirement' is to accept it; and yes, believing in Him is rather a consequence of that- not as an additional requirement, though, so much as a necessity- one can't genuinely accept what one considers not to be real. :-) All you have to do is accept His gift of forgiveness. No requirements in return.

"But even if God is, ultra-conveniently, invisible to science by his very nature, surely scientists can deduce quite a lot by taking a look at the works of his fingers - the entire UNIVERSE - and working backwards?" - Emily
I would agree; and I think that looked at without bias, the universe demonstrates exactly that. But, the universe is also so imbued with His creations that we take for granted as just 'the way things are' that those who don't want to see it, won't.

"Also stating that numerous Bible 'facts' have been disproved by science, and, more importantly, by Doctor Who - THAT'S accurate too." - Emily
Such as...? (For science, please- Doctor Who clearly doesn't take place on our Earth or in our reality, and thus doesn't count.) :-)


"Good lord, the Bible says things like that?" - Mandy
Like what?

"I finally made a start on the Bible someone gave me years ago. I'm about 30 pages into Genesis and in deference to Andrew's feelings, I'll keep my opinions of the rubb-, er, text I've read so far to myself. It certainly was a different world back then!" - Mandy
You may find the New Testament an easier start; the Old is not exactly organized in chronological order or strictly narrative structure. :-) And yes... it most certainly was a different world back then- that's rather the point of the cultural context arguments this thread's been piling up with. ;-)

It would be much easier, Andrew, if you'd italicize the posts you're responding to. I'm finding it hard to pick out the spot where the quote leaves off and your remarks begin. I even got lost somewhere in the middle where there's some numbering.

Seems your lonely god is guilty of pretty much everything you accuse my God of... ;-)

Yeah, but the Doctor's wonderfully lovable, whereas I'm really starting to actively hate the God of Abraham, Jacob, and Isaac. I've finished Genesis and am halfway through Exodus now and am thoroughly disgusted with his actions towards the non-Jews. I don't care if I have the "right" to judge him; I do and I find him sorely lacking. I'll take the Doctor's flawed (and, er, fictional) judgment anyday.

Perhaps I should stop reading now before it gets worse....

I'm starting to feel like he's a stalker..." - Emily
On the contrary, He's a gentleman. He'll pursue you for as long as it takes to reach you, because He loves you- but He'll also take no for an answer and never force Himself on you.

Of course not. He'll just watch, more in sorrow than in anger, as I fry eternally for the crime of rejecting his advances...

You know, I think I rather prefer the 'Nozzing in ze vorld!' style of villainy to the 'See what you made me go and do to you!' type...

(...but then, I'm a big Underwater Menace fan. I've been told it's a character flaw...)

He's already paid the price for every sin you've ever committed, and He wants to give you the forgiveness, salvation, and eternity in Heaven that He's prepared for you; if only you'll let Him.

If only I'd LOVE him, you mean. Can't AND shan't.

I mean, either he's paid or he hasn't.

If he has, I'm hellfire-free. If his so-called payment is contingent on getting something from me in return - like lurve - we're back to blackmail/bribery/stalking/Kazran 'Scrooge' Sardick territory.

I repeat - the Doctor saves us all GENUINELY free of charge. (Give or take the odd cashpoint hold-up...)

Personally, I don't feel that a lack of proof of something that, by it's nature, would leave a lack of proof whether it did or didn't exist ought to have any bearing on one's belief one way or another.

I don't see why something as colossal as the creation of the universe would, by its very nature, leave no proof.

And let's face it, your God isn't exactly shy about taking the credit for stuff. Slartibartfast's signature on the Norwegian fjords isn't in it...(dammit, why can't I think of a proper WHO reference?)

it is the issue of God ordaining something vs. a human ordaining something, not a human saying God ordained something vs. a human ordaining something.

*Looks as lost as an Annethian in a Nimon maze* So where exactly is, say, the destruction of Jericho in all this?

Hebrew for the Old Testament, and Greek for the new. And, yes, I would greatly love to do that, rather than discovering context one verse at a time as I study them in-depth. Perhaps someday I shall, but at present, I've only managed to pick up a few words and phrases.

Yeah, DEFINITELY finish getting through Old Who first.

I've actually publically decried King James' translation quite loudly and fervently for some years.

Burn the blasphemer!

Sure, James was a nasty nutcase (a nasty GAY nutcase, to you) but some of that language was...really rather nice.

I do strive to find the most accurate (New American Standard Bible is commonly held to be that)

Generally held by people who aren't American...?

Really, that's the primary purpose of a pastor- someone who has spent years studying the Bible expressly for that purpose- to teach accurately, clear up ambiguities of the language and culture, and generally to be a much more useful and interactive guide to what the Bible is saying in it's original context than a side-by-side translation guide would be.

*Shakes head sympathetically* And you went to ALL THAT TROUBLE to cast off the tyranny of the Catholic priesthood...

That said, the generally most important passages- about sin and salvation- are gneerally unaffected by the nuances of the language- it's only when sweating the small stuff, like obscure Levitical law, that translation issues and cultural context really become a meaning-changing difficulty...

You told ME that the whole 'Jesus says you have to hate your mum and dad and wife and kids' guts to follow him' stuff was a mistranslation, which frankly I wouldn't regard as 'small stuff' any more than, say, 'Did I mention it also travels in time' is small stuff...

which few people, except those actively trying to find a loophole on which to attack the Bible or it's adherents, worry about too much

Believe ME, Sunshine, I NEVER have to try to find a 'loophole' to attack the Bible.

Finding a few verses that WEREN'T a grotesque insult to humanity - THAT would be a big effort...even more so than trying to find redeeming features in the Colin Baker era...

since it's really more of a transcript/record of the laws of ancient Israel than it is something intended to be applicable post-Christ.

These are the Laws laid down IN PERSON by God Almighty. Who are you, mere human, to dismiss them so lightly?

I mean, when MY Living God (Hartnell incarnation) lays down the law with 'You can't change history, not one line!' do I mumble something embarrassed about the Aztec context and he didn't really mean it and suchlike?

The hell I do! I jump up and down yelling 'NITS! NITS! See! Lovely nits!'

Hence why they haven't recieved nearly as much attnetion in translation and clarification as the issues that actually affect sin and salvation

Silly me. I thought that 'Being gay is a filthy sin! KILL KILL!' actually pertained to sinfulness...

Oh, come on! You know, deep down, stoning RTG or Captain Jack to death is WRONG. You just won't admit it. (Well, come to think of it...Jack WOULD get better quite fast.) " - Emily
Funny, because I was just telling my wife the other week that, I think, deep down, you know that what they practice is wrong. You just won't admit it. :-)

Wrong? HELL no. Absolutely not.

Unnatural? Impossible. Plenty of animal species engage in homosexuality.

Disgusting? HELL yes.

But then I find the thought of ANY type of sex repulsive. Even when CATS engage in it to produce ickle kittens.

I just don't feel the need to legislate and/or moralise on the basis of my own feelings. Cos what consenting adults engage in in the privacy of their own homes is SO none of my business.

(What the Tenth Doctor may or may not have engaged in with the Virgin Queen is another matter, of course. There should be a LAW...)

Why, incidentally, are you so sure being gay is wrong? Jesus didn't say so, did he? Which just leaves you with those 'just a record of Jewish laws that aren't supposed to be applicable post-Christ'...

That said... I wouldn't want anyone put to death; and don't believe that we are biblically mandated to do so.

If MY God said 'Stone them! Stone them!' you can be •••• sure I'd STONE them. Or dump my God. One or the other.

How fortunate that my Doctor never required my participation during a certain episode with a caveman...

Was that the law in ancient Israel? Yes. Do I believe it was wrong for that to be the law? No. I don't think I'm in any position to judge.

SOME of us have this thing called a 'conscience' which enables us to judge.

You, of course, just have a SERIOUSLY crazy book in the place of a conscience.

Do I believe that there is a moral reason, Biblical mandate, or innate right to kill, punish, censure, dislike, give a funny look to, turn up a nose at, hold a bias against, or treat any differently than other people, those who practice it? No, absolutely not.

The Biblical mandate is, sadly, as crystal clear as a Dalek cry of EXTERMINATE!

(Except in the case of David and Jonathan, oddly enough. THEIR gay affair was considered adorable.)

Their choices and actions are their business.

So - if they love Jesus (albeit slightly less than they love having gay sex or they wouldn't upset his delicate sensibilities in this manner) they'll go to heaven, right? And if they DON'T, they'll fry for eternity whether or not they die a virgin or rape several small boys, right?

"Newsflash, Sunshine! Forcing a rape victim to marry her rapist so that he can rape her with impunity every night is not what most humans would regard as a happy ending." - Emily
I don't think there's anything in the command requiring her to engage in... shall we say... 'marital duties' afterwards

Martial rape was legal in Britain into the 1990s. Your faith it wasn't legal in a Bronze Age desert is...touchingly insane.

and considering the relatively public censure the caught rapist would have faced and the fact that he is being punished for it

'Punished' how, exactly?

Censure? The rape victim generally gets at least part of the blame THESE DAYS.

And the fact that this is, yet again, no longer the law- allowing whatever culture's punishment one lives under to re-shape the appropriate compensation as it becomes applicable to the increase in women's rights in the various cultures renders it not only a law giving the victim maximum compensation for the time, but also allowing for expansion and updating as cultural development of worldwide nations allow additional benefits to become useful and applicable.

You HAVE noticed how hard religion - all religions - have fought against any increase in women's rights?

You SO realise how absurd 'the maximum allowable at the time' sounds when an eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, loving God is laying down all the rules?

(And believe me, if the current law of the land dictated the death penalty for rapists, I'd be all for it.)

Yeah, I just don't get this whole 'Christians obey the law of the land they live in' stuff.

If the Ugandan Parliament had succeeded this week in passing its attempted death penalty for homosexuality...would YOU have stoned a gay on a Ugandan holiday?

"1) If God's rules on slavery WERE merely acknowledging its existence rather than condoning it...WHY? He's not exactly shy about laying down daft new laws for the Israelites to live by, if he thought slavery was wrong he could have just utterly forbidden it the way he did eating pork." - Emily
Because other cultures still existed and interacted with the Isrealites.

'Interacted' is one word. 'Got genocided by' is another. (Well, another THREE words, anyway.)

Banning slavery whilst not providing any guidelines to handle it when encountered externally wouldn't do much more than leave the Israelites naive.

As opposed to telling the Israelites they could beat their slaves to death providing they did it SLOWLY - now no one could accuse THAT of leaving them naive. Bless!

And like I said, that's a part of the new covenant- as opposed to the laws of Israel (the Old Testament Exodus/Leviticus/Dueteronomy stuff), believers were bound under the laws of the nation in which they lived.

I thought you said they weren't bound TO DO WRONG? And by any SANE human definition, SLAVERY IS WRONG.

If you're slave, that means being a dilligent and kind hard-working slave.

And to think the (amazingly progressive at the time) 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' gets such flak...

This is not an endorsement of slavery- indeed, the Bible says that "In Christ, there is neither Greek nor Jew (to the target audience, the equivalent of saying 'any nationalities don't matter' using the basic populace they had contact with), slave nor free, male nor female"- the original "All people are created equal."

Oh, absolutely - provided women and slaves keep their lowly place in life, they'll be elevated to full equality...ONCE THEY'RE BLOODY WELL DEAD!!!

The book of Philemon is basically about this- Paul interceding on behalf of an escaped slave, who is going back because he doesn't want to act against the laws of Rome- doing the right thing

Reason I'm Glad I'm An Atheist Number Nine Million Four Hundred Thousand And Eighty-Three: I need never, EVER try to regard slavery as 'the right thing'.

Not that it's being an atheist that makes me want to fight slavery with every fibre of my being. It's being a Doctor Who Fan.

even though it costs him his freedom (which Paul himself was doing- imprissoned and facing a death sentence because he was preaching the gospel in Rome)

Paul thought he'd get a heavenly crown in return for his sacrifice.

