What is "FAITH"

[Bad Writer]

The good in the world is executed by our own conscious decisions. The opportunity or the availability of us to do these things is much 'by chance' or beyond forces we can't usually control. How did you come across that ONE homeless person at the time of day he was out when there are a number of them in the city who beg at different times in different places?

I happened upon him by random chance, as you suggested. I think that's believable in and of itself, and it doesn't need to be qualified by saying "God made it so", which would kind of take away free will, another staple of Christian teachings. You're not saying that though, so I'm not really sure where your point is leading to.

The slaughters of the Old Testament were mostly acts of war, which were frequent between tribes at the time. So if a nation attacks a band of slaves in the middle of the desert, you can expect that they plan to wipe them out. The Israelites instead returned the favor, as law around the world in the OT dictated. The Amelekites would have expected it from any people that they had attempted to exterminate. Notice how Israel, when, as a nation with a population much harder to exterminate to their enemies, only went to war with the soldiers, because Israelite opponents had only the intention of political conquest and not racial genocide.

In my world, this is called cherry picking. You take one aspect of the story, call it good, and you...eh...kinda sorta leave the rest of the ickyness to the side of it all. I know the Bible isn't perfect, and neither were God's people in it, but the fact remains that god told them to initiate those genocides and mass murders, wiping out the previous inhabitants from those lands, and even taking the women unto themselves as they saw fit (and it was also commanded that they do so.) This wasn't just any prophet telling them to do it either. We're talking about Moses and his successors.

The problem I have with this is not the validity of the stories themselves. Rather, the big issue is that the religions out there are not owning up to the fact that maybe Moses wasn't a very good guy. The Catholic Church has gone and has spoken openly about its indiscretions in the past, as well as the Mormon Church, whose members confessed to the Mountains Meadow Massacre that happened during its early days. These were people supposedly acting in the name of God. Trying to sugar-coat the acts of Moses and his people is like saying Hitler had a point to his proceedings.

This law was the imperfect or incomplete law that existed on earth because of Adam's sin. When the time was right, Christ instituted God's law of mercy in fulness through the ultimate example of himself. We live by this law today, which is why there were Chrisitan martyrs. Also, even if we DID live under OT law, Christians are so many that any attack on us would most likely not be intended to kill all of us, and the retaliation prescreibed in the OT would come short of international genocide.

Wait...! Hold on a second. You believe that? But your book preaches something else...let's see...

Matthew 5:18 - For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

Dude! Jesus SAID that! You cannot unwrite the law that was written in the OT. The only thing Jesus supposedly fulfilled in the Christian worldview was that no one needed blood sacrifice again because of his death on the cross. All other laws remained! I mean...are you going to throw out the Ten Commandments just because there's a New Testament now? Please...why even keep the OT on hand if you aren't going to abide by it?

All sarcasm aside now...ahem. How does Jesus' death make it so there are Christian martyrs? If Jesus had lived, but people died in his name, there still would have been martyrs...so...I guess I don't get your point.

And as for that last point. Yes. You are right. It's also a very scary thought. I think you have a little disclaimer to that somewhere...here...oh yes, here it is, just below what you wrote.

Let me also say that God's law is fully consistent with the Bible. What we should and should not do are not conditional until told otherwise. There have been plenty of so-called 'prophets', and they have little influence on the Christian community as a whole. We do not work under God's direct commands, but follow the morals of what is compiled in the Bible to do what we think is right and continue doing it that way.

Oh, so it's wolves in sheep's clothing sort of thing.

Yeah...um...dude...my example didn't include that. I said something along the lines of if there were a prophet of god among men today. This means that this particular prophet definitely speaks for god, and everything he says in god's name is righteous in god's eyes. But that was just an example because we both know that a man speaking for a god is silly...right? Right?

Okay, I got silly again. I'm guessing you don't subscribe to the notion that God speaks to men today, but that he did in times past, which is why we have the Bible. So my new question to you is: why? Why can't he speak through men now, if that was his preferred method of informing the masses back then? (Chances are your answer might be completely opinion based, so arguing with you on it won't be very effective...I just want to know what you think.)