(December 23, 2009 at 4:26 pm)chatpilot Wrote:
I had forgotten all about this thread. Thanks corbeezejd!
1. I think I have a great grasp of the knowledge present in the Bible. Let's examine the creation story then, since we're using that as an example of God punishing Man. Was man punished or exiled? Exiled where, to the world outside of the garden of evil? What did "Eden" have that other things didn't? Well we'll skip the physical things and it was also a seperation from God's presence.
2. Let's extrapolate the timeline a little from there as a theory. Kicked out of paradise to fend for our own for years with this "original sin" humans struggled and built societies, cities, idols, monuments. Lived by the "laws of the land" and instinctually until the ideas of justice formed. Then laws and other societal structures formed.. all based off that original sin. Now after years living apart from God we've built societies, religion, justice and science and it's full of destrution and territorial wars, humanistic materialism, ignorance and hate. God sends warnings like floods, visions, miracles but none will work so he sends his son. People record the old signs (OT) and try to divine reasons and prophesy. The humans are quite happy with what they've built and reject this man claiming to be God and crucify him, seperating themselves from God again. But Christ's sacrifice at least forgave us from our sins at that point and taught us how to get back into communication with God. A religion formed around this Christ and books were written about his teachings (NT). FF to today.
3. In the OT (like Isiah) we contributed lots of things to God which today science helps explain better. Some things are interpreted by men, which put aspects of humanity and gender into it. Some things are so fantastical that they're not believable by most counts (They could be metaphors but we'll never know). Today we're still seperated from God and I propose this Earth is outside of God's love and his Eden. We can work to make it better, but I see no utopia or faith in all of mankind. Earth, today, is a mostly-man-made construct of rules, science, war, hate, society, justice based of human intellect, perception and action. You may have at one point seen something in your life as punishment from God. I'm not saying that God doesn't allow punishment come to you. I don't see any of teh sad and terrible thigns mentioned on the news or on this site as attributable to God, merely effects of Mankind. God's lasting punishment is to let us fend for ourselves till we find our way back to him.