What did Tennant get for walking into that glass booth, eh? EH??

simultaneously explaining to the slave-owner Philemon why the guy (Onesimus) was coming back- and pleading on his behalf ("Take it easy on the guy...") by reminding the slave-owner of his own obligations to treat all men like brothers, not like the rest of the world treated slaves. Not an endorsement of slavery- but an instruction on how those that were involved in it should behave so long as the condition persisted in the world at large.

Be honest - could you see THE DOCTOR acting like this? I suspect even Hartnell or Colin would whip up a quick slave revolution instead...

Firstly, obedience is a virtue.

The hell it is!

Just you wait until you see the look on Tom's face at Kerensky's meek, I-don't-ask-many-questions obedience to Count Scarlioni...

Secondly, the gospel is open to the entire world.

Except those bits of it with critical faculties.

The entire world's governments do not operate off of God's law. So, there are either two options: A. Obey the laws of your nation. Or B. As soon as you become a Christian, start a revolution to overthrow the government. Seems as if God went with 'A.' :-)

Wimp.

Like I said, my Doctor wouldn't have done anything of the sort.

"OF COURSE you have to try to believe that this is a mistranslation. But given the rest of the Bible's attitudes to slavery AND to women, I'm afraid I'm taking it at face value." - Emily
Link supported, again, not from me. I'm not throwing interpretations at you, I'm citing facts.

Interesting use of the word 'facts'...

And those 'attitudes towards women' seem to be largely composed of single instances, like this one, which are being disproven

And interesting use of the word 'disproven'...

Does feminist brinawashing (hey, if you can call my faith brainwashing, turnabout is only fairplay)

It certainly WOULD be...if only someone had feministly brainwashed me. Sadly my father, brother, entire society, my own mother and, most importantly, my Who, were all male chauvinist pigs. In all modesty, I have to confess to just being a BORN feminist.

and cultural mis-notions attempt to tell one that those roles are bad things, that they are 'degrading,'

One spouse automatically obeying the other? Sure that's degrading. YOU'RE the one who says it has to be the FEMALE spouse.

Does that mean that they are, or that the interpretations based on those skewed modern norms mena that God somehow didn't love women when creating them, because we've re-interpreted them to be insults? No, it doesn't.

Quite possibly God didn't utterly despise women when he finally got round to creating 'em FROM A SODDING RIB in response to Adam whinging about his lack of fornication (to think the Doc managed 900-odd years with no such complaints...) but once she ATE A BLOODY APPLE then the whole '•••• off and die in childbirth' message was fairly clear...

"And I suppose when he told wives to obey their husbands he was just talking about the shrew next door and had NO IDEA his words would be used to oppress half the human race for millennnia...?" - Emily
The fact that people abuse the principle doesn't make the principle wrong.

Oh, absolutely. You'd think an omnipotent God would have got the hang of the whole 'absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely' thing, but never mind, even TennantDoc has been known to slip up on THAT one, so let's just say that THE FACT THAT THE PRINCIPLE IS WRONG is what makes the principle wrong...

yes, God does place the male at the head of the household- a responsibility more than a privelege

Men SAY that, but with the possible exception of World War One I can't imagine a single period of history when the poor dears would have become female to avoid this hideous burden had God or Cassandra given them the opportunity.

and the wife to obey and respect him.

You're quite sure that isn't another one of those mistranslations? Cos you could easily get a DOG to obey and respect you (and by 'you' I mean any bloke, not you in particular) but a WIFE...not unless she was of the Stepford variety.

As well as calling the husband to love, cherish, provide for, work on behalf of, and if necessary, DIE for their wives.

'Tell you what, darling...give me lifelong slavish subservience and in return, IF a mugger jumps out at you, and I happen to be around at the time, I'll make an effort to protect you, honest I will, can't say fairer than that...what d'you mean, it's a bum deal?! I'm working to support you as well aren't I! What d'you mean you'd love to go out to work?! No wife of mine is going to WORK! It's so, um, degrading! Say indoors, scrub my floors, wipe my babies' bottoms and cook me a nice meal when I get in from my HARD DAY AT WORK, why don't you!'

(As I may possibly have mentioned...didn't notice the FOUNDER of this religion of yours, Mr Abraham himself, defending his wife with his life...)

Take a look at the Doctor/Rose relationship, why don't you. Yes, unlike the average man-and-woman in the street, she's technically speaking utterly his inferior...and yet, in every way that actually matters...they are equals. They work...together. They defend each other. They save the universe. They have a bloody good laugh while doing so. He may have started off calling her a stupid ape but he got over it. FAST.

"Being supported, worked for, provided for, and sacrificed for is insulting, and not important compared to getting to do all the work and bear all the responsibility and put in all the effort and do the suffering and stenuousness yourself!"

Um...where, exactly, did I say that a married woman must bear all the responsibility, effort, suffering and strenuousness ALL BY HERSELF? Obviously I do - AND ENJOY IT - but the entire bloody point of feminism is - you make the man do his fair share. Not more and CERTAINLY not less.

and leaving out the far more important responsibilities of the man to serve his wife in every way possible)

What, including sexually?

And if so, does a wife have a responsibility to 'serve' her husband's demands in a similar fashion?

(Just getting back to our delightful marrying-your-rape-victim conversation...)

is not evidence that the command was bad- just that, as usual, human beings have found a way to corrupt something given to them for their benefit

Why yes - anyone would think God WASN'T OMNISCIENT, the way we always manage to twist his rules...

"Hey - I've done my bit. I got an 'A' in my Religious Studies GCSE..." - Emily
Really? That... surprises me, considering your feelings on the subject matter.

Have I never mentioned how many decades it took me to claw my way out of the darkness to the blessed light of atheism...even with my Doctor's help...?

"Absolute nonsense. The Doctor is good. The Doctor does bad things all the time. Bless!" - Emily
Then... he's not good. Not fully. Not by logic.

OF COURSE not fully. (Have you SEEN Colin Baker? In THAT coat?) But still VERY VERY GOOD.

There's a difference between the laws and traditions laid down by God

Yes, of course - like any woman wearing trousers being AN ABOMINATION.

And again... a difference between the original laws of ancient Israel RECORDED in the Old Testament, and the commands applicable to all believers COMMANDED in the New Covenant

Come off it. The commands to rape, slaughter, and enslave entire cities aren't just 'recorded', they are the very definition of STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH.

If the Doctor could recognise that his god had gone mad ('**** off back to hell Rassilon') - why can't you??

(And, I am proud to say, yes I did- if just barely.

Didn't Jesus say that LOOKING at a woman with lust is as bad as adultery? You might as well have gone the whole hog.

I recognize the general distaste the world has for that particular commandment

Hey! Not in Doctor Who circles. We may not be able to swear that ALL our Docs are purer than the driven snow but there's no doubt MOST of them died virgins...

- it's not easy, even when both parties are fully committed to it! Which is probably TMI. No... DEFNITELY TMI.)

TMI?

"Ah yes, the very essence of megalomania - someone who knows that they can never possibly be wrong." - Emily
When one creates- and will eventually destroy and remake- the entire universe, triggered the Big Bang with the words "Let there be light," and sacrificed yourself to save all of humanity, grandiose or extravagant actions aren't an obsession... they're just kind of what you DO, in general. Standard MO.

Oh, nonsense. The Doctor triggered the (second) Big Bang, the Doctor sacrificed himself to save all of humanity (and, in the cases of Five, Nine, and Ten, just ONE of humanity) and extravagant actions are just kind of what he DOES. But you can sure as hell tell when HE'S being a crazy grandiose megalomaniac. And so can he.

'I've gone too far.' - IF ONLY your God was as capable as my Doctor of admitting as much.

the being inquestion incapable of doing wrong

But capable of changing his mind - as between the Old and New Testaments?

"Hell, even THE DOCTOR asked himself 'Have I the right?' when it came to destroying THE DALEKS! (OK, turns out that was a bit of a mistake on his part, but that's beside the point.)"
"But then, the Doctor doesn't murder children.
Well, except for Racnoss children, obviously."
You're not exactly making an ironclad case... :-) Seems your lonely god is guilty of pretty much everything you accuse my God of... ;-)

Um, no. MY God only murders children when they're mindless savages about to devour an entire rather populous planet.

And whenever MY God tells someone to go and make the tea on the grounds that she's a mere woman he gets slapped down pretty •••• fast (coffee is another matter, of course...)

"And, even aside from that, God cannot murder- murder is the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.
Of course it isn't." - Emily
As per the dictionary, it is.

You obviously have the wrong dictionary.

Look up the word 'Genocide' and if it DOESN'T have a picture of the Doctor with the caption OVER MY DEAD BODY...then you DEFINITELY have the wrong dictionary.

Nitpickers' site, remember? :-)

I remember that. You're the one who is literally incapable of nitpicking the most nit-ridden book in human history.

Well, when it comes to God... there IS no higher authoirty. :-)

Look, I don't like this any better than you do, but the fact remains...there ARE these two guys with birds on their heads...

"So the next time the Doc's protecting our planet from Slitheen/Sycorax/Daleks etc, you'll be telling him he doesn't have the right to kill any of them?" - Emily
If he decides to go flat-out murder them? Yeah.

Sorry, what exactly is the difference between disposing of a Dalek and 'flat-out murdering' it? Who do you think you are, Rose Tyler? (And even SHE thought better of her Dalek-sentimentality fast enough when surrounded by half a million of the metal meanies.)

"I'm sure some of those first-born sons (SONS! Such sexism!) of Egypt God slaughtered hadn't had time to commit any worse crime than wetting their nappies." - Emily
In which case, being innocent of any sin, they would have ended up immediately in Heaven.

Other than the fact that 'No one comes to the Father save through me', of course.

And why stop with the lucky Egyptian bouncing baby boys? Slaughter EVERY child EVER and none of them will end up like me - heading for hellfire everlasting! IF ONLY someone had had the sense to dash my little baby brains out against the wall, how much better off I'd be!

And, let's face it, after 9 completely supernatural signs to back up commands directly from God, the nation of Egypt would surely have been asking for some of that aforementioned 'genocide;'

Oh, absolutely. Those babies were GAGGING to be genocided, I'm sure the Doctor would have done exactly the same thing...

...oh, wait. He wouldn't.

instead, even the harshest of God's plagues against them did less to them than they to their victims. Again- because God is not only posessed of a perfect standard of justice, but of mercy to temper it as well.

*Sigh* You're not really helping your cause by referring to the mass slaughter of children as 'justice' and 'mercy', do you even REALISE that?

We're REALLY slipping into Sutekh's 'Your evil is my good' territory.

"Frankly, yes. The fact you defended every single Godly abomination to the hilt kinda gave me that impression." - Emily
If you'd found an abomination, I wouldn't defend it. :-)

Put it this way...What would the Bible have to SAY for you to draw the line? WHAT WOULD IT TAKE?

I don't know why, say, the entire nation fo Jericho was wiped out. I don't understand it. I do 'defend' it because I believe that, in principle, God has the right, and in practice, God has a reason. That doesn't mean I understand it. That doesn't always mean I like it. But I do recognize that I have no reason, nor right, to think that I can condemn, judge, or even evaluate God's actions

You don't even think that, to quote the otherwise dire Warriors of the Deep, 'There should have been another way'??

and what I do know of Him and His nature- the fact that He is all-knowing, that He is perfect, that He is, above all, Good

But does he have a bird on his head??

Just like the trailer for Matt Smith, year one. The ground breaks open, and the Doctor and Amy are falling. He shouts for him to trust her, and she ask's "Why?" (This is because she is a new companion, and doesn't know him very well.)

Yeah, cos old hands at Companionship NEVER ask questions...right...

(We'd be companions, as River says of the Doctor's friends, that "do as they're told."

