RE: Why the "There are so many interpretations of the Bible" claim is confused
October 20, 2015 at 8:59 pm
@ TheRocketSurgeon
Godschild
You may run into another Christian with some different interpretation of the scriptures, but unless it's a Mormon or Jehovah Witness I will have no fierce disagreement with them. My stand is with God and His revelations to me, could I be wrong on some issues because I didn't listen, yes, just like many others. Some use the Bible for selfish reasons, like the wealth and health preached by those who love money and self, not God. Actually there are plenty of new age Christian churches that look for selfish reasons in scriptures to circle their beliefs around, so I guess I would have to disagree with them also.
Like I said, I stand with the God I know through His revelations and His Word. You act as if I'm trying to defend the Bible, well if this is so you're wrong, I explain
what it says when people try and abuse the meanings within the scriptures.
Sure man created it, man was the one who chose to disobey God, it was man who decided to separate himself from God, this brought to man the desire to look outside of God's will for their satisfaction. God put the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden so man would have a chose. Surely you're not telling me that being a robot for God would be your desire, that's exactly what would have been if He had not put that Tree in the Garden, I know it's not mine, I like living in a relationship with Him and being able to choose. I now desire to choose the right things instead of the wrong things though I do not always do, it's why I'm grateful for Christ.
Again scripture tells us we pay for our own sins, not those of others, so you're not going to pay for any but your own. So, you can forget what your Grandfather did, just be concerned about yourself at this point and time. Just trying to be honest here, not condemning.
I'm not asking you to accept stuff anymore than you teachers did about certain sciences that have no absolute proof, I says sciences because I do not want to derail this tread because of specific sciences, so let's leave it at that.
Now to the question why hide at all, if God were to reveal himself you would see Him as Moses did and have no choice but to believe. Is this what you want, no choice? Christianity is unlike any other religion, no other religion offers forgiveness without doing a thing other than accepting what Christ did for us. Of coarse God is contrary to man's logic, reason and scientific facts, He doesn't relay on man to know the truth, He has always been around to see things as they were and are.
I understand how evolution's suppose to work, I just do not accept that it's possible and it can't be proven to be possible because we haven't enough time to live to verify an animals complete change into another species, like T-Rex to a chicken. I'm not saying that you should give up or dismiss what you have learned from your education, I am saying you could use those things to look at the creation and learn what God has done. Many atheist scientist have decided to look at what God has done and many of these men and women are good scientist, they've chosen a different path in science to understand how things work.
I agree that our "sin nature" is a permanence inherited from Adam and Eve, I've stated this before, it became a part of them and then it was passed down generation after generation until today and beyond. If you will, it became part of their DNA that no one has ever escaped, not even Jesus. He was born with out His heavenly or any powers and He lived a life free of sin, why, to prove it was possible and to be the perfect sinless sacrifice. We are therefore not tainted until we sin.
How many times do you need to be told God didn't make the problem, man did through selfish disobedience. God's laws are His nature something He can't and wouldn't change. God said He was unchanging and He is, Christians have come to understand this because we see what God was doing in the OT and carried into the NT. God doesn't torture, no where in scripture will you find the word torture or anything that resembles torture,also, I do not believe in an eternal fire as punishment, what I do believe conforms to what the scriptures say. You do understand that your definitions such as "protection racket" and ect. are only your simple opinions that mean nothing as far as the reality of God and His Word.
Accepting Jesus is not earning salvation, accepting Jesus is putting yourself in His hands to be forgiven and to learn about our God. Even if acceptance was a price it would be good because we get to learn about our God, something I believe is priceless and something no one could afford, so yes it's a free gift since it can't be bought.
As for your free will, the only freedom you have is choice of Christ or to stay in the condition you're in now. Outside that choice God can do with you as He desires, though by grace He does allow us to make choices everyday. You'll never know when God uses you unless you're a Christian and then as Christians God will use us and we want know it, but for me that's okay because I know it's a good work.
You answered your own question, but I believe you know you did, so why ask? Your sin matters because God wants you to live forever with Him and you can't as long as you carry your sin around, God loves you, that's why it matters. God neither tortures you nor allows you to be tortured, you make the decision yourself, you chose and make your own punishment and God gives you what you choose.
The only precondition is what we do, unless we can live a sinless life and not accept Christ we are bound for hell by our choice, in actuality we do not have to do anything, we'll go to hell. There is a reason Christ's blood was "good enough", as I stated earlier He lived a sinless life and He did it depending on the Father, His Father.
