Dan Barker v Martin Kuhrt: Is the biblical God a malevolent, misogynistic, sadomasochistic bully?

Richard Dawkins famously describes the God of the Old Testament as ‘jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully’.
Dan Barker and Rev Martin Kuhrt have both published books defending and refuting Dawkins’ description. They debate three of the charges on today’s show.
For Dan Barker: ffrf.org/about/getting-acquai...
For Martin Kurht: www.amazon.co.uk/God-Good-Exp...
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[@claudiavetmed]

I was raised by christian parents. When I started doubting, I really read the bible for the first time, not only the few nice parts I was shown as a child. And it worked, I am an atheist now.

[@vilicus77]

Barker is great! There is nothing like a former believer revealing the weakness of theistic arguments.

[@tywhitmire860]

I was a believer and sunday school teacher for many years including taking every bible study class I could and the book of Job was my last. The pastor's wife was leading the study and I asked her how god could do all these things to "his child" just to prove a point to satan? Her only reply was "to prove his power above satan's and besides, god replaced what he allowed satan to take by sevenfold". I'm thinking "Are you kidding me"?! Just like Dan said, "How can you replace 1 child for another"? As a parent, I could not imagine allowing anything bad to happen to my child for any reason. This was when my eyes and mind were opened and I'm happier than I've ever been in my life and secure in knowing that it is all manmade. Job well done Dan Barker! Thank you!

[@salahuddinabdul-aziz6924]

I was once a Muslim and the more I read the Quran and the Bible it became crystal clear to me that the stories in these books were fables. It’s been proven that Moses was a fictional character and he’s mentioned more in the Quran than the Prophet Muhammad. If Moses was sham then the entire book is. I’ve been done with religion for years and I will NEVER return to any of them! MY WIFE AND I ARE VERY PROUD ATHEISTS!💯✊🏿💪🏿👍🏿

[@brooklynnlou4]

Martin is like a defense attorney here. He is giving some sort of justification for bad things about God that are indeed depicted in scripture. How sad that a God needs a defense attorney to make himself look good. If he really was All powerful, he could simply explain himself clearly in the first place.

[@mikarose9405]

Dan Barker, thank you for pointing out about Job’s children being wiped out and God just replacing them with new ones without remorse, and like the first ones didn’t even matter. I thought I was the only person who thought of that; I’m so glad I’m not the only one! Also, why did God have to prove anything to Satan anyway?!?! And use a faultless innocent man to prove it his point? Uggghh, I hate that book!

[@dallasburns677]

Was a believer for thirty years and the sermonizing of the Biblical God’s horrors was a full time job. Dan did a great job

[@dangagne3347]

Justin gave a couple of minutes to Dan and then 15-20min to the Christian, and helped in the arguments against Dan. The most lopsided episode I’ve ever seen. Seems like Justin has dropped all pretence of being a fair debate or discussion between theists and atheists. Justin - what are you doing? Where will this lead you?

[@travismoore8337]

I don’t see how anyone can argue with Dan’s logic. That story about Job is insane

[@eengineer1able]

The TLDR summary of Martin - "We must not take terrible passages literally, even if it's sensible to do so, and also I can interpret any passage in a positive light, therefore God is good and all is well"

[@olsbijack2998]

So god makes an entire peaceful group of people flee from their homes so HIS people can take over, and if they fight back they die. THAT is moral to you??!?!

[@madmax2976]

This is all about where one starts:

[@iainrae6159]

Thankyou Dan for promoting rational enquiry and critical thinking.

[@jjphenom2831]

I went into this episode as neutral as I could and have not listened to content like this in a while.

[@Jimyblues]

I love Job- God side steps with the best of em, when Job asks why? God points out how great God is, but he doesn’t answer the question, why because he’d have to admit he gambled with Satan- a horrible fictional story

[@urasam2]

This was fascinating! Martin had nothing to offer that negated Dan’s points. As Dan said, all he did was preach and pontificate, desperately flailing around searching for some- any- way to squirm out of the accusations. Good job, Dan! And Justin was a very good mediator

[@davex444]

I've always suspected that seminary school taught new preachers to couch their bullshit in cozy language. I'm so glad to see Dan using it defending reality.

[@oldpariah]

A thoroughly unconvincing apologetic. Not sure what a good one would look like.

[@eugenecoleman8525]

@Unbelievable @Justin I just wanted to say how much I enjoy this show. I'm an atheist and found out about it from you having cosmic skeptic on. I really wanted to give my feedback but didn't know the best place so I'm leaving it here.

[@Ryan-ww5xt]

It would be fascinating to see how much longer Martin was allowed to speak compared to Dan. I know it's petty AF. But it seemed asymmetrical at best