Says the woman who punched him in the face before handcuffing him.

Why? Because we know enough of the Doctor to know that even if we don't understand his reasons- and unless he explains them to us, we seldom do, because he operates on such a higher level than we do

The hell he does!

ALL the best Companions take the attitude that, as Donna told the Shadow Proclamation, humans are JUST as important as Time Lords thank you very much.

we know who he is enough to trust that he has a good reason for telling us to do so.

Not if we've seen the Hartnell and Colin eras we don't.

And just as, after it's all over and the companions are back in the TARDIS, the Doctor will usually explain why

He will?

More likely he'll say 'I'll explain later' and then...doesn't.

so when it's all over here and we're recapping the adventures up in Heaven, I think all those answers will be open to us; we'll have an eternity to try to understand them.

We'll NEED it...and then some...

But for now, we're mid-show, the Doctor's shouting "Run, and when you get to the end of the corridor, hold a Jammy Dodger out in front of you!" and even though I don't know why, I trust him enough- from those few aspects of him that I know and understand personally, or have seen revealed in what he does and how he works, to do it in the belief that he has a good reason, and that I don't have to know what it is to know that I ought to follow it.

Yes, well, yay for you. To be honest, most Companions have struck me as incapable of even ducking when the Doctor says 'Duck!' Quite how so many of them have survived their adventures with him is a mystery I'm still working on.

That's, more or less, how it works for Christians, too.

Just remember: when God says 'Duck!' he may LITERALLY mean there's a duck there. (Silver Nemesis reference - you wouldn't get it.)

"He does, however, need us to love him. Which is a bit weird, frankly." - Emily
I don't think that He needs us to, no. I think He wants us to love Him, just as He loves us.

How needy of him. I've never needed my Doctor to love me back. My love is more than enough for the both of us...I'm not Martha bloody Jones.

And I think we were made so that we'd be at our most edified worshiping Him, so that it's a mututally beneficial thing.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Not because He craves worship but, because, frankly, He deserves it.

It has to be admitted, he did a SERIOUSLY good job creating kittens. Even the I-can't-stand-cats Tenth Doctor was IN AWE of the glory of their creation when confronted with a basketful of beribboned ickle preciouses. (Jehovah doesn't ban sex between humans and cat-people, right?)

Of course, he's considerably less worthy of worship for creating the black simulium fly that blinds millions of Africans. If the DOCTOR had done such a thing, HE'D be man enough to at least say 'Oops'.

Overall, though, I think God could exist just fine if no one in history ever gave a single thought or care to Him.

Shall we try it and see?

just as you love your children, and would really HOPE that they'd love you back.

One of the trillions of reasons I won't be sprogging is my lack of expectation that I'd love them OR they'd love me.

God, by authority, has the right over every person, their actions, their choices- there's litteraly nothing He doesn't have authoirty over. But because He's not the dictator you think He is, He doesn't excercise it- He instead gives us the authoirty over our own thoughts and actions, and the freedom to either obey or defy Him.

You're omitting that minor codicil of 'But if you don't love, worship and obey him then BURN BABY BURN.'

That's why Free Will is such a gift- because even though God has the right to overrule us and render us thoughtless, will-less automotauns who only do as He commands, He chooses to defer those choices to us.

See, in Doctor Who we KNOW BOSS is wrong when he tries to render us thoughtless, will-less automatons. We don't feel the need to worship every mad computer that DOESN'T try to render us thoughtless, will-less automatons out of the goodness of its heart.

As the Magician's Nephew puts it, in the words of Aslan, "My first gift to you is... yourselves."

That always WAS the worst of the Narnia books.

We've been over this before. If God were choosing to punish people by directing them to Hell out of spite, this argument might be correct. But people are buying themselves a share in Hell- a place not created for them- through their own actions.

And as several of us have pointed out...WHO exactly created this universe in which we're eternally punished for our frail little human slip-ups?

God isn't choosing to send them there- they are choosing to send themselves there by knowingly and willingly comitting sins.

Allow me to place on the record that I have no desire whatsoever to suffer eternal torment. If your god takes my decisions (if you can even call them decisions, given my bone-deep feminism, Doctor-worship, belief in human rights, etc) as pointing straight to THE DEVIL, he has some seriously faulty satnav.

So instead, at the greatest possible cost to Himself- death and Hell to an eternal, all-powerful being that is the exact opposite of pain and has never done anything wrong himself

Hang on - Jesus was IN HELL those three days? Since when?

It's not the actions of a lunatic- it's the action of ultimate, self-sacrificial love.

Be honest. Have you ever seen THE DOCTOR torture himself to death in order to persuade himself to forgive someone?

it's our own intentional choices that set us on that path, one that was not meant for us

NOT MEANT FOR US?

Which part of OMNISCIENCE is your god just not getting...?

The Doctor always accepts responsibility for the unintended consequences of HIS actions.

Well, except in Creatures of Beauty when he didn't realise the entire boring audio was ALL HIS FAULT.

And admittedly he doesn't seem as guilty as he SHOULD about the horrors of human empires (Great and Bountiful or otherwise) given how many times he's gone and SAVED us...

one which God, in mercy, has given us this most costly gift to aid with regardless.

COSTLY?

Did HE have hair as great as Tennant's, to be replaced by hair as, well, Matt Smith-ly as Matt Smith's? I think not. So don't talk to me about COSTLY SACRIFICIES.

"Just not as much as he loves the Jews, eh?" - Emily
Uhhhh...? Sorry, not quite getting the reference.

Oh, I think you do.

Yes, the nation of Israel were God's chosen people in the Old Testament, and yes, I think that they still have a special place in His future for us

Yup, those lucky, lucky guys. Being God's Chosen sure makes for a fun history.

- but as of Christ's sacrifice, anyone who accepts His salvationis one fo His chosen people

Oh, absolutely.

Other than the fact Jesus refers to non-Jews as 'dogs'.

However, focussing on records of ancient Israelite law, and picking to death details of the cultural standards that haven't been applied to anyone for just under 2,000 years

NOT just 'ancient Israelite' law. GOD'S LAW. Delivered PERSONALLY by God Himself, in a REALLY bad mood...we're not talking garbled legends of a Sainted Physician, here...

whilst the rather crucial details of sin and salvation are rather glossed over as being invalid due to nitpicks of said ancient israelite law...

When did I (or anyone) gloss over your helpfully succinct LOVE JESUS OR ELSE message whilst pointing out what a genocidal maniac his dad was?

"If consensual gay sex is punishable by death, why not rape?" - Emily
*SIGH* As discussed- multiple times to the point of this becoming extremely tiresome- that would simply have left the woman in that culture without any provision at all.

Of course it wouldn't. Any half-decent God would have declared that she would, of course, inherit all the filthy rapist's goods AND a fair share of her parents' goods AND have the right to earn her own •••• living AND marry whom she pleased without being tainted by what had happened to her.

Instead of killing the offender, he was forced to devote the remainder of his life to providing for her and making amends.

Because, of course, once a man has forced you into marriage by raping you his sole concern is to 'make amends'...

there's no such thing as a flawless human- fi God was simply going to wait for a 'good' man to serve as his instrument... then He'd still be waiting.

On the other hand, if only he'd just hung on to find a man who unlike Moses didn't advocate the mass rape of children...I'm thinking God could PROBABLY have found SOMEONE by now. (And if you're seriously suggesting there isn't a man in human history who isn't in favour of child-rape...God could always have chosen one of those woman things.)

Being that the Doctor is not all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, perfect, vested of all-authority, etc.

Say WHAT!

Of course he is!

Which part of 'You have access to the greatest source of knowledge in the universe!' 'I talk to myself sometimes, yes' are you just not getting? Not to mention 'If you want to take it to a higher authority, THERE ISN'T ONE!'

"And going by 'When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.' the Doc's not the only one to like playing wih Earth girls either..." - Emily
Yes, those would be the fallen angels commonly refered to in modern culture as "demons" (and not the friendly Eve type, neither).

These are GOD'S OWN SONS you're talking about! Have a little respect!

mayhaps it would be simpler to break it off here before we just fall back into talking in circles again? :-)

Fantastic idea!

Ummmm...? I don't see what that has to do with evolution at all, actually.

Just that evolution seems to be the bit of science your branch of religion has the most trouble with. Hell, even CATHOLICS cope with evolution better than you do.

And when the subject of the proof is one that is, by nature, beyond the realm of science's current (or probably EVER) ability to quantify

As Dawkins points out, if they dug up a 'half-human on his mother's side' corpse in Palestine RIGHT NOW you religious people would be quick enough to drop your 'science can't prove anything about God' claims.

Actually we are entirely consistent and entirely logical. We just WANT SOME BLOODY EVIDENCE!" - Emily
Which (questions of the intellectual honesty of expecting proof in the first place aside) is an entirely valid basis for declaring a lack of belief on. But... not a reasonable basis for claim an objective- rather than subjective- proof of non-existence.

I didn't even say 'proof'. It could take MILLIONS of pieces of evidence to create a satisfactory proof. You people haven't come up with ONE.

So...you're saying there's no proof that the Hindus haven't got it right? Or that there aren't fairies at the bottom of my garden? In which case, why shouldn't I worship elephant-headed Ganesh - AND, just to be on the safe side, the fairies?

"Only for as long as we happen to live. Which is a ludicrously short span compared to eternity." - Emily
It's our entire life. That's not enough of a window for an offer to be given? :-)

Not given how nasty-brutish-and-short-like-a-Sontaran most human lives have been, no. And certainly not compared to eternity.

"And I'm not sure we'd agree on the definition of 'free'. You HAVE to give him something in return - love." - Emily
As stated in which verse?

As stated by you. I seem to remember the actual Bible being a lot keener on 'fear', frankly. And burnt sacrifices and suchlike.

Yes, I'd call one a reasonable consequence of the other- love and gratitude seem a fairly reasonable response to someone saving your life, so how much more for saving your soul for all of eternity?

How can I love God for saving my soul when my soul ISN'T saved...because I don't love God...TALK about Catch-22...

(actually, Joshm puts it rather well when talking about the Doctor: "But you're right, he doesn't ask or demand those things. He doesn't ask for the love. It just kind of happens. Because he's awesome.")

It certainly is perfect...WHEN YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT THE DOCTOR.

but all that the Bible places as a 'requirement' is to accept it

What, ALL of it???

Cos frankly all that 'All our bodies will rise from their graves for a thousand years of Antichrist rule on Earth' stuff is SERIOUSLY confusing. I mean, anyone who is a wee bit puzzled by the ending of Day of the Moon ain't seen nothing yet...

one can't genuinely accept what one considers not to be real. :-)

Course one can. *Drums heels* STILL waiting for that blue blox...

All you have to do is accept His gift of forgiveness. No requirements in return.

I KNEW you should have tried some pre-marital fun...

"But even if God is, ultra-conveniently, invisible to science by his very nature, surely scientists can deduce quite a lot by taking a look at the works of his fingers - the entire UNIVERSE - and working backwards?" - Emily
I would agree; and I think that looked at without bias, the universe demonstrates exactly that.

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Oh, absolutely. Take an utterly unbiased alien scientist and it is just BOUND to say, 'Yup, created in six days, no doubt about it...light first, the sun a few days later...'

"Also stating that numerous Bible 'facts' have been disproved by science, and, more importantly, by Doctor Who - THAT'S accurate too." - Emily
Such as...?

The universe being created in six days. Every species of animal on Earth squeezing onto one Ark. The purpose of the pretty lights in the sky being to tell one season from another.

(For science, please- Doctor Who clearly doesn't take place on our Earth or in our reality, and thus doesn't count.) :-)

DOESN'T COUNT! Who also makes it clear that there are LOADS OF PARALLEL UNIVERSES and, given that ours is a lot more similar to The Real Thing than that stupid next-door one with the dirigibles, I'm thinking we're pretty close by...*Starts trying to hammer together a Void Sphere*

You may find the New Testament an easier start; the Old is not exactly organized in chronological order or strictly narrative structure. :-)

God not got the hang of the whole 'In The Beginning' thing, then...