The reason I used the word debt is because you or Christ has to pay for your sin, if you accept His payment then you'll be free of the sin, if not then you'll have to pay yourself. Yes your body will die like all other animals, but it will be resurrected into eternal life, where you spend it will be what you chose in this life. No shakedown, your own free choice will be what either sets you free or binds you to the punishment you make for in your life. Don't get angry with me please, I'm stating what the Bible says, I think you know this is what the Bible says. Many here will believe I'm judging you, I'm not, I've tried to show that everyone who chooses not to accept Christ will be judged by God the Father and then will suffer the punishment they made for themselves in this life.
That statement doesn't say anything about how sin is more powerful than God, God the Father refuses to be in the presence of sin because of His Holiness and Righteousness. There is no blood magic, it was a purposeful plan to redeem us from ourselves. By the way it's not my story, from Genesis to Revelations the entire story is about Christ and us.
Why would God want to completely wipe out the nation He formed to bring His Messiah into the world, He would have had to start all over, so genocide has no place in this discussion. God punished His people to bring them back to Him, they were a people with a purpose in His plan and He wanted them to be a holy people. Many of those priest you speak of were guilty of worshiping others gods and leading God's people astray.
You must have forgotten Hitler and Stalin and now Isis against there own kind and Christians.
I didn't say sexual diseases would wipe out a nation, and I certainly didn't mention any nation other than the Israelites. I used sexual diseases because I figured it was something you might relate to, you weren't going to accept that God hated sexual sin. By the way there has never be a Palestinian nation, there has never been a people known as the Palestinians until modern times, they are mostly peoples of other Arab nations living in and around Jerusalem.
You're right I was assuming, haven't checked it out yet, will try when I'm not so busy. I disagree with your conclusion though. God wanted a righteous nation through which to bring His Son. There are other reasons God wanted His people to be righteous but let's leave that to another time, this thing is really getting long and I too have cut down on this conversation.
See, I disagree with you as far as Israel is concerned, I can see that with the nations around them, they were still on the desert journey they hadn't even established themselves yet. Wealth was land, animals and large farm plots, they had none of those, well some animals to move their belongs around but they wouldn't have had much to move per family. So, yes this was of God completely.
Only two of those verses came after Israel was established in it's land promised by God, so priest and especially kings had nothing to do with this. Like I said earlier the priest at times led the people astray and also some of the kings, they were not always looking after the best interest of the people within God's will. God never commanded murders, He set laws all Israelits were aware of, they had no excuses. These people had even seen God in the smoke during the day and fire at night, saw god destroy an entire army in the Red Sea. Feed them every day, bring water from a rock, they had all the evidence you say you would accept, yet they left God and chose other gods, so what makes you believe if God had given you or any of the people on this site this kind of evidence you would accept Him. They had their selfish reasons, why wouldn't you, from what I've read from your posts that's what you've done. Not condemning just noticing what's written. Humanity in the persons of Hitler and Stalin did what you're accusing God of, they were just men, God's the creator.
Please don't minimize my Biblical intelligence I understand that the verses you ignored and are still ignoring are very much part of the teachings, you want nothing more than to make an issue out of something greater than the small parts you pull out. As far as the people outside of the nation of Israel being slaves, God was still punishing these nations for a multitude of things, again something for another time. Ever think in God's foreknowledge He knew Israel would take slaves and thus He set rules for the way they would be treated.
No, I'm not insane and I meant what I said, women during that time had little to no options, the men of the time made sure of that, not God. If the father of the daughter could not afford to feed her then she would have been put out of the home, even though God told the Israelites they were to take care of their own. No man would have her so, prostitution would most likely be he only choice, something God didn't want either. So far God doesn't agree with nor like anything that's happened, rape, the woman being a burden, the woman kicked out and on the street and her having to resort to prostitution. So what's to happen with her, you got any idea, seems no one wants her. God made laws to help and protect, the man before raping her needed to decide if he wanted to be married to her or if it would be worth the money it would cost him, I'm sure this dissuaded many men. God also saw that the woman would be better off even with her rapist than on the streets as prostitute or something worse, slave in another nation or sexual slave in same nation, being raped over and over. Remember the man who raped her would have to take care of her for the rest of her life. Seems the better option and I would think if she didn't want to marry him she didn't have to, of coarse the burden would then be on her.
I did not ignore the laws. You say if she didn't yell out enough, that's not what the scripture says, it says cries out, in the cities of that time people were so close that someone would have heard if she cried out, "enough" has nothing to do with it. Also these are betrothed women the scriptures are speaking to, in those days in Israel that was the same as being married and the scriptures in Deut. 22:24 and the man because he violated his neighbors wife. You are the one who is not paying attention to the scriptures, your trying to apply different situations as if they were one and that's not what the scriptures you posted say.
