(November 27, 2013 at 7:27 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: The irony of your example is that it applies to the activity of Christians on AF. We tirelessly present biblical truths to a faithless community corrupted by materialism.

I've been meaning to ask you about that. Why do so many Christians insist on hurling scriptures our way? I have no use for them and you must know by now it is more than a little annoying.

It's like the time I took over that little girls body and that damned preacher wouldn't stop chanting his goddamned biblical inanities. Got so bad I had to puke up half the poor girl's insides.

Personally I feel all appeals to authority are intellectually bankrupt anyway.

Believers recognize that the ultimate authority is the Lord.

(November 27, 2013 at 10:34 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Believers recognize think that the ultimate authority is the Lord.

Fixed.

(November 27, 2013 at 10:41 pm)rexbeccarox Wrote:

(November 27, 2013 at 10:34 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Believers recognize think that the ultimate authority is the Lord.

Fixed.

Well, if you believe in a God, he must be the ultimate authority. They do, you don't.
There isn't much to think, is it. If you believe in God, you cannot think of a higher authority than him.

(November 27, 2013 at 8:44 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Apparently you skipped over the part about how the pairing of the code with the key that opens it supports the validity of the whole. If you have an encrypted file that appears like jibberish and also have the key that unlocks the code, then the fact that the key works to unpack meaningful content means two things. 1) the key is valid, and 2) the text wasn't really jibberish afterall. Another one of your boilerplate objections fails again.

And your answer is to push the question back another step.

Say you apply your decoder source to a book that has no meaning at all, and coincidentally, it produces something meaningful. Does that mean the meaning was intended by the writer, or that you've managed to scramble something meaningless into something you find significant? It's like that, only worse, because there's your mind involved in the process too, comparing two books; you're actively looking for meaning there, no wonder you'll find it if you want to enough.

You talk a lot of shit about how poor my questions are, when all you've done here is exactly the thing I accused you of to begin with: I ask again, how do you know your key and code approach is giving you the intention the author put into the text, rather than something you desperately want to find there?

Saying "I interpret one book I want to be meaningful, using another book I want to find meaningful, with the intended result being that I find meaning, and therefore whatever meaning I find there is definitely the result of a god who intended it to be there, and not wishful thinking," doesn't answer that question.

(November 27, 2013 at 7:27 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:

(November 27, 2013 at 5:09 am)Zen Badger Wrote: What deeper meaning is to be found in an instruction to stone a woman to death on her wedding night if she's not a virgin?

I'm so glad you asked.

The punishment of stoning was prescribed for blasphemy (Leviticus 24:16) and for other crimes which represented the spiritual sin of falsifying truth. In the spiritual sense, "to commit adultery" means to adulterate the goods of the Word and to falsify its truths. In the Word, “virgins” represent communities that have false theological beliefs. In its positive form, “stones” refer to established, i.e. solid, truths. With respect to the specific commandment you quoted “stoning of the adulterous virgin” represents the extinction of a corrupt community’s false beliefs by overwhelming it with natural truths. In application this makes clear to deep reading Christians that rooting out the false ideas of various groups in modern society requires a concerted effort by many believers each presenting the firm truths of the Gospel.

The irony of your example is that it applies to the activity of Christians on AF. We tirelessly present biblical truths to a faithless community corrupted by materialism.

So you're saying that that women never got stoned for not being virgins?

That it is actually just a metaphor.

Got any prove of that?

Or is this just another of your feel good fantasies?

(November 28, 2013 at 5:02 am)Zen Badger Wrote:

(November 27, 2013 at 7:27 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: I'm so glad you asked.

The punishment of stoning was prescribed for blasphemy (Leviticus 24:16) and for other crimes which represented the spiritual sin of falsifying truth. In the spiritual sense, "to commit adultery" means to adulterate the goods of the Word and to falsify its truths. In the Word, “virgins” represent communities that have false theological beliefs. In its positive form, “stones” refer to established, i.e. solid, truths. With respect to the specific commandment you quoted “stoning of the adulterous virgin” represents the extinction of a corrupt community’s false beliefs by overwhelming it with natural truths. In application this makes clear to deep reading Christians that rooting out the false ideas of various groups in modern society requires a concerted effort by many believers each presenting the firm truths of the Gospel.

The irony of your example is that it applies to the activity of Christians on AF. We tirelessly present biblical truths to a faithless community corrupted by materialism.

So you're saying that that women never got stoned for not being virgins?

That it is actually just a metaphor.

Got any prove of that?

Or is this just another of your feel good fantasies?

Its just total Bollocks dressed up to look like something meaningful.

Here's the thing - there's no way someone without the magic key could know that the story is allegorical - so they take it literally and start stoning any woman suspected of not being a virgin on her wedding night - following the word of God to the letter.

They are apparently in the wrong, but no blame gets attached to God whose commandments these are. Its not his fault that people follow his actual instructions.

What a crock....

Isn't it strange too that will this is supposedly allegorical, bits like the creation and the great flood are taken literally.

One wonders how they make the distinction.

(November 28, 2013 at 12:34 am)kılıç_mehmet Wrote:

(November 27, 2013 at 10:41 pm)rexbeccarox Wrote: Fixed.

Well, if you believe in a God, he must be the ultimate authority. They do, you don't.
There isn't much to think, is it. If you believe in God, you cannot think of a higher authority than him.

"I don't know. I can imagine quite a bit."

Perhaps I was not sufficiently clear. Christians don’t need to build boats just because God told Noah to do so. We keep OT commandants and various ordinances in the canon because they remain instructive. The Word has multiple layers of meaning that work together. The literal narrative records real events tailored to the understanding of men and women. My point is that numbers get rounded and details expanded to correspond with spiritual realities.

The Mosaic laws governing the ancient Hebrew theocracy matched the needs of God’s chosen people at that time. Anyone can see that the laws were harsh. It was the ancient world. Back then all laws were harsh. You guys are stupider that I thought if you think you that after 400 years of captivity an ancient people can instantly settle into a modern Western-style democracy.

Angry village atheists seem to have a difficult time understanding why the world doesn’t match their expectations of free love and beer volcanoes. Atheists object to God’s authority, then turn around and bitch that He doesn’t rule with an iron fist to keep humanity from fucking everything up. And then you have the nerve to call Christians inconsistent.