And yes... it most certainly was a different world back then- that's rather the point of the cultural context arguments this thread's been piling up with. ;-)

Cultural contexts mean nothing to eternal deities. As we learnt in Fear Her when the Doctor stuck his fingers in the jam jar.

I've finished Genesis and am halfway through Exodus now and am thoroughly disgusted with his actions towards the non-Jews.

And Jews too. They didn't ASK to have him as their god, and they clearly don't WANT him.

I don't care if I have the "right" to judge him; I do and I find him sorely lacking. I'll take the Doctor's flawed (and, er, fictional) judgment anyday.

Well, unless he's wearing a terrible coat and has an acid-bath handy...and maybe even THEN...

Hang on...FICTIONAL?

Perhaps I should stop reading now before it gets worse....

To be honest, if you're gonna waste your valuable time reading drivel, there are a LOT of Who books in need of more discussion...No one has EVER said ANYTHING about Shadowmind, which certainly isn't the case about this Bible thing...

"If only I'd LOVE him, you mean. Can't AND shan't." - Emily
No, no I don't mean that. Where is this other source, from which you continue to draw impressions counter to the ones I'm telling you? You're free to believe it if you like- I hardly claim to be the arbiter of all truth and knowledge :-) - but please don't ascribe these alternate impressions to me.

"I mean, either he's paid or he hasn't.
If he has, I'm hellfire-free. If his so-called payment is contingent on getting something from me in return - like lurve - we're back to blackmail/bribery/stalking/Kazran 'Scrooge' Sardick territory." - Emily
He has paid. And it's Free Will 101; you have the freedom to receive the consequences of your actions- that's the definition of Free Will. You can choose to do whatever you want to do, and God won't take control or force any choice or decision on you. You can follow His way, you can chose not to follow his way. You can go left, you can go right. You can give or you can steal. You can do whatever you choose, and receive the results, with no interference. And unfortunately, that includes sinning. The same freedom that allows you to choose to say "I love God" or "I hate God" equally, without Him ever forcing you to love Him, or to obey Him, or to do anything you don't want to do, also prevents Him from forcing salvation, freedom, or anything else you don't choose to accept, onto you. He will no more force you to accept the payment in your place than He will force you to do anything.

He has paid, but it's still your choice whether to accept it. It isn't contingent on a return, it isn't unpaid unless you do something in exchange, and it isn't conditional- it is free... but you still have to accept it.



"Of course not. He'll just watch, more in sorrow than in anger, as I fry eternally for the crime of rejecting his advances...
You know, I think I rather prefer the 'Nozzing in ze vorld!' style of villainy to the 'See what you made me go and do to you!' type..." - Emily
Well, we seem to be at another impasse. It is one that cuts to the heart of the matter; this entire argument- from questions of genocide to issues of hell to old testament law and punishment- seems to hinge on the notion of authority. On who has what right to decide what. It's a problem of modern society, I think- the governmental freedom of democracy and the unparalleled rights we posses grant the false illusion that there is no authority that we are or ought to be under, no standards to which we should be held- the notion of deciding our destinies implying that we have the right to decide everything in life- from morality and standards to law and punishment- that applies to us, and have no authority but ourselves decide these things. It is funny that this entitlement doesn't apply to the laws of the land- no one says "I am the master of my own destiny, citizen of a democratic nation, and have the right to decide morality for myself... thus I am not subject to government laws on traffic, theft, or murder." (Well... some do, but we call them criminals.) :-) Whether small things (like traffic) or large things (like murder), we recognize that an authority exists over us, and that there are laws and morals to which we are beholden- regardless of whether we agree with them or not. And yet, with God's law, with morality, with right and wrong... we somehow formulate the notion that these aren't as concrete as the laws of the nation, that they aren't still binding on us whether we agree with them (or believe in them) or not... an understandable reaction, I suppose, to a set of laws whose authority isn't readily visible to the senses upon which we base all of our decisions, whose policemen don't patrol the streets and whose sentencing and conviction do not happen until after death. Understandable, if not accurate or correct.

Thus, as this principle seems to be at the heart of this- and many prior- disagreements, I don't believe it would be fruitful to go through the entire page until after we've hit on this rather central tenet to the disagreement. (Though I will, in meanwhile, begin the lengthy review and response... :-) ).

Now, please do not take the preceding or following as any kind of hostility; the last thing I want to do after returning fro my self-imposed Who-spoiler exile is to come off as malicious (especially as I have no malice towards you whatsoever). Instead, please consider it an illustration of my position, whose fictional citizen 'subjects' are based upon various responses I've encountered, and not any attempt to describe my esteemed debate opponents. :-)

So, let me see if I can illustrate the issue with a story:

A new magistrate is appointed to the province- he is given total authority; his word is law. In governing his new people, he sets the laws, he sets their punishments, and he builds the prison for a group of scoundrels and bandits that had been captured before the founding of the province. He then posts all of the laws publicly, so that everyone will be well aware of them. No one is penalized for accidental breaking of the law, nor if they are unable to comprehend the law- only those who willingly and knowingly break it are to be jailed.

And yet, for some reason, there are those in town who choose to break the laws, perhaps in a belief that they are unjust, or perhaps in rebellion- for whatever reason, they choose to.

The magistrate's son, however, loves the people, and doesn't want to see anyone jailed. So he insists to his father "Someone must go to jail for committing these crimes- that is the law. But please, let ME face that punishment in their place." And so, the son is convicted, and jailed. Word of his punishment is spread far and wide, and those in the province are told "You must only accept the son's service of your jail time, and all charges will be dropped."

However, there are those who refuse to accept. Some say "I believe there are other ways to avoid prison"- and they manage to convince others, many others, calling those who would spread word of the son's sacrifice fools and ignorant. There are still others who insist "I think the magistrate is a tyrant for daring to make laws that I should have to follow- I choose my own destiny, thank you, and I reject the magistrate"- as if somehow their self-important declarations and belief in their own rights prevent them from being subject to the law. Some believe that the law doesn't apply to them, that it isn't a real law, or that it's only one law among many and because they choose to accept a different one, it no longer applies to them. Some quibble with the magistrate's previous rulings, noted in the book of laws- though they have no application to those people. Still, they say "The magistrate seems too harsh to me- I do not like his judgments. Thus, I want nothing to do with his offer to spare me from them." Yet others insist "I don't believe there is a magistrate, and I don't think he has a son." Yet others note "Many who spread the word of the magistrate are foolish and imperfect- they have their own (apparently forgiven) crimes... well, I am just as good or better than they." Which may well be true. But they then conclude "Thus, because his followers are flawed, I want nothing to do with the magistrate or his son, no matter what they offer me- I think them too cruel." Others have other reasons.

Eventually, each of these end up in jail- having willingly and knowingly committed crimes, rejected the proffered release from jail for reasons their own, and serving the posted punishment for breaking the posted laws. And there, in jail- or facing a sentence to it, they complain... "The magistrate built the jail and made the laws- it's HIS fault I'm here!"

Does this seem right? And more importantly, does their objection hold any real merit? No, it doesn't- the responsibility lies with them. They may not like the laws, they may not like the magistrate, they may disagree with the penalty- but it doesn't change the fact that they broke the laws, they refused the aid, and they are paying the price... and each of those three entirely under their own volition.

Until that notion becomes clear... there is very little we can resolve here.

"If only I'd LOVE him, you mean. Can't AND shan't." - Emily
No, no I don't mean that. Where is this other source, from which you continue to draw impressions counter to the ones I'm telling you? You're free to believe it if you like- I hardly claim to be the arbiter of all truth and knowledge :-) - but please don't ascribe these alternate impressions to me.

So sorry, I completely forgot you denied that earlier (and you'll understand that I don't have time to reread all our posts)...obviously it's my 'God is love' childhood I picked THAT particular idea up from...

...But I'm not sure you gave a convincing replacement for love as to what I SHOULD do to buy my way into heaven.

I mean, presumably God'd know I was lying if I said 'I believe in Baby Jesus more than in the Doctor!' or went to Church every week/decade/whatever?

(Or maybe not. After all, he's not that great at telepathically telling what you think of him, judging by his demand that Abraham sacrifice his son to prove his lurve.)

So what (speaking entirely theoretically, because OVER MY DEAD BODY) would I have to do to haul my unbelieving soul into eternal bliss?

And - given that neither my brain nor my heart calls me to Christianity - would it scupper my chances if I also put on a burka and worshipped a cow occasionally - just to cover myself, you understand?

this entire argument- from questions of genocide to issues of hell to old testament law and punishment- seems to hinge on the notion of authority. On who has what right to decide what.

Exactly. You think your God has the right to fry everyone for the crime of being human because he created the universe. Whereas I take the Whovian view that the Doc jump-starting the Second Big Bang doesn't give him the right to shove me around. And the Doctor obviously agrees with me.

It's a problem of modern society, I think- the governmental freedom of democracy and the unparalleled rights we posses grant the false illusion that there is no authority that we are or ought to be under

Except that of, er, our democratically-elected Government.

no standards to which we should be held

Except, er, the standards of law, society, and our own consciences.

All of which are considerably more rigorous than the moral standards of the 'Oh, go on, slaughter that city, you know you want to!' Bible. (And admittedly often more rigorous than that of the acid-bathed, Macra-slaughtering, skull-meet-rock Hartnell/Troughton/Colin eras.)

the notion of deciding our destinies implying that we have the right to decide everything in life- from morality and standards to law and punishment- that applies to us, and have no authority but ourselves decide these things.

You know that spine-tingling moment when the Doctor basically tells the oochies in New Earth that 'If you want some higher authority, tough, THERE ISN'T ONE?' Well, I'm afraid that applies to humanity in THIS universe. You want the Christian God to be the ultimate authority; I want the Lonely God; neither of our deities have shown the slightest sign of materialising. Yet. So, yes, humanity has to evolve its own rules.

And they may be imperfect but they are a HELL of a lot better than the slavery-genocide-oppression-of-women-slaughter-of-gays-and-shellfish-eaters rules handed down from Mount whatever-it-was.

It is funny that this entitlement doesn't apply to the laws of the land- no one says "I am the master of my own destiny, citizen of a democratic nation, and have the right to decide morality for myself... thus I am not subject to government laws on traffic, theft, or murder." (Well... some do, but we call them criminals.)

In what way is this 'funny'?

Whether small things (like traffic) or large things (like murder), we recognize that an authority exists over us, and that there are laws and morals to which we are beholden- regardless of whether we agree with them or not.

Yes. And they derive from democracy. OBVIOUSLY if you live in a dictatorship you're under no moral obligation to obey the whims of your genocidal maniac. The only 'right' HE has over you comes from the barrel of a gun.

And yet, with God's law, with morality, with right and wrong... we somehow formulate the notion that these aren't as concrete as the laws of the nation

Admittedly I WAS rather surprised that you of all people would obey the laws of a nation above those of God.

But then I suppose it proves that, deep down, you just KNOW that selling your daughter into slavery would be wrong whatever the Lord says to the contrary.

Now, please do not take the preceding or following as any kind of hostility; the last thing I want to do after returning fro my self-imposed Who-spoiler exile is to come off as malicious (especially as I have no malice towards you whatsoever).

Of course not! I don't take it PERSONALLY that you think I deserve to be tortured for all eternity! And it's good to have you back, even if it IS unfortunately in THIS section...

A new magistrate is appointed to the province- he is given total authority; his word is law. In governing his new people, he sets the laws, he sets their punishments, and he builds the prison for a group of scoundrels and bandits that had been captured before the founding of the province. He then posts all of the laws publicly, so that everyone will be well aware of them. No one is penalized for accidental breaking of the law, nor if they are unable to comprehend the law- only those who willingly and knowingly break it are to be jailed.