The above bold is mine, you make this statement and seem not to understand what you've said, she's brutally attacked, why, to keep her quite --- overpower her rendering her unconscious, why, to keep her quite --- cover her mouth, why, to keep her quite. Do you really believe that the people of that time were so stupid they could not read the evidence and determine she wasn't able to cry out, get real, and yes they would care, why, because the women raped in the open country was not subject to death, if it were just Patriarchal they would have found a way to blame that woman too. By the way there was no Patriarchs during those days in Israel, they were all long dead. So yes these are God's laws used to do what I described. You are doing this to try and disprove the word of God as writings of men, I guess you have your reasons but, why is it that an intelligent person would twist the things scripture says to do so, you are ignoring how the scriptures apply in specifics, that's dishonest at the least, especially to your own self.
I said God did it through Israel, He promised them the land and He wanted it clean of the evil that would corrupt His people. For God this is a punishment brought on a people that were opposed to Him and His people.
Wives and servants.
The chosen people were obeying God... well not completely they did mess up as time went on. I was speaking of the nation of Israel being established as a land holding nation in the underlined above. The warring nation taking the land was to always give the people a chance to surrender, if they didn't then war was on. God wanted these Canaanite nations to fear Him and the power He used through Israel, He wanted them to respect what He was doing for all mankind.
I know what the song was about and I also know that man spoke those words not God, there are many instances of man speaking in the Bible and the atheist saying God said those things, well it's just wrong and not very intelligent of those who do so, if people want to argue against God's word they should at least learn what is said within it.
You're right God was using this as a punishment and He set this in motion to punish to not just the Israelites but many other nations, those who warred against Israel and led them astray, God wasn't going to be deterred from His plan to redeem mankind. All these people had dishonored God and what He was doing and He was tired of it all, so He brought on a remedy, if only short lived, man is stubborn and foolish we seem to never learn, do we.
Sorry for offending you, I guess that we always hope there's hope, for me I know that's the case. Why would I do so, because I know for a fact that God is real, that He sent Christ to redeem us and that the promised eternity is something grander than we can begin to imagine.
The way you phrased your statement it sounded like atheism taught you real love and if you believe that then as a Christian you had to hate, there's no other way. Also, if you were as happy as you say you were as a Christian then why did you or would you look outside of Christianity, why?
Here's another reason I say you must have had hatred as a Christian, you admit it in my bold above, you say you were one of us and then describe us in those words, that then by necessity include you. These are observations from your words not mine.
I guess I do on occasion tell atheist how they feel, like I said earlier it comes from hope and what they say. Gay's are only perverted when they practice physically what they feel, same goes for anyone using sex for what it was not intended for, that would be between a man and woman who are married. Most science I see as good even great, I like science, however when it comes to the Big Bang and follows through to evolution I am in great disagreement with this type of science. Men and women who have the education you do and do not use it to look into God's creation I can't understand, now I do not want this thread derail by science so this is enough said from me. Christians have the right in this country to push their agendas and beliefs, as much so as any special interest group. I do not want gay's to have the right to marry, it's against God and nature, I say this to show you Christians have the right to fight against what they do not believe is moral, what they believe is bad for this country, bad for society. This is life in a country that brags it's a free country with free speech, as long as Christian bashing is okay all bashing is okay, now I don't see it that way I believe that freedoms have to have some limits for a country to survive, and that should be decided by the people not the court, judges are becoming extremely biased on both sides of issues and so I say give the decision to the people, we are the government after all.
I've tried to trim down this conversation, I know it's still long, I think we have both made clear how we feel and we do not need to rehash things till they become completely boring. If there are things you feel you need or desire to say please do, thanks for the good conversation. Also pretty soon I'm going to be in my wood shop a lot, have a big project to do for mom for Christmas, this I do every year, this years is quite involved.
GC
Godschild
TRS Wrote:"From scripture" is something that the Christians with whom you would fiercely disagree also claim to base their theology upon. It's disingenuous of you to claim that you have the only solid understanding of the scriptures when I, after having this discussion with you, will be unlikely to go a week before having another discussion with a Christian who holds an entirely different POV on what "from scripture" means.
You may run into another Christian with some different interpretation of the scriptures, but unless it's a Mormon or Jehovah Witness I will have no fierce disagreement with them. My stand is with God and His revelations to me, could I be wrong on some issues because I didn't listen, yes, just like many others. Some use the Bible for selfish reasons, like the wealth and health preached by those who love money and self, not God. Actually there are plenty of new age Christian churches that look for selfish reasons in scriptures to circle their beliefs around, so I guess I would have to disagree with them also.
Like I said, I stand with the God I know through His revelations and His Word. You act as if I'm trying to defend the Bible, well if this is so you're wrong, I explain
what it says when people try and abuse the meanings within the scriptures.
