Christians Endorse God's Hatred

[Godscreated]

Why would God do that?

If the scripture is written for our direction, why write it in code. Especially when the prize for figuring it out would be eternal life.

Why not just say what he wanted to plainly. Or better yet just appear to everyone. That would actually enhance the free will element as people would be making their decisions based on food information rather than on the strength of their code breaking skillz.

That explanation makes little sense to me.

Like ChadWooters said, the essentials are there for everyone to see in simple terms, after that it's your loyalty to God and yourself to see the deeper meanings.

GC

[Zen Badger]

Why would God do that?

If the scripture is written for our direction, why write it in code. Especially when the prize for figuring it out would be eternal life.

Why not just say what he wanted to plainly. Or better yet just appear to everyone. That would actually enhance the free will element as people would be making their decisions based on food information rather than on the strength of their code breaking skillz.

That explanation makes little sense to me.

Like ChadWooters said, the essentials are there for everyone to see in simple terms, after that it's your loyalty to God and yourself to see the deeper meanings.

GC

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?

[Lion IRC]

Tons of people (many of them virgins) get pregnant with an unwanted baby before they are married and guess who gets the death penalty these days?
The baby.

So which is worse? A strict threat of capital punishment for adulterers acting as a deterrent or having no deterrent and aborting unborn humans by the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS every year.

[Godscreated]

Like ChadWooters said, the essentials are there for everyone to see in simple terms, after that it's your loyalty to God and yourself to see the deeper meanings.

GC

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?

You haven't explained the other verse yet and now you've moved on, you should pay close attention to what Lion IRC said.

GC

[max-greece]

Tons of people (many of them virgins) get pregnant with an unwanted baby before they are married and guess who gets the death penalty these days?
The baby.

So which is worse? A strict threat of capital punishment for adulterers acting as a deterrent or having no deterrent and aborting unborn humans by the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS every year.

The former is worse by an impossible to calculate margin.

Do you have any numbers to support your hundreds of thousands claim?

Its also worth bearing in mind that not all pregnancies out of wedlock end in abortion anyway. There are plenty of single parent families about.

Perhaps an alternate solution would be to teach people to use contraception and avoid the whole issue.

Still nice to see how you and GC are proving the title of this thread.

[Zen Badger]

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?

You haven't explained the other verse yet and now you've moved on, you should pay close attention to what Lion IRC said.

GC

Does it matter?

It's not like you fucking ever actually answer a question.

[Neo-Scholastic]

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.

[freedomfromforum]

The Holy Scriptures have something for everyone at every level of understanding.

Perhaps if I understood that I was out of toilet paper, yes.

[Esquilax]

Fine you say, but how do you know that you are not tailoring your symbols and allegories to fit the text? That’s possible. But suppose I did actually have a super doper decoder that could be used consistently across the entire canon and support a single doctrine. The reliability of the decoder would justify both its validity and the validity of the code on which it worked. As a matter of fact, I do have a super doper decoder, starting with the 22 volumes of Swedenborg’s “Arcana Coelestia”. These texts present an internally consistent interpretive framework for understanding the inner meaning of the Holy Scriptures.

I see a problem here, and that's that at most, all you've done is push the question back one step: how do you know the book you're using to interpret the bible isn't just Swedenborg's convenient interpretations? I find it particularly interesting that when asked how you can be sure that you aren't misinterpreting a book purportedly written by god through man, you'd point to another book written by a man, instead of some way you can be sure the interpretation you've opted to use comports with the intentions of the being that inspired it.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Fine you say, but how do you know that you are not tailoring your symbols and allegories to fit the text? That’s possible. But suppose I did actually have a super doper decoder that could be used consistently across the entire canon and support a single doctrine. The reliability of the decoder would justify both its validity and the validity of the code on which it worked. As a matter of fact, I do have a super doper decoder, starting with the 22 volumes of Swedenborg’s “Arcana Coelestia”. These texts present an internally consistent interpretive framework for understanding the inner meaning of the Holy Scriptures.

I see a problem here, and that's that at most, all you've done is push the question back one step: how do you know the book you're using to interpret the bible isn't just Swedenborg's convenient interpretations? I find it particularly interesting that when asked how you can be sure that you aren't misinterpreting a book purportedly written by god through man, you'd point to another book written by a man, instead of some way you can be sure the interpretation you've opted to use comports with the intentions of the being that inspired it.

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.