Even if said laws were reasonable - and didn't include, for example, lifetime imprisonment for inadvertently fancying someone you weren't married to - it would STILL be the duty of every unfortunate citizen to rise in revolution against this dictator.

And yet, for some reason, there are those in town who choose to break the laws, perhaps in a belief that they are unjust, or perhaps in rebellion- for whatever reason, they choose to.

Why yes - in the way that, for some reason, the people in Sun Makers and Face of Evil and Underworld and Space Museum chose to break the rules...

The magistrate's son, however, loves the people, and doesn't want to see anyone jailed.

ANYONE? Can't the cretin distinguish between murderers-and-rapists and someone-who-wants-a-bit-of-democracy??

So he insists to his father "Someone must go to jail for committing these crimes- that is the law. But please, let ME face that punishment in their place." And so, the son is convicted, and jailed. Word of his punishment is spread far and wide, and those in the province are told "You must only accept the son's service of your jail time, and all charges will be dropped."

Have you ANY IDEA how much the crime-rate rose in Czechoslovakia after Vaclav Havel flung the prison doors open, post-revolution?

However, there are those who refuse to accept.

Oh, I'm sure the REAL criminals would be happy to say 'I - ha ha ha! - accept! Thanks, Jesus!'

There are still others who insist "I think the magistrate is a tyrant for daring to make laws that I should have to follow- I choose my own destiny, thank you, and I reject the magistrate"- as if somehow their self-important declarations and belief in their own rights prevent them from being subject to the law.

So believing that rape-victims shouldn't be forced to marry their rapists makes me 'self-important'?

Some quibble with the magistrate's previous rulings, noted in the book of laws- though they have no application to those people.

No application? The laws previous laid down by this very Magistrate are suddenly utterly irrrelevant?

Yeah, THAT gives me REAL respect for his rulings...

And there, in jail- or facing a sentence to it, they complain... "The magistrate built the jail and made the laws- it's HIS fault I'm here!"

So who's fault was it that Leela was cast into the wilderness? HER fault - for publicly telling the truth? Or her tribe's - for doing the chucking?

the responsibility lies with them. They may not like the laws, they may not like the magistrate, they may disagree with the penalty- but it doesn't change the fact that they broke the laws, they refused the aid, and they are paying the price... and each of those three entirely under their own volition.

Ah, yes. Like the Syrians. And the Libyans. And the Bahrainis. They're just ASKING for it, aren't they.

Until that notion becomes clear... there is very little we can resolve here.

The notion is CRYSTAL clear, thanks. 'Do as the dictator says...or else.'

To (mis)quote Martin Luther...'Here I stand. I can do no other. Bog off, God.'

I see once again this thread has roared back to life.

Not by me. I'm only up to Samuel I. Decided to read Phil's X-Philes nitpicking guide instead (it's more believable).

Well, let's not forget the Bible was written long ago, and has been revised again and again over the centuries.

Who can tell where fact leaves off and fiction begins. It can't be done.

Moderator's Note: Moved from the Ask the Matrix: The Doctor Who Film section:

Truth is, Emily, you don't know whether you have a soul or not, neither do I, or anyone here. I suppose we'll find out eventually (meaning when we die).

Look at it this way, if you do have one, and when you go, you'll get to meet tons of Who actors (William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, and Jon Pertwee, for example). Imagine a Doctor Who Convention that you get in free and can stay forever (imagines Emily trampling over St. Peter to get in).

Seriously, the concept of souls and ghosts are not exclusive to the Christian faith, rather they predate it (the ancient Egyptians, Greeks,and Romans all had their own ideas of the concept). So you don't have to be a 100% Christian to say you have a soul.

As I said, we'll all find out eventually.

>As I said, we'll all find out eventually.

If we don't have one, we'll never know.

Look at it this way, if you do have one, and when you go, you'll get to meet tons of Who actors (William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, and Jon Pertwee, for example). Imagine a Doctor Who Convention that you get in free and can stay forever (imagines Emily trampling over St. Peter to get in).

I don't want to meet mere ACTORS. I want to meet the DOCTORS. And I want to travel through space and time with them. Forever.

I'm just not fool enough to confuse me WANTING something with me GETTING it.

Even though the very existence of New Who should REALLY have made me less cynical...

Seriously, the concept of souls and ghosts are not exclusive to the Christian faith, rather they predate it (the ancient Egyptians, Greeks,and Romans all had their own ideas of the concept).

Yeah, and the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans were almost as nutty as the Christians.

(I mean...on the one hand, worshipping cats is SO COOL. On the other hand, I've HEARD the True History of Faction Paradox, and those OTHER Egyptian gods are SERIOUSLY freaky.)

If we don't have one, we'll never know.

EXACTLY. And NO time to say 'I TOLD you so.' Being an atheist is SO unrewarding. Give or take the feeling of smug superiority.

Well, that's just it, we DON'T KNOW. We can guess, we can assume, but truth of the matter is, we just don't know.

Science has answered a lot of questions, yet, but if we think we know absolutely everything that goes on out there, then that is arrogance beyond reason. The universe probably still has quite a few surprises for us.

Anyway, we're off topic. Sorry.

I think I'll keep my feelings on the topic to myself--I really don't need BOTH sides(and maybe Phil as well) calling for my head.

Where's Andrew?

Anyway, we're off topic. Sorry.

Well, we're on-topic NOW, I've moved it to the Religion section.

I should apologise for using the word 'nutty'. Obviously I regard it as a clear statement of fact but one that wasn't particularly tactful when there are Christians on this board. (Hopefully no Zeus/Jupiter/Osirus worshippers, though you never know.)

Where's Andrew?

Either being remarkably restrained or just not reading this thread.

Wait a minute, I don't even read this topic--HOW IN THE NAME OF GALLIFREY DID I END UP WITH POSTING HERE??????

However are you going to cope if the Doctor ever arrives to whisk you off round time and space? You'll be worse than Katarina.

If the Doctor ever arrives my first thought will be--RUN, OR I'M GOING TO DIE!!!!!

Around the Doctor very few people become companions--many more become dead(and not all companions make it home).

I'm not sure it's worth the risk.

And some companions don't even make it into the TARDIS. Just ask Astrid.

If the Doctor ever arrives my first thought will be--RUN, OR I'M GOING TO DIE!!!!!

Well, I hope you run straight into a Dalek.

THAT'LL teach you.

Around the Doctor very few people become companions--many more become dead(and not all companions make it home).

Why the hell would they want to go home?

And come on - Companions have a STAGGERINGLY good life-expectancy, in the circumstances.

I'm not sure it's worth the risk.

YOU'RE - NOT - SURE - IT'S - WORTH - THE - RISK???

You WOULDN'T die for just one glimpse of Our Hero??????*

What kind of freak ARE you!!!

And some companions don't even make it into the TARDIS. Just ask Astrid.

Sure, the next time the BLESSED immortal stardust WHO SNOGGED THE TENTH DOCTOR SEVERAL TIMES drops in on me as she whizzes joyously around the universe...I'll ask.

*OBVIOUSLY excluding his Sixth incarnation. And, let's face it, I probably wouldn't die for just one glimpse of the caveman-murdering coffin-dodger OR the cricket-obsessed wimp either.

>If the Doctor ever arrives my first thought will be--RUN, OR I'M GOING TO DIE!!!!!


On the contrary, I'd do what Craig Owens did and get as close as I decently can to the Doctor, and stay there. It IS the safest thing to do whenever he barges into someone's life.

Francois:It IS the safest thing to do whenever he barges into someone's life.

The problem is, as pointed out during Eccy's time: Once the Doctor is there,lots of people die.

As a rule it seems safest to get as far from the crisis as you can--and watch the carnage from a safe distance(if possible).

It may be fun to watch--but I don't want to be in a trainwreck.

>As a rule it seems safest to get as far from the crisis as you can--and watch the carnage from a safe distance(if possible).

But in this case, you probably WOULD run straight into a Dalek, or a Cyberman, or worse. And even putting a whole planet (The Sontaran Stratagem, the Eleventh Hour) or even a whole Universe (The Stolen Earth, The Pandorica Opens) between you and him might not get you out of danger. I'll stick close to the Doctor, thank you very much.

Naomi Alderman (writer, Borrowed Time) talks about the Doctor and the influence of religion: "In fact, there has been some portrayal of actual religion, including a positive portrayal of Buddhism in Planet of the Spiders. But I suspect that the answer is that the UK is a fundamentally not-very-religious country, and that Doctor Who accurately represents our suspicions and our non-confrontational but deep-rooted agnosticism. To go back in history and have the Doctor ‘prove’ that Moses, Jesus and Mohammed didn’t exist would clearly be offensive and far too confrontational for British people. But to have him meet the ‘prophet’ or ‘god’ of an imaginary civilization and find that they are either misguided or plain manipulative I think is a way of saying what - dare I say it? - most British people quietly think about religion: that it’s fine as long as it’s comforting, but shouldn’t be taken too seriously or followed blindly. The Doctor is an atheist hero."

That's all very fine as far as it goes, but the Doc DOES refer to himself as the Lonely God. This is reminding me of someone-or-other's reaction to the belief that Princess Diana was a republican: 'This is the woman who wanted her son to be King of England. That puts her on the moderate wing of the republican party'.

Fabulous programme:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Csjr8bXvPw

...and if effervescent doesn't describe the Who fandom, I don't know what does.

That's cute. First time in my entire life I've been directly or indirectly described as effervescent.

I think that Doctor Who should do a story about Islam. Yes, Islam forbids Muhammad being depicted in any way but that restriction *doesn't* and *shouldn't* apply to non-Muslims.

I REALLY don't think Who needs to get involved in any fatwas at this point. The Doctor getting cut off as he was telling us what 'really' happened at Christmas and Easter is sailing QUITE close enough to the wind without him meeting Mohammed and his dozen of wives (including the nine-year-old one). Who has actually given us a surprisingly well-balanced view of Muslims in The Crusades (noble Saladin and evil El Akir) and of religion on the rare occasions it's tackled it - crazy nutter Tlotoxl and nice intelligent Autloc, raving Peladonian High Priests and compassionate Tavius, the population of New Earth whose religions kept them deludedly stuck on the motorway but also kept them sane, happy and community-minded...

Though come to think of it, it's a •••• shame Rita didn't survive to become a Companion - she was a natural, it's way past time we had an Asian Companion, and her faith would have added an interesting new dimension, give that EVERY previous Companion implausibly seems to be an atheist/agnostic who doesn't even bother to ask the Doctor about the ultimate secret of the universe - is there life after death?

Though of course Rita's intelligence and eye-opening experiences of roaming the universe would inevitably lead to her becoming an apostate (recent survey revealing that the more intelligent someone is, the more likely they are to be an atheist) and so would probably lead to fatwas. Ah well.

DWM: 'Buddhism, or whatever the Gallifreyan equivalent is, is certainly the only religion we ever see actually working in Doctor Who. The events of Spiders, and later Snakedance, seem to suggest a cosmic consciousness beyond the visible rational scientific one' - hadn't quite thought of it like that. Always assumed that ALL religions in Who were proven nonsense. Even before Torchwood assured us there was only darkness after death...

'In the Hermit's words, he has to drive out the spider on his back - his lust for travelling and meddling' - Buddhism doesn't work THAT well, then. Cos turning into Tom Baker didn't really do the trick. 'Of course we should interfere! Always do what you're best at, that's what I say...'

I never considered buddhism to be a religion.

What IS it, if not a religion?

It is neither a religion nor not a religion.

What IS it, if not a religion?

It's a discipline, a way of life, a method of escaping the eternal cycle of death and rebirth, and the suffering involved in that cycle. It is certainly spiritual in nature, but it is not a religion in that it does not aim to put the practitioner in relation with God, or gods. Of course, it has been somewhat corrupted since the days of the Buddha, but unlike genuine religions, like Christianity, Islam or Hinduism, it was definitely NOT originally presented to the world as a religion.