TRS Wrote:As to our "sin nature", man did not create "the situation" alone. According to your story, God put the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil "in the midst" of the Garden, where it would be a certain temptation to mankind. Regardless of what Adam and Eve did, in any case, it is ridiculous to claim that there is justice for me to serve prison time for something my grandfather did. It is an infinite amount worse to say that I have a debt that can result in an infinite punishment for something my grandfathers's great great gr.........great grandfather did.
Sure man created it, man was the one who chose to disobey God, it was man who decided to separate himself from God, this brought to man the desire to look outside of God's will for their satisfaction. God put the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden so man would have a chose. Surely you're not telling me that being a robot for God would be your desire, that's exactly what would have been if He had not put that Tree in the Garden, I know it's not mine, I like living in a relationship with Him and being able to choose. I now desire to choose the right things instead of the wrong things though I do not always do, it's why I'm grateful for Christ.
Again scripture tells us we pay for our own sins, not those of others, so you're not going to pay for any but your own. So, you can forget what your Grandfather did, just be concerned about yourself at this point and time. Just trying to be honest here, not condemning.
(October 15, 2015 at 9:04 pm)Godschild Wrote:
TRS Wrote:Again with the "accept first" stuff. You're saying "become a believer, then you'll see if becoming a believer is a reasonable thing to do". That is the peak of insanity, in any other context. Why hide at all? My point was that the Salvation Plan you speak of is unavailable after death, when actual, unquestionable proof is finally available... prior to that, I must simply accept your word (and that of the writers of the Bible which you follow) that any of this is not like all the other cults on earth. It is especially the case, since I can see in your Holy Book a great many things that are absolutely contrary to logic, reason, and scientifically-verifiable fact.
I'm not asking you to accept stuff anymore than you teachers did about certain sciences that have no absolute proof, I says sciences because I do not want to derail this tread because of specific sciences, so let's leave it at that.
Now to the question why hide at all, if God were to reveal himself you would see Him as Moses did and have no choice but to believe. Is this what you want, no choice? Christianity is unlike any other religion, no other religion offers forgiveness without doing a thing other than accepting what Christ did for us. Of coarse God is contrary to man's logic, reason and scientific facts, He doesn't relay on man to know the truth, He has always been around to see things as they were and are.
TRS Wrote:I apologize for the condescending tone, but truly it is very hard for me to have a serious conversation with someone who doesn't understand evolution, since that is what I did professionally for the first decade of my adult life. You're trying to tell me that after all my work at understanding population genetics, cellular biochemistry and chemical genetics, zoology, physics, etc, that I should throw all that out the window...
I understand how evolution's suppose to work, I just do not accept that it's possible and it can't be proven to be possible because we haven't enough time to live to verify an animals complete change into another species, like T-Rex to a chicken. I'm not saying that you should give up or dismiss what you have learned from your education, I am saying you could use those things to look at the creation and learn what God has done. Many atheist scientist have decided to look at what God has done and many of these men and women are good scientist, they've chosen a different path in science to understand how things work.
(October 15, 2015 at 9:04 pm)Godschild Wrote:
TRS Wrote:I deliberately used the term to indicate the permanence of the condition "inherited" from Adam, and also to break out of the cycle of rhetoric you don't seem to realize you're using. New terminology to describe old concepts helps us both to look at the idea fresh. And many, many Christians do believe that our sin nature is a taint that was acquired from Adam, meaning that we are flawed from before our birth.
I agree that our "sin nature" is a permanence inherited from Adam and Eve, I've stated this before, it became a part of them and then it was passed down generation after generation until today and beyond. If you will, it became part of their DNA that no one has ever escaped, not even Jesus. He was born with out His heavenly or any powers and He lived a life free of sin, why, to prove it was possible and to be the perfect sinless sacrifice. We are therefore not tainted until we sin.
TRS Wrote:So God makes the problem (by having a will in the form of a set of behavior-commandments which can be defied, to our eternal detriment in the form of torturous hellfire), and then offers the solution, which you claim we are free to accept as a gift... only it's not free, since it's to our eternal torturous detriment not to do so. That's called a protection racket, in any other context.
How many times do you need to be told God didn't make the problem, man did through selfish disobedience. God's laws are His nature something He can't and wouldn't change. God said He was unchanging and He is, Christians have come to understand this because we see what God was doing in the OT and carried into the NT. God doesn't torture, no where in scripture will you find the word torture or anything that resembles torture,also, I do not believe in an eternal fire as punishment, what I do believe conforms to what the scriptures say. You do understand that your definitions such as "protection racket" and ect. are only your simple opinions that mean nothing as far as the reality of God and His Word.
