The Deeper I Dig The More I Question

[Drone]

Let's look at the matter from the other side for a second--not at the fear that religious people may or may not feel before God, but at the fearsomeness of God himself. I think it unquestionable that one of the main characteristics of the scriptural, monotheistic God (though not just of him) is that he be seen as fear-causing. I don't think this is usually understood as cruelty--there is a sort of pettiness about cruelty--but as brutality. Cruelty is a one-on-one kind of thing: the cruel know their victims, are aware of, and presumably, take pleasure in the suffering they inflict. They feel powerful on account of it, and the sight of the suffering of someone else gives a delicious tang to their own non-suffering. This is a common enough trait, but it isn't usually associated with God.

Brutality, on the other hand, is godly. If you're brutal, you can't really be bothered with the details of the suffering your actions cause--you're too big and your victims too unimportant to take note of. In fact, this can become a reason to project brutality: it enhances the image of the powerful, who thereby stress the huge distance separating their august selves from the normal run of humanity. This, I think, is where the necessity of God's brutality comes from. The God who destroys the world around Noah, drowns the Egyptian armies after subjecting the nation to the other gruesome plagues, who subjects the Book of Mormon peoples to near-extinction just before Jesus comes for a visit, and has apparantly worked out similar festive scenarios to celebrate the Apocalypse--this God is emphatically brutal. It's not, again, a personal thing--he doesn't hate these people individually; it's just that his plans are much too magnificent and his stature much too exalted to worry about the trivia of their pains or their fates.

This brutalilty, I think, is a necessary component of the idea of an omniscient and omnipotent God--without it those omnis feel mechanical and unimpressive. They need to be filled out and humanized, in a sense, or made humanly tangible, by some indescriminate slaughter. This is the same God that makes an appearance at the end of Job: he's too big to answer any of Job's questions, but as compensation lets Job revel in the process of surrendering to the appeal and beauty of his brutal immensity. Belief in God has roots in masochism: there is a genuine pleasure to be had in submitting (Muslims know this), especially to a beautiful, magnificent brutality. (Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, after whom "masochism" is named, presents the first literary embodiment of this perversion, in fact, as a pious Christian believer who encounters a naughty lady with pagan proclivities: he's trapped.)

There is, by the way, a link between the appeal of a God capable of brutality and what Susan Sontag called Fascinating Fascism. All those cool Nazi accessories (that black leather everywhere, the jagged swastikas, kneeboots (you don't have to care what or whom you walk over or through), sunglasses (you see without being seen to see)--they all tap into the secret appeal of the brutal.

Obviously, the Christian God adds some layers on top of this one, but doesn't remove it.

[LifeOnaPlate]

Let's look at the matter from the other side for a second--not at the fear that religious people may or may not feel before God, but at the fearsomeness of God himself. I think it unquestionable that one of the main characteristics of the scriptural, monotheistic God (though not just of him) is that he be seen as fear-causing. I don't think this is usually understood as cruelty--there is a sort of pettiness about cruelty--but as brutality. Cruelty is a one-on-one kind of thing: the cruel know their victims, are aware of, and presumably, take pleasure in the suffering they inflict. They feel powerful on account of it, and the sight of the suffering of someone else gives a delicious tang to their own non-suffering. This is a common enough trait, but it isn't usually associated with God.

Brutality, on the other hand, is godly. If you're brutal, you can't really be bothered with the details of the suffering your actions cause--you're too big and your victims too unimportant to take note of. In fact, this can become a reason to project brutality: it enhances the image of the powerful, who thereby stress the huge distance separating their august selves from the normal run of humanity. This, I think, is where the necessity of God's brutality comes from. The God who destroys the world around Noah, drowns the Egyptian armies after subjecting the nation to the other gruesome plagues, who subjects the Book of Mormon peoples to near-extinction just before Jesus comes for a visit, and has apparantly worked out similar festive scenarios to celebrate the Apocalypse--this God is emphatically brutal. It's not, again, a personal thing--he doesn't hate these people individually; it's just that his plans are much too magnificent and his stature much too exalted to worry about the trivia of their pains or their fates.