What main British newspaper would appeal to the middle aged and elderly Christian types?

I'm thinking of my grandmother who had a massive portrait of Jesus (the stereotypical, white, King of Kings Jesus) on her lounge room wall.

This is for a Doctor Who story I'm writing.

There isn't really a British newspaper of that kind.

It's a discipline, a way of life, a method of escaping the eternal cycle of death and rebirth, and the suffering involved in that cycle.

Isn't this whole life-after-death thing a bit of a giveaway that it's one of those RELIGION things?

but it is not a religion in that it does not aim to put the practitioner in relation with God, or gods.

Do all religions do that? Don't think Lexa's lowly followers had a relationship with that lump of crystal.

Of course, it has been somewhat corrupted since the days of the Buddha

Oh, I dunno. He laid down some pretty clear rules. How it's fine for the newest of monks to chastise any nun, but how even the most devout and wonderful nun who'd been nunning for twenty years must never, EVER criticise a monk even if he'd only been monk-ing for a day.

Yup, sounds like religion to me.

unlike genuine religions, like Christianity, Islam or Hinduism, it was definitely NOT originally presented to the world as a religion.

Christianity certainly wasn't presented to the world as a religion. It was just one of Judaism's numerous messiahs trying to get the Jews to be a bit nicer to each other by ignoring most of what they read in the Old Testament.

And Hinduism certainly isn't a RELIGION as such. Dunno what it IS exactly (hating Christianity, Judaism and Islam is taking up FAR too much of my time and energy, the last thing I need is to learn about MORE religions so I can hate them too) but Lawrence Miles has become a Hindu on the grounds that it's not a religion, it welcomes atheists, and Ganesh the Elephant-Headed God is the Doctor - only with an elephant's head which makes him clearly superior to the Doctors we've seen on TV. (Obviously I disagree. Not even an elephant can possibly have better ears than Christopher Eccleston.)

What main British newspaper would appeal to the middle aged and elderly Christian types?

Daily Mail might be a bit racy for them (though no doubt they'd enjoy its daily 'Abortion is WRONG!' message) - what about the Telegraph? As long as the middle-aged elderly Christian type REALLY REALLY REALLY hates Barack Obama.

Isn't this whole life-after-death thing a bit of a giveaway that it's one of those RELIGION things?

Not really. It may simply reflect a view of how the world works. Each of us has a window in what appears to be a spirit world, the dreams we have when we sleep. You can interpret what you see in that window as evidence for heaven, hell, god, angels, demons, souls, etc., or you may interpret it as the evidence for a parallel spirit world that contains no more deities than the material world we live in. In that optic, life after death would simply be life after death, one more aspect of nature to be studied and learned about.

Do all religions do that? Don't think Lexa's lowly followers had a relationship with that lump of crystal.

The crystal, if I remember correctly, was not what they were worshipping, it was a gift from their god. But to answer your question, yes, all religions do that. Prayers, sacrifices and rituals are the hallmarks of religion, and their purpose is to establish some sort of contact with the specific divinity, or divinities one worships, in order to obtain favors or avoid punishments. Well, that's the official line anyway. The real purpose is, of course, for the priestly cast to exert power over the gullible followers and keep them under strict control.

Oh, I dunno. He laid down some pretty clear rules. How it's fine for the newest of monks to chastise any nun, but how even the most devout and wonderful nun who'd been nunning for twenty years must never, EVER criticise a monk even if he'd only been monk-ing for a day.

I don't think that was part of the Buddha's original teachings, anymore than the spanish inquisition was part of Jesus's teachings, but I could be wrong, I never actually studied the Buddha's original teachings.

Christianity certainly wasn't presented to the world as a religion.

Yes it was. It had its own god (Jesus), its own rituals, its own prayers, commandments and scriptures.

And Hinduism certainly isn't a RELIGION as such. Dunno what it IS exactly

I think it's a kind of cosmology. Its scope certainly encompasses far more than our small planet and its insignificant inhabitants. In fact, it encompasses far more than the known universe as we understand it in our own cosmology.

With Andrew gone, I thought this thread was dead and done for. Guess I was wrong.


hating Christianity, Judaism and Islam is taking up FAR too much of my time and energy

I hope you realize, Emily, that the fanatics do not represent said religions as a whole (if that is the reason you hate them).

Atheists have produced their own share of killers: Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao, Nicolae Ceaucescu, Pol Pot, and others. Yet, people don't judge atheists based on these individuals and their actions alone.


you may interpret it as the evidence for a parallel spirit world that contains no more deities than the material world we live in

The movie, The Others (in which Eccy had a small role in, BTW) used this premise. The spirits dwelt in a world that ran parallel with our world of the living. Sometimes, individuals from both worlds could interact.

---
Daily Mail might be a bit racy for them (though no doubt they'd enjoy its daily 'Abortion is WRONG!' message) - what about the Telegraph? As long as the middle-aged elderly Christian type REALLY REALLY REALLY hates Barack Obama.
---

Yes, Prime Minister's description of the various British papers (from the 80's, and slightly altered, both for the language filters, and those of a sensitive disposition ;) ):

Jim Hacker: Don't tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers: The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by the people who actually do run the country; The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; The Financial Times is read by people who own the country; The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country; And The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Oh and Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?

Bernard Woolley: Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big (slang word for a certain area of feminine anatomy, and also the name of several species of birds).

(Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, two of the greatest comedy series ever written ).

Maybe The Times for a national paper? Although it could depend on whether they're more right wing, fire-and-brimstone types (Daily Mail) or left wing, sandles-and-beards types (The Guardian).

Or possibly they read a local one - maybe work out where you want them to live, then either google the local papers for that area, or just invent something.

Some real local papers are things like the Evening Standard (London), Liverpool Echo and Yorkshire Post.

I'd also suggest having a quick google for how newspapers are viewed in the area anyway - for example, someone from Liverpool would likely not buy The Sun after their coverage of the Hillsborough disaster.

Having re-read my previous post, I should have pointed out that in the quotes, Jim Hacker is the PM, and Bernard's his private secretary, who has a habit of interjecting into conversations between the other two (like here, he mainly brings the punch lines).

There ought to be a DW/Yes, PM crossover story.

Also, how would Jim Hacker fare against Francis Urquhart?

I'd say no to a crossover personally - both Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne died many years ago (Paul Eddington was suffering with cancer at the time, which is why most of his scenes have him sitting down), and to be honest, the two of them made the series. To the point that the tv remake they did a couple of years ago was just bad. And I don't think a DW story could really give the time those characters would need.

Plus Margret Thatcher wrote her own Y,M script and got Paul and Nigel to do a read-through of it, and the least said about that the better, IMO.

As for Francis Urquhart, by the end of Y,PM, Hacker had learnt and was normally coming out at least level with Sir Humphrey, if not actually ahead.

Don't think Lexa's lowly followers had a relationship with that lump of crystal.

The crystal, if I remember correctly, was not what they were worshipping, it was a gift from their god.

Anyone volunteering to watch Meglos and work out exactly what the Dodecahedron theology is?

Thought not.

(Though seriously, if I WAS gonna take up god-bothering, I could do worse. The Dodecahedron HAS, after all, been associated with the Doctor Himself, and is therefore a Holy Relic to me even in my atheism. Plus that religion has a female high priest (admittedly one who attempts to murder Tom Baker but hey, one can't have everything) AND it saved the Tigellans from having to live on the surface, something that would have wiped 'em out generations ago.)

Prayers, sacrifices and rituals are the hallmarks of religion, and their purpose is to establish some sort of contact with the specific divinity, or divinities one worships, in order to obtain favors or avoid punishments. Well, that's the official line anyway. The real purpose is, of course, for the priestly cast to exert power over the gullible followers and keep them under strict control.

But didn't Protestantism start off with this 'priesthood of all believers' stuff? Alright, so it didn't last long, but when actually launched as a religion there was definitely a lot of stuff about PERSONAL relationships with God with no need for intermediaries.

Oh, I dunno. He laid down some pretty clear rules. How it's fine for the newest of monks to chastise any nun, but how even the most devout and wonderful nun who'd been nunning for twenty years must never, EVER criticise a monk even if he'd only been monk-ing for a day.

I don't think that was part of the Buddha's original teachings, anymore than the spanish inquisition was part of Jesus's teachings, but I could be wrong, I never actually studied the Buddha's original teachings.

Sorry, it was definitely straight from the horse's mouth.

Christianity certainly wasn't presented to the world as a religion.

Yes it was. It had its own god (Jesus), its own rituals, its own prayers, commandments and scriptures.

I meant when JESUS was presenting himself to the world HE didn't mean to start up a new worldwide religion. Partly because he thought of all non-Jews as 'dogs', and partly because he thought that the end of the world would arrive in the lifetime of some of his listeners. Sure, he gave people a new Lord's Prayer and plenty of new commandments (mainly along the lines of 'ignore all that Old Testament stuff, daddy doesn't mean it any more') but he just saw himself as FULFILLING the Jewish prophecies, not starting a whole new ballgame.

I hope you realize, Emily, that the fanatics do not represent said religions as a whole (if that is the reason you hate them).

Atheists have produced their own share of killers: Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao, Nicolae Ceaucescu, Pol Pot, and others. Yet, people don't judge atheists based on these individuals and their actions alone.

Honestly, I wasn't judging religion on its genocidal maniacs. I was judging it on people like Andrew. A lovely person, but one who, thanks to religion, is certifiably insane, believing that the universe was created in six days flat, rape victims should be forced to marry their rapists, and that it's only right and proper that I should burn in hell for all eternity.

you may interpret it as the evidence for a parallel spirit world that contains no more deities than the material world we live in

The movie, The Others (in which Eccy had a small role in, BTW) used this premise. The spirits dwelt in a world that ran parallel with our world of the living. Sometimes, individuals from both worlds could interact.

SJA: The Eternity Trap kinda suggests the same thing. Despite Sarah repeatedly assuring us that there's no such thing as ghosts.

The one true faith is finally revealed: https://twitter.com/TheTweetOfGod/status/479094920725417984

OK, so now it's official...can we start burning heretics? Please?

Oh the link between Muhammad and Jimmy Savile is quite blatant... though media discussion of it is restricted for obvious reasons.
In fact, obligation to imitate Muhammad (known as practicing Sunnah) is the source of many issues.

For example, in April 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood tried to pass a Fatwa (legal judgment) that allowed husbands in Egypt to have 'farewell intercourse' with their wives 6 hours after death.
Their justification was a hadith (in the Kanz al-'Umal) in which Muhammad took off his shirt, placed it on a dead woman and "lay with her" in her grave. The gravediggers exclaimed, "O Prophet, we see you doing a thing you never did with anyone else," to which Muhammad responded: "I have dressed her in my shirt so that she may be dressed in heavenly robes, and I have laid with her in her grave so that the torments of the grave may be alleviated from her."

^In other words, saving her soul through post-death sex...
Yeah, on second thoughts... Necrophiliac... Pedophile... Polygamist... Slaver and Warlord... perhaps Muhammad isn't a suitable subject for Doctor Who after all!

Eek. They kept THAT one quiet.

Why would a wife of the Prophet suffer torments in the grave, anyway? Wouldn't she go straight to Paradise?

I suppose one COULD view the entire Doctor/River relationship as necrophilia - after all, about the first thing she did after they met was DIE - but in a considerably more, um, romantic way.

My ******* brother has converted to ******* Catholicism.

I honestly feel rather as if he'd been converted to a Cyberman.

Come join me as a member of the Uniting Church, Emmy (was created from the merger of Methodism and Presbyterianism)

Gimme a call when they merge with the Church Of The Lonely God/Oncoming Storm/Flop-Haired Wuss.

Hey, Emily, why not start your own Church Of The Doctor. God will be the Fourth Doctor and Satan can be the Sixth.