TRS Wrote:Accepting Christ is the process of 'earning' this salvation of which you speak. I'm not claiming works. I'm claiming that the acceptance of the religious teachings of Paul and the Apostles (or whomever the writers of the Gospels actually were, since different Christian theologians and historians differ on this point; don't bother, I already know what you fundamentalists think about the authorship question) as to who Jesus of Nazareth was, and what I must do to "accept his 'free' gift of salvation", is the price. What you call "a desire to live a life according...", I call giving up my own free will. That is the price, and it is the most expensive thing that can be asked of anyone.
Accepting Jesus is not earning salvation, accepting Jesus is putting yourself in His hands to be forgiven and to learn about our God. Even if acceptance was a price it would be good because we get to learn about our God, something I believe is priceless and something no one could afford, so yes it's a free gift since it can't be bought.
As for your free will, the only freedom you have is choice of Christ or to stay in the condition you're in now. Outside that choice God can do with you as He desires, though by grace He does allow us to make choices everyday. You'll never know when God uses you unless you're a Christian and then as Christians God will use us and we want know it, but for me that's okay because I know it's a good work.
(October 15, 2015 at 9:04 pm)Godschild Wrote:
TRS Wrote:
TRS Wrote:What does Christ's blood pay for, according to your version of this story? My sins. Why do my sins matter? Because God will torture me (or allow me to be tortured, if you prefer) in the place that He created for those who don't receive atonement, if I don't confess that I am a sinner and accept the payment that was made in blood, the only source of blood that is considered good enough for this atonement-- the coin of the realm being the product of his own preconditions.
You answered your own question, but I believe you know you did, so why ask? Your sin matters because God wants you to live forever with Him and you can't as long as you carry your sin around, God loves you, that's why it matters. God neither tortures you nor allows you to be tortured, you make the decision yourself, you chose and make your own punishment and God gives you what you choose.
The only precondition is what we do, unless we can live a sinless life and not accept Christ we are bound for hell by our choice, in actuality we do not have to do anything, we'll go to hell. There is a reason Christ's blood was "good enough", as I stated earlier He lived a sinless life and He did it depending on the Father, His Father.
TRS Wrote:I "know" no such thing as having a debt to be paid. .... It is plain to me that I am a vertebrate mammal, a bipedal Great Ape, and that I live and die according to the same rules of physics/chemistry that operate on every other animal on this planet. So I hear your story and all I can see is the basic principles of a Mafia shakedown, and I've seen nothing in your reply that remotely suggests otherwise.
The reason I used the word debt is because you or Christ has to pay for your sin, if you accept His payment then you'll be free of the sin, if not then you'll have to pay yourself. Yes your body will die like all other animals, but it will be resurrected into eternal life, where you spend it will be what you chose in this life. No shakedown, your own free choice will be what either sets you free or binds you to the punishment you make for in your life. Don't get angry with me please, I'm stating what the Bible says, I think you know this is what the Bible says. Many here will believe I'm judging you, I'm not, I've tried to show that everyone who chooses not to accept Christ will be judged by God the Father and then will suffer the punishment they made for themselves in this life.
(October 15, 2015 at 9:04 pm)Godschild Wrote: I didn't say sin was more powerful than God, He will destroy sin forever once it runs it's coarse. Sin is chaos and has no rules, sin goes against who God is, talk about lies, you've thrown out several so far, an intelligent person shouldn't have to resort to such tactics. What child's play tells me, you have found or developed a hate for God to benefit your desires, you have fallen short of His will for your life and put your own self in jeopardy of eternal punishment.
TRS Wrote:I say that sin is more powerful than God, according to your story, because most of the Christians of your obviously-fundamentalist stripe say that sin is something that God hates so much he cannot bear to be in its presence, which is why we must be banished to hell if we remain without the blood atonement. I say that makes Him pathetic, according to your story, since it means he lacks the power to wash us all clean regardless of our behavior while on the planet, and wipe our sins from us by fiat rather than by blood magic.
That statement doesn't say anything about how sin is more powerful than God, God the Father refuses to be in the presence of sin because of His Holiness and Righteousness. There is no blood magic, it was a purposeful plan to redeem us from ourselves. By the way it's not my story, from Genesis to Revelations the entire story is about Christ and us.
(October 15, 2015 at 9:04 pm)Godschild Wrote:
TRS Wrote:So, rather than seeing this as being instructions by God to destroy people of "wrong" faiths, you see it as (what was the term?) corruption prevention? It's genocide in the name of ideological purity. It's religious intolerance on a scale unimaginable in the modern age, but totally normal in the Bronze Age. It's Bronze Age tribalism written down by priests as being justified commands of God.