This brutalilty, I think, is a necessary component of the idea of an omniscient and omnipotent God--without it those omnis feel mechanical and unimpressive. They need to be filled out and humanized, in a sense, or made humanly tangible, by some indescriminate slaughter. This is the same God that makes an appearance at the end of Job: he's too big to answer any of Job's questions, but as compensation lets Job revel in the process of surrendering to the appeal and beauty of his brutal immensity. Belief in God has roots in masochism: there is a genuine pleasure to be had in submitting (Muslims know this), especially to a beautiful, magnificent brutality. (Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, after whom "masochism" is named, presents the first literary embodiment of this perversion, in fact, as a pious Christian believer who encounters a naughty lady with pagan proclivities: he's trapped.)

There is, by the way, a link between the appeal of a God capable of brutality and what Susan Sontag called Fascinating Fascism. All those cool Nazi accessories (that black leather everywhere, the jagged swastikas, kneeboots (you don't have to care what or whom you walk over or through), sunglasses (you see without being seen to see)--they all tap into the secret appeal of the brutal.

Obviously, the Christian God adds some layers on top of this one, but doesn't remove it.

Your view of the "Christian God" isn't the same as mine, so I have to dismiss your arguments. My God is a God who still weeps. Your description sounds like a robot.

[Pahoran]

I'd like to be the first one in the culture of Mormonism to condemn any individual or institution in the future that tries to marginalize anyone for sincere questioning.

I'm sure you'd like to be the first, but you're about 177 years too late.

And I note that the OP still hasn't come back to discuss any further.

Regards,

Pahoran

[LifeOnaPlate]

I'm sure you'd like to be the first, but you're about 177 years too late.

And I note that the OP still hasn't come back to discuss any further.

Regards,

Pahoran

watch out for bird eggs.

[Beowulf]

Drone has apparently misunderstood what it means to "fear" God.

It is not the equivalent of fearing serial killers, or even that bully down the street. This "fear" has more to do with "awe" (and I hope when you DO meet God face-to-face, you will feel THAT, at least...) at God's majesty.

Beowulf

[Alf O'Mega]

Drone has apparently misunderstood what it means to "fear" God.

It is not the equivalent of fearing serial killers, or even that bully down the street. This "fear" has more to do with "awe" (and I hope when you DO meet God face-to-face, you will feel THAT, at least...) at God's majesty.

Several people have urged this reading of the word fear as a way to sidestep what seems to me an obvious conclusion: that the God of the Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants is perfectly comfortable using fear as a motivation to obedience. (In fact, by the "reverence" definition, the LDS Church is absolutely a fear-based church, which I would expect any believer to affirm proudly.)

LifeOnaPlate cited the LDS Bible Dictionary in support of this reverential sense, so clearly a call for references has already been at least minimally answered. What I would like to call for are references analyzing the word in purely linguistic terms, complete with citations showing fear used in a way that clearly excludes the main sense. It will not be sufficient to point to usages that plausibly could work either way. I am willing to entertain the idea that in some instances, to fear God actually meant, from its earliest usage, to be awestruck by God. I reject the notion that because some such instances may exist, therefore any scriptural reference to fear of God is automatically subsumed under this meaning, and Jehovah may therefore be rehabilitated from his unjustly harsh reputation.

In any case, we should remember that even in a word like awe there is a large semantic overlap with fear. And it seems plain to me that when it is accompanied by terms like tremble, quake, and dread, this is the kind of fear that even the ungodly would recognize. I wonder if Scott will find a way to ignore the obvious conclusion in a verse like Isaiah 2:19:

And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.

Is Isaiah contemplating a scene where people retreat into caves out of a desire for meditative solitude?

The scriptures, when read in all their damning context, depict just such a brutal God as Drone paints. And Israel clung to him with all the fierce loyalty of an abused wife.

[cdowis]

Several people have urged this reading of the word fear as a way to sidestep what seems to me an obvious conclusion: that the God of the Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants is perfectly comfortable using fear as a motivation to obedience.

Hel 12 [3] And thus we see that except the Lord doth chasten his people with many afflictions, yea, except he doth visit them with death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence, they will not remember him.

You may find chapters 12 and 13 of further interest.

[Alf O'Mega]

Hel 12 [3] And thus we see that except the Lord doth chasten his people with many afflictions, yea, except he doth visit them with death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence, they will not remember him.

You may find chapters 12 and 13 of further interest.

Thanks, Brother Dowis. It's so seldom we agree.