The Israelites had forty years wandering the dessert, you had the Sixteen Long And Barren Years Of Despair.

Hey, Emily, why not start your own Church Of The Doctor.

Because to start a successful Church you need a LOT of authority in your voice and I don't have ANY. Though if Russell T God would like to stop messing around with gay dramas and just take up his rightful place as our Prophet and High Priest I'll sign on the dotted line as an acolyte in a heartbeat.

Plus, the Doctor already has his own Sabbath (Autumn Saturdays), temple (The Cardiff Doctor Who Experience), canon (all fifty-one-and-a-half glorious years of it) worshippers (millions of viewers all over the globe) and anti-Christ (*sticks a few more pins in Mary Whitehouse doll*) so honestly, he doesn't NEED me.

And Who's whole 'ASK QUESTIONS!' philosophy would sit uneasily with any organised religion that would seek to pin down one doctrine on pain of damnation. (Of course, in OUR Church 'damnation' would probably entail having your TV confiscated for a week rather than roasting in hellfire eternal, but that's not the POINT.)

God will be the Fourth Doctor and Satan can be the Sixth.

*Nods approvingly*

The Israelites had forty years wandering the dessert

...to the only place in the Middle East that didn't have oil (to quote Golda Meir, and also to assume you meant 'desert').

If it was OK for women to announce Jesus's resurrection, why can't they be Roman Catholic priests?

Well, OBVIOUSLY you need a willy in order to turn the magic biscuits into chunks of Jesus.

Otherwise it would just be SILLY.

There's nothing negative about Sir Keith Gold in Inferno. it's just deeply and stupidly unfortunate that they used a stereotypical Jewish name given that Inferno Earth Stahlman who works for a fascist regime has that world's Sir Keith brutally murdered. The Good Jewish Man murdered by a Nazi/fascist in a story broadcast less than 30 years after the Holocaust?

Well, this is what Nazi/fascists DO.

It would be WORSE to COVER UP the fact that this is what they do.

(In fact, what the hell TOOK them so long!)

And to be fair, EVERYONE dies in THAT particular universe (unless you believe Face of the Enemy) whereas dear old Sir Keith does survive in the real world.

EVERYONE dies in THAT particular universe

Good point.

From Ask the Matrix: Calling the Moderator:

KEITH: Ah, the war on tradition. How dare something that's been around for hundreds or thousands of years and stood the test of time, not just shrivel up and die when some modern person thinks they have a better idea.

So...are you saying that ALL traditions should be kept by virtue of being, well, traditional? Foot-binding? Widow-burning? Female genital mutilation? Marital rape?

No?

In which case, can't you accept that, well, some traditions EARN the right to endure forever (The TARDIS is a blue police box. Who is a Saturday night show. And JNT should have been fed to the Vervoids for messing with these Sacred Customs) and in CERTAIN OTHER cases the modern people might possibly have the RIGHT idea?

How dare parents try to raise their children in a way they think appropriate! tsk tsk tsk

Well, YES, frankly.

By my estimate, approximately half the parents in Britain are unfit to rear children. Which isn't surprising when half the parents in Britain only HAVE children because they're too stupid to use contraception properly.

Have you any idea how many children are starting at school, aged four or five, unable to count up to five or pronounce their own names?

(At least the religious maniacs actually bother to TALK to their children to inculcate their obscene ideologies, I'll say THAT in their favour.)

Okay, let's take this idea to it's logical conclusion.
1. We shouldn't list children by the religion they were raised in because they didn't choose it.
2. We shouldn't list them by their "slave names" forced on them by their parents.

That's not a logical conclusion. That's a reductio ad absurdum.

Of course parents should name their child (which was frequently more than they could be BOTHERED when it came to daughters in China). Obviously if the child insists on some other name when its old enough they should respect it unless it's REALLY ridiculous.

3. We shouldn't list what countries or planets they were citizens of/natives of because they had no choice where their parents gave birth to them.
4. We shouldn't list them as human because they had no choice in what species they were born as.

Planets and species of birth are a lot more concrete than religion. (Though obviously I live in hope of acquiring a Chameleon Arch.) How many people calling themselves Catholic in Britain know what half the dogma IS? REALLY believe in it? Actually PRACTICE the no-contraception rule?

The real issue here is one fact: the parents are doing what they feel is best for the child.

Of course. Owning an unmutilated set of genitals will only get a girl into trouble.

They fear that if the child isn't baptised it will be consigned to h-e-l-l if it dies while too young to choose.

People insane enough to worship a being who'll torture THEIR KIDS for eternity for the 'crime' of not having some magic water dribbled on their heads are too stupid to be permitted to reproduce, in my opinion.

Let's not forget that overpopulation is destroying this planet and difficult decisions have to be made. Though this is really a dead easy one.

A child's right to be raised in a loving and moderately-sane household trumps a woman's right to breed like a rabbit any day.

On the other hand-- if the child has been baptised it will go to heaven.

Doesn't seem like that bad a choise to me.

You're talking to the girl who baptised her CAT.

Trust me, I know EXACTLY how screwed-up these people are.

To be honest, I could probably live with the dribble-of-water-that-prevents-eternal-torture, it's the stuff they TELL their kids - when the kids are biologically programmed to believe everything their parents tell 'em (cos the ones that ignored mummy and daddy saying 'Don't dance around on the edge of that cliff' and 'don't play with that poisonous snake' didn't live long enough to pass on their rebellious genes) - that's the REAL child abuse.

Do you know what it was like, being a born feminist, a born nitpicker, and a born Doctor Who fan, and spending decades struggling to believe a bloody WORD of this anti-science, anti-history, anti-human-rights, anti-common-sense GIBBERISH? Trying to LOVE someone who COMMITTED GENOCIDE ALL THE TIME? (OK, so the Doctor does too but, y'know, just Daleks and Cybermen and stuff.)

Second note: There is nothing to stop the child from leaving said church once they are old enough to decide for themselves.

Because of course religious fanatics NEVER punish apostates...

how can one burn in hellfire eternal if there's no hell???

(As an atheist you shouldn't believe in either heaven or hell.)

I was referring to YOUR belief in hell, not mine.

Unlike you, I'm supremely confident that that lovely God of yours isn't roasting ANY ickle kiddies in eternal flames as we speak.

First off:This is not what I believe--as I've said before what I believe would probably offend EVERYONE on this site.

What I said is that what you and I think isn't important--it's what the parents believe that matters.

Secondly:You are comparing two entirely different things--one a simple ceremony that harms no one,the other a twisted perversion of something that probably started out quite different from what it turned into(I would guess that it started out as something that WAS meant for the good of the child).

Thirdly: Your idea of banning certain groups from breeding is getting very close to what the Nazis believed-- following these rules would kill off humanity fairly quickly.

Also:What in the smegging hell gives YOU the right to decide who's worthy of being a parent,and who isn't????--you know less about the topic than I do(and that's saying an awfully lot).

With what you say about children--it seems unbelievably arrogant of you to judge ANYONE who becomes a parent--you lack either the training or experience to have a viable opinion on the topic.

As for traditions: while some are wrong(and you have mentioned some that been twisted into something wrong)--many are either harmless, or even helpful in the long run.

As for religion-you have the right to what you believe, just as I do--it is not for either of us to judge ANYONE on what they believe (especially when that judgement shows a total lack of interest in the facts in the matter).

Finally: while I think it a bad idea for me to express my beliefs here--that lovely god of mine,isn't mine(so I'm not really the one to defend him or the faiths built around him). Since neither of us knows for sure--lets leave that alone.


So let's just leave it at that.

John: why should babies and children have religion forced upon them through baptism or be forced to play-act/perform religious beliefs and activities out of fear of consequences from their adult authority figures?

For the same reason that they other things are forced on them-- because their parents are trying to do what they believe to be best for them.

If their beliefs are correct--then they are doing the right thing.

If their beliefs are wrong--then they are still trying to do what they feel is best(and teaching lessons in right and wrong).

More than that--I'm not qualified to say. I am not an expert on the subject.

(This is also a tough topic for me--I've already spent more than an hour and a half coming up with this much(I've written and tossed out an awfully lot while writing this post.))

First off:This is not what I believe--as I've said before what I believe would probably offend EVERYONE on this site.

But - but - WHATEVER your views on everyone else on this site deservedly getting tortured for eternity* you DO still accept the Doctor as your Lord and Saviour, right?

Secondly:You are comparing two entirely different things--one a simple ceremony that harms no one

HARMS NO ONE? It harms humanity's chances of ever leading a rational existence.

And have you ANY IDEA about what happened to Jewish children who were secretly baptised by their families' Christian servants...?

the other a twisted perversion of something that probably started out quite different from what it turned into(I would guess that it started out as something that WAS meant for the good of the child).

If we're talking about FGM then there really isn't ANY WAY that any sane parent could delude itself that sawing off bits of their daughter with a rusty knife was 'for her own good'...unless, of course, they were utterly blinded by religious hatred and terror of female sexuality...

Thirdly: Your idea of banning certain groups from breeding is getting very close to what the Nazis believed

Let's take it as read that I'm not a Nazi.

Nazis are unlikely to be Doctor Who Fans (though of course there are always exceptions...)

So let's move on to any ACTUAL arguments against the revolutionary every-child-a-wanted-child suggestion that DON'T involve suggesting that I AM a Nazi.

following these rules would kill off humanity fairly quickly.

REALLY? Following a few basic rules like a parent has to be prepared to speak to, read to, feed a decent diet to, and toilet-train its offspring** would REALLY result in a HUMANITY-FREE PLANET EARTH...??

And I thought I was cynical...

(You DO realise that the human population of Earth has almost doubled since Image of the Fendahl? You DID notice that EVEN THE DOCTOR has started to grumble that 'You're like rabbits, I'll never be done saving you'? Underpopulation is SO NOT A PROBLEM right now. And won't be even if a long-overdue Black Death-style 40%-fatality-rate plague hits us. If, however, we get a GRIDLOCK-style wipe-out of PRACTICALLY EVERYONE then I'll be the first to admit that the Breeders are the heroes and the Breeding-Refusers like myself should be, um, handed a white feather or something.)

Also:What in the smegging hell gives YOU the right to decide who's worthy of being a parent,and who isn't????--you know less about the topic than I do(and that's saying an awfully lot).

The fact that I'm a prime target when the offspring of unfit parents get to mugging-age.

The fact that I care desperately that humans and cats survive Global Warming.

And, incidentally, I don't think for a moment that I should be the one setting the rules about who should become a parent. There's a REALLY old-fashioned - and unfashionable - saying: 'He who pays the piper calls the tune.' The taxpayer is the one footing the bill for the every need of every unfit-parented child, the Government elected by said tax-payer should be laying down a few basic ground rules.

(My one and only consolation for FIVE MORE ******* YEARS OF TORY RULE is that they're thinking of restricting child benefit to the first couple of kids. It may not be MUCH of a start, but it's a start.)

With what you say about children--it seems unbelievably arrogant of you to judge ANYONE who becomes a parent--you lack either the training or experience to have a viable opinion on the topic.

ANYONE?

Because I don't like kids (bar the only two kids I actually KNOW, whose parents and I have done a MARVELLOUS (if strenuous and expensive) job of rearing 'em to be decent human beings and, more importantly, Doctor Who Fans) I'm unfit to judge, ooh, say, a mother who tortures her child to death?

Of which there are QUITE A FEW.

Social services are afraid to take the hideously-abused kids into care because, let's face it, getting taken into care will utterly ruin your life even if you DON'T fall into the hands of an Asian sexual-grooming gang.

Look - there are roughly 100,000 children in care in Britain who don't stand a chance in hell of a vaguely-decent life, another 200,000 abortions a year (I'm an atheist feminist and I find this figure UTTERLY UNACCEPTABLE - how do YOU feel?) - in what way is it more human-rights/God/Goddess-respecting to NOT have the same kind of rules about reproduction as we have about, say, CAR-OWNERSHIP? I.e. that you have to pass a COUPLE of quick tests to prove you're vaguely worthy?