Why would God want to completely wipe out the nation He formed to bring His Messiah into the world, He would have had to start all over, so genocide has no place in this discussion. God punished His people to bring them back to Him, they were a people with a purpose in His plan and He wanted them to be a holy people. Many of those priest you speak of were guilty of worshiping others gods and leading God's people astray.
You must have forgotten Hitler and Stalin and now Isis against there own kind and Christians.
TRS Wrote:As for the "dangerous on many levels"... really? Is that why there are no Palestinians, Egyptians, Syrians, etc., today? Because they all got wiped out by perversions and sexual diseases?
Also... what sexual diseases? Are you familiar with a dangerous Bronze Age STD heretofore unknown to science and history?
I didn't say sexual diseases would wipe out a nation, and I certainly didn't mention any nation other than the Israelites. I used sexual diseases because I figured it was something you might relate to, you weren't going to accept that God hated sexual sin. By the way there has never be a Palestinian nation, there has never been a people known as the Palestinians until modern times, they are mostly peoples of other Arab nations living in and around Jerusalem.
(October 15, 2015 at 9:04 pm)Godschild Wrote:
TRS Wrote:They didn't have modern STDs of that sort. Look it up. Let's deal in facts, not speculation. Most likely the prohibitions against "sexual immorality" had more to do with establishing Patriarchal rule, maintaining wealth in family lineages, and breeding lots of warriors and sheepherders.
You're right I was assuming, haven't checked it out yet, will try when I'm not so busy. I disagree with your conclusion though. God wanted a righteous nation through which to bring His Son. There are other reasons God wanted His people to be righteous but let's leave that to another time, this thing is really getting long and I too have cut down on this conversation.
(October 15, 2015 at 9:04 pm)Godschild Wrote:
TRS Wrote:See, now we're talking truth. Except it wasn't God who had the issue, here, it was the men who had control of the women in their society, and who placed great value on "the family name" (and of course, the wealth that went along with it). It's no surprise to me to find these verses in there about sexual and other behavioral control of the population. That you attribute the "Creator of the Universe and Its Hundreds of Billions of Galaxies Each with Hundreds of Billions of Stars" as having the same concerns over where we put our penises/vaginas that the men who ran those desert tribes would have... let's just call it "curious coincidence", from my point of view. To put it as nicely as I can.
See, I disagree with you as far as Israel is concerned, I can see that with the nations around them, they were still on the desert journey they hadn't even established themselves yet. Wealth was land, animals and large farm plots, they had none of those, well some animals to move their belongs around but they wouldn't have had much to move per family. So, yes this was of God completely.
(October 15, 2015 at 9:04 pm)Godschild Wrote:To answer your concern, God wanted His people to be holy as He is holy and keep His commandments to show the world who He is and to have a good nation to bring His Son into the world, this is a day intended for God and His people to have fellowship in a more personal way.[/hide]
TRS Wrote: It's amazing to me that you think any of that is justification for jack shit. I am an American, one who values deeply our nation's commitment to religious pluralism, the notion that government shall not establish one religion over another. Regardless of the reasons why "God" (as you put it) and "priests and kings of the Hebrews" (as I would put it) wanted them to be "ideologically pure", it defies everything I consider moral and decent, and looks entirely like religious tribalism and barbarity. Justifying it in the name of a "coming soon Messiah" is just silly. You're telling me that God had to command the murder of how many hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people, just so conditions could be right in one tiny patch of earth in one particular year for him to send down the Salvation Sacrifice Plan?
REALLY!?!
Only two of those verses came after Israel was established in it's land promised by God, so priest and especially kings had nothing to do with this. Like I said earlier the priest at times led the people astray and also some of the kings, they were not always looking after the best interest of the people within God's will. God never commanded murders, He set laws all Israelits were aware of, they had no excuses. These people had even seen God in the smoke during the day and fire at night, saw god destroy an entire army in the Red Sea. Feed them every day, bring water from a rock, they had all the evidence you say you would accept, yet they left God and chose other gods, so what makes you believe if God had given you or any of the people on this site this kind of evidence you would accept Him. They had their selfish reasons, why wouldn't you, from what I've read from your posts that's what you've done. Not condemning just noticing what's written. Humanity in the persons of Hitler and Stalin did what you're accusing God of, they were just men, God's the creator.
(October 15, 2015 at 9:04 pm)Godschild Wrote:
TRS Wrote:I didn't "pick them out of the middle", I mentioned only the ones that are relevant. The version prior to 25:44-46 are about Israelite "indentured servitude", and the verses 44-46 are about "inheritable, permanent-property racial-based slavery", as I said. Trying to deflect onto the prior verses about what the system was for fellow Hebrews is deceitful.
