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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   22266 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026

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It's possible that if you'd been properly taught Jonah and other Bible stories as a kid you would have more respect and understanding for them, and maybe less hostility towards God.

To someone who grew up with western secular morality, properly explaining the lesson "God grants and denies mercy capriciously and we should not question his decisions" makes God less sympathetic, not more. The kiddie moral of "Johan was punished for his disobedience but forgiven in the end" is much more palatable to even Victorian sensibilities, let alone today's.

God doesn't need to be sympathetic. The purpose of the Bible isn't to make you think God is a chill dude, it's to describe his actual nature.

Also, the mercy in this story isn't capricious, in fact it's the opposite. God gives Ninevah the opportunity to repent, and they take it.

Anyway, the point of this story isn't God's treatment of Ninevah, it's Jonah's response to it. The person reading should see themselves in the person of Jonah, who seeks to avoid God's will for his life. Even a child can understand this basic theme. Jonah gets in trouble because he tries to flee from God's will, and is saved when he returns to that will. This concept is deepened by the context of Jonah's reasons for fleeing (his hatred for the Ninevites). There's no contradiction, this theme of Jonah's anger is an expansion of the simpler concept.

Except it's not "capricious" in the slightest. The people of Nineveh repent their wickedness and are spared. Jonah rebels and is punished. And all the while God tries to reason with Jonah and bring him on side rather than just leaving him to suffer.

It's a story about free-will and the difference between punishing sins and punishing sinners.

Jonah (like many people who subscribe to a "secular morality" these days) has become high on his own sense of righteousness and as such has become more concerned with sticking it to his outgroup than addressing real problems. This prompts God to test him and ultimately call him out on his bullshit. If God calling someone out on their self-righteous bullshit violates your precious sensibilities perhaps you are the one who needs the message most.

But it's not just about Jonah's punishment, it's about Nineveh being spared not capriciously, but after repenting. Caprice would be God telling Jonah after he arrived and proclaimed the message, but the people of Nineveh didn't believe and didn't change, "You know what? Changed my mind, you can go home".

The lesson for us is "don't be vindictive and punitive for the sake of it, don't try and tell God what to do based on our own desires and hatreds". If the wicked truly repent, they can be forgiven. The whores and tax-collectors enter the Kingdom of God before you, the self-righteous who look down on others.

It's not exactly capricious, the Ninevites explicitly go overboard in their repentance. Even the cows repent of their wickedness!

There are lots of layered takes to get out of the story, that's why it's so good! Jonah was punished for his disobedience but forgiven in the end. Also, God didn't just kill Jonah but brought him back - He could have just picked a new prophet but Jonah was given a second chance. Nineveh better at repenting than Israel/Judah. Israel has prophet after prophet spitting reams of flowery poetry sent to convert it and no one changes. Nineveh gets a half-assed "God's going to come down hard on you!" and they all immediately undergo a ridiculous level of fasting and repentance.

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