What does the book of Job tell us about Gawd?

Gawd and Satan got into an argument about faith and Satan made a bet with Gawd. The bet was whether God's believers would still believe in him if they endured much misery. God heaped the misery upon Job. I mean heaped it on him yet Job kept the faith and God won his bet. What does that story tell us about God? One, he is a gambler and two, he really doesn't care about his people much or he would not make one endure such just to win a bet.. What is the book of Job supposed to tell us that is beneficial? am I missing something?

:shrug:

I don't see a "boss God" that kicks people's ass, but everybody's ass does get kicked in some way or another.

I don't separate "ordinary life" from God, because to me ordinary life is God.

:shrug:

.

Don't fairy tales have happy endings where all the problems are solved, Cinderella marries Prince Charming & everyone lives happily ever after? In contrast, Job loses everything possible & suffers absolute grief & heartache. If anything, it's an ANTI-fairy tale, where there's no guarantee of a happy ending, or a just god, or fairness in the end. Job is important not because of what it tells us about Gawd, but because of what it tells us about humanity. But I might be wasting my breath on this.

the Brothers Grim. I loved Grim's fairy tales when I was a kid.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Lots of mythological beings are like that. Made in man's image, you know. ;)

Work with what works for you, and try not to hurt anyone in the process. But that's just me.

That said your use of Gawd in place of God might be a bit revealing a to your agenda.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

What is yours? Cover it up???

putting the boot into "Gawd" at every opportunity.

You have something against the south as well...Do you have to be "a good little atheist" to question? Do you assume I am one because I question? Are you absaolutely positive my spelling is not accurate. What truly is the correct name or spelling? Jehova, YaWah, how about just "I am"

in the religion section, that's my only real point. You want to pretend your use of Gawd isn't intended as disrespectful, what do I care - go ahead and pretend.

Bryant

or something.

:eyes:

My father and that whole side of the family are from Alabama, and not one of them ever wrote with the drawl.

And do you really expect to find those here on the level of stupidity necessary to buy into your 'southern drawl' argument? I'd wager as hard as you look you ain't gonna find any. Nice try though. (no it wasn't)

MWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!

or wanting to take over hte world.

Bryant

Not to mention had such a huge ego he ruined a mans life to prove a point. Satan actually comes off the better in that story.

1. God fell for one of the oldest bits in the world of taking a sucker bet at someone else's expense.

2. God is disengaged.

3. God has no favorites.

4. God is cynical that disciples are going to love and worship him/her/it no matter what happens to them as he'll never get the blame for any of it.

Bush included.....

to him all the time, a bad influence altogether.

The Lord:

Stand up like a man,
and answer my questions.

Are you trying to prove that I am unjust --
To put me in the wrong and your self in the right?...

Look at those who are proud;
pour out your anger and humble them.

Yes, look at them and bring them down;
crush the wicked where they stand.

Bury them in the ground;
bind them in the world of the dead

Then I will be the first to praise you
and admit that you have won the victory yourself...

Job:

You ask how I dare question your wisdom
when I am so ignorant.

I talked about things I did not understand,
about marvels to great for me to know.

You asked me to listen while you spoke
and to answer your questions.

In the past I knew only what others had told me,
but now I have seen you with my own eyes...

specifically to free them from slavery to demons, he elevated certain demons he slew, i.e. they ascended to higher dimensions. In one such story, the multi-headed serpent Kaliya complains as Lord Krsna dances on his heads, killing him with every step "Why are you doing this to me? I am as you have made me." Whereupon Krsna says that is true and banishes Kaliya to the mother-of-all-waters and admonishes his golden eagle, Garuda, to never attack Kaliya there.

Hare Krsna! Hare Rama!

...that's the overall moral to this story.

One of the many underlying messages was that some of us will be more faithful under the circumstances than others. The story suggests that Job was among the most faithful and God-fearing men on Earth--if not THE most. Satan doubted that and suggested that Job would lose his faith just as quickly as anyone else under the right circumstances. God knew that to be untrue and allowed Satan to use Job as an example to prove a point (and not to "settle a bet").

Had Satan chosen a weaker subject, my guess would be that God would not have allowed this "example" to take place knowing that He will never place more on any one of us than we can handle. Or He could simply have given that person the strength they needed to endure. In fact, who's to say He didn't do that with Job?

But it all goes back to keeping the faith. At the same time we have to do what we can to help ourselves and not just wait for some miracle to happen.

Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong... ;)

The old testament god comes across as a spoiled, hostile, sociopathic 13 year old boy. This chapter is only one example of it.

God didn't grow up until Jesus walked the earth. It's too bad people who claim to follow him are fascinated with that truculent old testament god.

He obviously never got past the blood sacrifice thing did he? I mean his own son. What's up with that? Watching His kid die a gruesome death makes Him feel better about the rest of us?