The same is true for verses endorsing just how hard you can beat your slaves. Just because there were limits and regulations doesn't make it okay! God could just has easily have called slavery a forbidden abomination, not "regulated" it. Again, we see here the hand of man, not the words of a God.
Please don't minimize my Biblical intelligence I understand that the verses you ignored and are still ignoring are very much part of the teachings, you want nothing more than to make an issue out of something greater than the small parts you pull out. As far as the people outside of the nation of Israel being slaves, God was still punishing these nations for a multitude of things, again something for another time. Ever think in God's foreknowledge He knew Israel would take slaves and thus He set rules for the way they would be treated.
(October 15, 2015 at 9:04 pm)Godschild Wrote:
TRS Wrote:Um... really? A "burden to her family", who is better off with her rapist? Are you insane?
I agree with your assessment of why that verse says what it says... but wow, you speak of it as if it's okay.
No, I'm not insane and I meant what I said, women during that time had little to no options, the men of the time made sure of that, not God. If the father of the daughter could not afford to feed her then she would have been put out of the home, even though God told the Israelites they were to take care of their own. No man would have her so, prostitution would most likely be he only choice, something God didn't want either. So far God doesn't agree with nor like anything that's happened, rape, the woman being a burden, the woman kicked out and on the street and her having to resort to prostitution. So what's to happen with her, you got any idea, seems no one wants her. God made laws to help and protect, the man before raping her needed to decide if he wanted to be married to her or if it would be worth the money it would cost him, I'm sure this dissuaded many men. God also saw that the woman would be better off even with her rapist than on the streets as prostitute or something worse, slave in another nation or sexual slave in same nation, being raped over and over. Remember the man who raped her would have to take care of her for the rest of her life. Seems the better option and I would think if she didn't want to marry him she didn't have to, of coarse the burden would then be on her.
TRS Wrote:You also ignore the other laws-of-rape, which say things like if she doesn't cry out "enough", then she's to be murdered too because it's assumed that she was complicit in fornication, not rape... except we know that women who are brutally attacked are often paralyzed by fear, overpowered and rendered unconscious, or have their mouths covered so they cannot cry out. These are the kinds of things a God would know, but which ignorant and woman-devaluing Patriarchal male societies would not take into consideration, even if they did know it. Not the work of a God. The work of men.
I did not ignore the laws. You say if she didn't yell out enough, that's not what the scripture says, it says cries out, in the cities of that time people were so close that someone would have heard if she cried out, "enough" has nothing to do with it. Also these are betrothed women the scriptures are speaking to, in those days in Israel that was the same as being married and the scriptures in Deut. 22:24 and the man because he violated his neighbors wife. You are the one who is not paying attention to the scriptures, your trying to apply different situations as if they were one and that's not what the scriptures you posted say.
The above bold is mine, you make this statement and seem not to understand what you've said, she's brutally attacked, why, to keep her quite --- overpower her rendering her unconscious, why, to keep her quite --- cover her mouth, why, to keep her quite. Do you really believe that the people of that time were so stupid they could not read the evidence and determine she wasn't able to cry out, get real, and yes they would care, why, because the women raped in the open country was not subject to death, if it were just Patriarchal they would have found a way to blame that woman too. By the way there was no Patriarchs during those days in Israel, they were all long dead. So yes these are God's laws used to do what I described. You are doing this to try and disprove the word of God as writings of men, I guess you have your reasons but, why is it that an intelligent person would twist the things scripture says to do so, you are ignoring how the scriptures apply in specifics, that's dishonest at the least, especially to your own self.
(October 15, 2015 at 9:04 pm)Godschild Wrote:
TRS Wrote:Holy shit, dude, did you just say "cleaning out the land"? You know there's a word for that: ethnic cleansing. Genocide. It's NOT OKAY. EVER. Why in the fuck would you think I think it's okay when others did it to Israel?!?
I said God did it through Israel, He promised them the land and He wanted it clean of the evil that would corrupt His people. For God this is a punishment brought on a people that were opposed to Him and His people.
TRS Wrote:What's the point in keeping "virgins who have not known a man" if not for sexual conquest? Indeed, there are several verses which deal specifically with the men of Israel going to capture women to "make brides of them", which in no way implies a choice or consent on the part of the women!
Wives and servants.
(October 15, 2015 at 9:04 pm)Godschild Wrote:
TRS Wrote:"This is a standard of wars in those days" does not mean it's something The Chosen People had to indulge. You spend all that time, above, talking about how they were special, had to behave differently than their neighbors, etc... but when it comes to justifying the most brutal, execrable crimes known to man, you say "well that's just how it was back then!"