But hey, let's leave aside all those women who think it's fun to let their latest boyfriend rape their baby, let's have a look at, say, the German woman with thirteen children who has IVF quadruplets aged sixty-five. Where do YOU draw the line?

As for traditions: while some are wrong(and you have mentioned some that been twisted into something wrong)--many are either harmless, or even helpful in the long run.

I couldn't agree more! And the HELPFUL traditions will actually be able to JUSTIFY their helpful existence WITHOUT having to wail 'But I'm TRADITIONAL!'

it is not for either of us to judge ANYONE on what they believe

Oh, REALLY.

Even if a British Muslim woman gets so turned on by videos of ISIS selling as slaves, gang-raping, and beheading nine-year-old girls that she drags her six children off to Syria to join the Glorious Cause? I'm not supposed to judge her?

You know, one of the few things that religion AND Who have taught me is TO JUDGE PEOPLE.

'There are some corners of the universe that have bred the most terrible things. Things that act against everything we believe in. They must be fought!'

(especially when that judgement shows a total lack of interest in the facts in the matter).

Oooh, tell me more about these facts I'm allegedly not interested in!

Since neither of us knows for sure--lets leave that alone.

I DON'T know for sure that your particular deity doesn't exist.

And I DON'T know for sure that I'm not followed everywhere I go by an invisible intangible ten-foot kangaroo called Kevin.

But I am PRETTY •••• SURE on both counts that it just ain't so.

If their beliefs are wrong--then they are still trying to do what they feel is best(and teaching lessons in right and wrong).

Trouble is, in the vast majority of religions, 'right and wrong' includes 'Women are inferior and gays are scum'. Which isn't really doing anyone much good, in the long run.

I mean, we'd NEVER have got our Who back without Julie Gardner (FEMALE!), Jane Tranter (UGG - ANOTHER FEMALE!) and Russell T God (OH MY GOD IT'S GAY!)...

*Though Jesus SAID that Heaven and Earth would fade away, presumably this extends to Hell too? Enquiring minds want to know...

**You have NO IDEA how many parents nowadays simply CAN'T BE BOTHERED to put in the couple of weeks of EFFORT required to get its rug-rat out of nappies.

Emily, you won't burn in Hellfire. I'm sure Satan will have an even worse punishment for you, such as forcing you to watch Colin Baker episodes on endless loop.

And before any atheist gets on their high horse about how much better the world would be if everyone thought like them. Well, let me remind you that the roster of atheists includes the likes of Stalin, Mao, Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu, Pol Pot, etc. Not being religious didn't stop these people from being genocidal maniacs and venting atrocities on there own people. Think about that.

Anyway, away I go for now. I'll be back on the weekend, after the new season starts.

Well, let me remind you that the roster of atheists includes the likes of Stalin, Mao, Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu, Pol Pot, etc. Not being religious didn't stop these people from being genocidal maniacs and venting atrocities on there own people.

These people were not what I would call atheists. They were very much theists, with themselves as the deities of their worlds. Actual atheists are underepresented in prisons, they divorce less, commit spousal and child abuse less, are generally happier, mentally more stable, physically healthier. The less religious countries consistently make the top rankings of the better places to live, are more prosperous, less discriminating and have less criminality. By virtually every measurement you can think of, atheists fare better than theists. I'm not saying atheists are perfect, I'm saying atheism appears to be a generally better strategy then theism.

I wonder what would happen if a past country - say Wilhelmine Germany or Tsarist Russia were teleported to the present. How would their populations react to lefty modern activists trying to dismantle the laws and customs in the empires that favour religion and where the people viewed atheism very direly?

Emily, you won't burn in Hellfire. I'm sure Satan will have an even worse punishment for you, such as forcing you to watch Colin Baker episodes on endless loop.

No! No! Not the Colin Baker Era! I DEMAND THE RIVERS OF MOLTEN HELLFIRE!

They were very much theists, with themselves as the deities of their worlds.

I guess North Korea fits this category in regards to the Kim family. Kim Il Sung is worshipped like a god. Despite being dead for more than twenty years now, you cannot escape his presence.

He's Eternal President, meaning that no one can replace him. Some actually think he's still running the show from the Afterlife.

The North Korean calendar now starts in the year 1912, the year Kim Il Sung was born.

Religion survives best in ignorance and poverty.

It could be really interesting to see some up-close representations of belief in Who. And not just Christian, either. Part of the EU would imply, for example, that Classic companion Tegan Jovanka was raised at least nominally Jewish. Did she ever turn to her faith to help with her pain after parting company with the Doctor?

There has been some exploration of religion in slightly more overt ways in bits and pieces of the EU, but nothing quite on the deep level. It would be really interesting, seriously, to see a character of very deep faith experiencing the sort of things that happen in the Whoniverse and dealing with that. How does their faith possibly help them? Is it strengthened or maybe weakened by the experience. How does their fundamental understanding of their relationship to the universe come out at the end of things?

art of the EU would imply, for example, that Classic companion Tegan Jovanka was raised at least nominally Jewish. Did she ever turn to her faith to help with her pain after parting company with the Doctor?

No, she turned to cattle-feed and brain tumours. But who are we to judge, each to her own.

It would be really interesting, seriously, to see a character of very deep faith experiencing the sort of things that happen in the Whoniverse and dealing with that. How does their faith possibly help them? Is it strengthened or maybe weakened by the experience.

Yeah, they should have kept on Rita from The God Complex.

How does their fundamental understanding of their relationship to the universe come out at the end of things?

OBVIOUSLY by renouncing whatever gibberish they'd been brainwashed with and finding the love of the Lord Doctor.

the Lord Doctor

(The Doctor comes in wearing ceremonial robes and a giant SPECIAL K symbol)

Clara: Um. Doctor? I think that's a breakfast cereal.

The Doctor: Do people worship it?

Clara: Uh, in a way...

Did she ever turn to her faith to help with her pain after parting company with the Doctor?

No, she turned to cattle-feed and brain tumours.

Sorry, I totally forgot that the SJA contradicted that godawful Gathering audio and said that Tegan was campaigning for Aboriginal rights. I can't BELIEVE no one pointed this out.

God, Easter's depressing isn't it. Resurrection Of Our Lord season with NO SIGN of Our Lord. In our RTG Golden Age, even when He let us down horribly in our Gap(ing Chasm Of Despair) Year, He made sure we had an Easter treat. And even when Moffat destroyed the sacredness of Easter, you just had to tell yourself to hang on for just a few more months...

Well, happy Easter anyway. Spring is just around the corner. I can almost see it peeking through the veils of falling snow

(Ok, I'm exaggerating a little. Thanks to El Nino we didn't have a lot of snow this year.)

Well, happy Easter anyway.

Oh, right. Yeah. THAT.

Have perked up a bit since eating some chocolate but there's no doubt about it, no amount of cocoa-based confectionery can replace our Oncoming Storm.

Imagine the Doctor using a chocolate bunny as a Handles-style companion?

Catastrophic disaster. Our Hero would get peckish, gobble up his Companion, and then probably torture himself over it for a few billion years.

Tom Baker re his Catholic upbringing: 'We were in it for the cannibalism! We couldn't wait to gobble God. So when somebody said to me, "I want you to do this with the sonic screwdriver," or "say this gobbledegook Tom," it was nothing compared to the way I'd been brought up...He was a bit of a show-off, wasn't he, Jesus? And you see how fickle the public is? They ended up crucifying him, even after tricks like that. But I'd had a long, long education in believing in the whippet s***, so all that nonsense on Doctor Who, any kind of insane idea, was a doddle' - I've always seen my Catholic upbringing as a direct contrast to my Who Fandom (well, you're only allowed ONE Lord and Saviour of the World, after all) but perhaps, after all, it MIGHT have helped me find the One True Faith...

'You can be talking to someone about football, or cricket, or crumpet, or having yet another pint, and you don't always realise that this person has this amazing other personality, where they believe in this whippet s***. People are amazingly irrational, aren't they? I suppose that's why they love Doctor Who. In cricket, you have rules. In football, you have rules. In the Roman Catholic Church, you have rules, and a f***load of incense. But in Doctor Who? There are no rules. You invent them as you go along. No physics at all. That's what's so attractive about it, isn't it?' - actually I don't think that's it. We like a FEW rules which is why we DON'T like That Abomination With The Trees.

BILL: "Doctor, this isn't one of those holidays where you have to pretend to be Jewish!"

One of the good things about Meglos is that it shows the dark side of all religions, when it goes radical. Lexa and her Deons, yikes.

And what would Lexa have said if she had succeeded in pancaking the Doctor and then the Dodecahedron doesn't reappear?

Lexa: Oops, our bad!

Well, they wouldn't have had the time to dwell on it, as Meglos would have blown their planet from space not long after.

And what would Lexa have said if she had succeeded in pancaking the Doctor and then the Dodecahedron doesn't reappear?

Lexa: Oops, our bad!

Of course not.

She'd've decided that the dear old Dodecahedron just needed lots more sacrifices.

I mean, sacrificing the Doctor doesn't even COUNT as a sacrifice cos Lexa couldn't stand the bloke. Sacrificing your own kids, THAT's the sort of thing that gods like - see Agamemnon, Abraham, etc.

Weirdly, 'Meglos' doesn't show Ti-worship in a particularly bad light at all. The only "wrong" thing the Deons do is attempt to sacrifice the Doctor, and that's only because they think he's an evil criminal who's doomed their civilisation to extinction - and that's on the very reasonable grounds that a fiendish Doctor-impersonator has done exactly that.

True, Lexa is small-minded and officious, but that's more because she's badly-written than anything else!

The only "wrong" thing the Deons do is attempt to sacrifice the Doctor, and that's only because they think he's an evil criminal who's doomed their civilisation to extinction - and that's on the very reasonable grounds that a fiendish Doctor-impersonator has done exactly that.

Oh.

Yeah, that's a point.

I tend to overlook such petty details when THAT CRAZY ••••• IS TRYING TO SQUISH MY DARLING TOM WITH A HORRID BIG ROCK.

Lexa was the perfect religious fanatic, immune to reason of any kind.

A real fanatic wouldn't have sacrificed her life to save a filthy infidel like Romana.

TIM: Lexa was the perfect religious fanatic, immune to reason of any kind.

I feel you there, Comrade, I had someone grill me on the Lord's Prayer once and I panicked and started quoting the Communist Manifesto.

The pope blames the church pedophilia scandal on Satan... or is it Santa... It's hard to work out which imaginary person they're talking about to day to day...

Don't you diss Santa! Nick Frost was immensely annoying but HE wouldn't dream of telling The Sainted Francis to promote the Chilean bishop who'd aided and abetted the rape of thousands of children, whilst slagging off his victims as slanderers. (Honestly, SATAN told him to do it? You'd think the POPE would be qualified to recognise the guy with the horns and tail and brimstone-smell, what do they TEACH them at Pope-School these days!)

•••• but this 'Christmas' thing is pointless without the Doctor Who Christmas Special, isn't it.

I mean, I realise that theoretically speaking humanity managed to celebrate this thing sans Doctor for a couple of millennia but damned if I can remember how we managed it...

You must have found a way, you are still alive.

Oh, dash and blast it! Emily stole my idea about posting about no Christmas Special! Mind you after Donald Trump asked a SEVEN YEAR OLD CHILD ON CHRISTMAS EVE whether they still believed in Santa, maybe real life evil is more interesting...

I mean, I realise that theoretically speaking humanity managed to celebrate this thing sans Doctor for a couple of millennia but damned if I can remember how we managed it...

However did we cope with the exactly forty year gap between the moment when Hartnell wished everyone at home a Merry Christmas and Tennant crashing the TARDIS on the Powell Estate?