I suppose everyone will interpret it a little differently and come out of reading it with different takes on each story, parable, sentence (and even word sometimes). That's a pretty cool thing to me.

I don't believe the Bible was meant to be taken in such a literal sense. Nor were parts of it to be taken more seriously than another (i.e., the New Testament should be read/interpreted while the Old Testament ignored as archaic).

What's always interesting to me are those who go into a Bible reading with a pre-set belief in search of passages that support/confirm said belief. They remind me of Fox News viewers in general if you ask me... :shrug:

at different points in my life, its meant different things to me.

I view it as a book that allows you to work out how you feel about the issue of bad things happening to good people.
How you individually work that out depends more on where YOU are at, than the book itself.

I'd be happy to discuss my various interpretations, if you'd like. It looks like you already have your individual interpretation, though, and I wouldn't want to change that for you necessarily.

The central issues addressed by Milton in Paradise Lost can also be found in Job. "Free to fall," wrote Milton in describing God, who watched Satan fly to Earth on his mission to defile Adam and Eve's pristine existence. God was asked if he would stop Satan, and God refused. Why? Because his creations had been gifted the ability to choose. God didn't want automatons who worshipped Him because they were programmed to. God wanted that worship and faith to be given freely, and in the face of the opposite choice.

So it is with Job. Job is sorely tested, which pushed the limits of his choice to stand with God. The moral of the story is that we are free to worship or not, and that there will always be tests of faith. We have the choice to stand or fall, and Job is an allegory for the kind of servant God wants most: one whose faith can withstand even the severest pressures.

The moral of the story can be translated into any number of realms: tests of political faith, tests of love and relationships, tests of trust, etc. Your free will -whether you believe it God-gifted or not - is the very best part of you. The choices you make with that free will define you. You don't have to be religious to see the value in the story.

Hopefully the OP is no longer in the dark about one of the most commonly referenced biblical tales.

God and Satan made a bet, didn't they? That seems an awfully human thing for a couple of divine beings to do. And wasn't Job's immortal soul kind of hanging in the balance here? It certainly wasn't God or Satan who was going to pay the price if Job couldn't make it to the finish line. And wasn't Job kind of singled for this little contest? It's not like it just happened to him by chance. Job was set up. Nice.

God as he is variously described in the Bible seems a lot more like a comprehensive collection of human flaws and vices than a divine manifestation of pure good.

considering that the Bible was written by humans as a guide for humans. Anyone who seriously thinks of the Bible as having been written by God needs to go back to bed...as does anyone who argues against Biblical teachings for that same reason.

Soooo aren't you really saying that the Bible belongs in the Self-Help/Guides to Living section at Barnes and Noble?

Just to win a bet he'd look on while someone was beating the crap out of me? Don't think so.
God has issues.

of a narcissistic egomaniacal father figure.

God.

The "patience of Job" is really inaccurate...Job is pretty pissed off at God throughout his ordeal and only humbly concedes his inability to comprehend the cosmic divine reality after he encounters the magnitude of God in the whirlwind.

It also tells me that God doesn't like moralistic platitudes. Job's religious friends all tell him he's certainly done something to anger God and that he needs to repent, but Job angrily refutes their arguments. At the end of the story, God says Job's way is acceptable to him, not Job's so-called pious friends.

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Republican. He'll destroy your job, cut off your health insurance, and take your home from you and expect you to still vote him in for the next term of Godhood.

:hi:

Old joke, sorry.

I stand with any creator of the universe, including the laws of physics and evolution, being a tad beyond comprehensible to us limited beings.

I read a lot of spiritual texts and have added things that work to my life, things that are repeatable and beneficial. Not everything is about negativity, but there is so much out there it's not suprising.

The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by H.Sapiens is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the sacharrine adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not recieve this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history. -Robert Heinlein

a great satire.

It suggests that gods are a concept invented by people to get certain moral points across. No being who acts the way "God" does in that story would be worthy of anyone's worship.

than actual history, don't you? As such it is a meditation on the age-old question, why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? When Job poses this question, God answers by asking where was he (Job and by extension the reader) when God created the universe, i.e, how could we hope to understand all that God does/permits? Some Christians posit that the answer to Job's question is the Incarnation, that God became Man to heal Creation.

Next you are going to tell me that the whole Noah's ark thing was all made up too.

nt

It seems that the All Mighty wanted to test Abraham's faith by telling him to sacrifice his son Isaac. Never mind the allegations that God is "omniscient" and knows everything, past, present, and future, which would have negated the need to "test" Abraham, because *HE* already knew the outcome of the test.

But, after causing Abraham no little stress and despair, at the last minute he sent an Angel to tell Abraham it was all a joke.

"The bible is a book with some beautiful poetry, a blood stained history, a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of 10,000 lies." - Mark Twain