The chosen people were obeying God... well not completely they did mess up as time went on. I was speaking of the nation of Israel being established as a land holding nation in the underlined above. The warring nation taking the land was to always give the people a chance to surrender, if they didn't then war was on. God wanted these Canaanite nations to fear Him and the power He used through Israel, He wanted them to respect what He was doing for all mankind.
\TRS Wrote:The "Song of Deborah", a Judge (leader) of Israel, celebrates (in song!) a historical telling of the brutal things done to those who opposed the God-led (via the Judges) tribes of Israel, in the time before the coming of Samuel who finally granted their request for a king, instead of God's Judges. You should know the Bible better than that, instead of accusing me with such narrow straws to grasp at.
I know what the song was about and I also know that man spoke those words not God, there are many instances of man speaking in the Bible and the atheist saying God said those things, well it's just wrong and not very intelligent of those who do so, if people want to argue against God's word they should at least learn what is said within it.
TRS Wrote:I quoted Zechariah because it is a prophecy that specifically spells out what God will allow to happen to them, "in the sight of" the men of the nation, as a penalty for continued disobedience to God. Whether or not it's a direct command of God is somewhat irrelevant, at that point, don't you think?
You're right God was using this as a punishment and He set this in motion to punish to not just the Israelites but many other nations, those who warred against Israel and led them astray, God wasn't going to be deterred from His plan to redeem mankind. All these people had dishonored God and what He was doing and He was tired of it all, so He brought on a remedy, if only short lived, man is stubborn and foolish we seem to never learn, do we.
TRS Wrote:Dead wrong. I thought I loved others, as a Christian, just like you do. I didn't realize the amount of hurt that our views caused in others, because I was so myopic about the culture in which my faith-tradition sprang up, and what it did to those who were not a part of that in-group. It is only in looking back that I am amazed at how I used to sound, when I talked the way you talk now. You have no idea how much damage you do, in the name of what you call love. It is because I know it is unintentional on your part (and that of others like you) that I still bother to take the time to engage you on these subjects, even as you look me straight in the face (so to speak) and tell me that the reason I talk about God with you is because I still (secretly, actually, because I talk about it but don't realize it's why) believe in your fairytale stories. You yourself said it several times, above, not realizing how condescending and ignorant such statements are. You won't listen to me now, I know, but in the name of fairness I have to keep telling you. All of you.
Sorry for offending you, I guess that we always hope there's hope, for me I know that's the case. Why would I do so, because I know for a fact that God is real, that He sent Christ to redeem us and that the promised eternity is something grander than we can begin to imagine.
The way you phrased your statement it sounded like atheism taught you real love and if you believe that then as a Christian you had to hate, there's no other way. Also, if you were as happy as you say you were as a Christian then why did you or would you look outside of Christianity, why?
TRS Wrote:And yet, the things I hear spewed out of their mouths, in defiance of almost everything I have learned since taking off the blinders I didn't even know I was wearing, back when I was one of you, are pure hatred disguised as love.
Here's another reason I say you must have had hatred as a Christian, you admit it in my bold above, you say you were one of us and then describe us in those words, that then by necessity include you. These are observations from your words not mine.
TRS Wrote:Telling atheists what we "really" think; telling gays they're "perversions" and sick and sinful; telling scientists that looking at the universe for ourselves is "prideful" and "man's knowledge". Trying to push their faith into the lives, societies, and governments of those who don't want it there. Endlessly.
I guess I do on occasion tell atheist how they feel, like I said earlier it comes from hope and what they say. Gay's are only perverted when they practice physically what they feel, same goes for anyone using sex for what it was not intended for, that would be between a man and woman who are married. Most science I see as good even great, I like science, however when it comes to the Big Bang and follows through to evolution I am in great disagreement with this type of science. Men and women who have the education you do and do not use it to look into God's creation I can't understand, now I do not want this thread derail by science so this is enough said from me. Christians have the right in this country to push their agendas and beliefs, as much so as any special interest group. I do not want gay's to have the right to marry, it's against God and nature, I say this to show you Christians have the right to fight against what they do not believe is moral, what they believe is bad for this country, bad for society. This is life in a country that brags it's a free country with free speech, as long as Christian bashing is okay all bashing is okay, now I don't see it that way I believe that freedoms have to have some limits for a country to survive, and that should be decided by the people not the court, judges are becoming extremely biased on both sides of issues and so I say give the decision to the people, we are the government after all.
I've tried to trim down this conversation, I know it's still long, I think we have both made clear how we feel and we do not need to rehash things till they become completely boring. If there are things you feel you need or desire to say please do, thanks for the good conversation. Also pretty soon I'm going to be in my wood shop a lot, have a big project to do for mom for Christmas, this I do every year, this years is quite involved.
GC
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.