the bible confuses me.....

denballs

first id like tosay that i am not trying to offend anyone or mock anyones faith but have serious questions and want answers.

1...........if adam and eve were the only people alive at one point...did everyone else come from incest between their children.....?

2.......how is it that god has no beginning or no end........where did god originate or is god some wsort of symbol for existance.........?

3....it seems that if you are bad........like if you kill people you do not go to heaven but instead go to hell............but is,nt god refusing allowing somone into heavan and therby dooming them to eternal ultimate suffering the worst and most callous act possible......isnt it even worse than killing isnt it evil...........and does that make god evil?

a thank you in advance to any replients

Soul Winner

denballs wrote: »

1...........if adam and eve were the only people alive at one point...did everyone else come from incest between their children.....?

Was there another way? :rolleyes:

denballs wrote: »

2.......how is it that god has no beginning or no end........where did god originate or is god some wsort of symbol for existance.........?

If we define God as the creator of all things and if our universe is not eternal i.e. it has a beginning at a finite time in the past where time itself comes into being. Then God being the creator of this universe must be a timeless Being, i.e. Eternal.

denballs wrote: »

3....it seems that if you are bad........like if you kill people you do not go to heaven but instead go to hell............but is,nt god refusing allowing somone into heavan and therby dooming them to eternal ultimate suffering the worst and most callous act possible......isnt it even worse than killing isnt it evil...........and does that make god evil?

Try and see it like this. God wants everyone to be saved from their sins but in order for them to be saved from their sins they must first acknowledge their sins and after acknowledging their sins they must repent of (turn from) their sins and ask God to forgive them and trust Him to control their lives from that point on. Those who continue to do this are guaranteed salvation and those who don't are guaranteed death. To act on the promise of salvation is to be saved. To not act on the promise of salvation is to act on the promise of death. God prepared the lake of fire for Satan and his angels not for man, but mankind is in a real big hurry to get there for some insane reason.

Hope this helps.

denballs

thank you sw i have another ?

why the big secrecy act........why cant god just pop down into the world cup final to say hello world im still here waitin........

also why test us with 80 years when god demands complete faith...werres gods faith in us

MrVestek

For some reason the phrase "They see me trollin'... they hatin" comes to mind.



In all seriousness though I'm not a Christian but religious texts (including the Bible) are there for your interperatation. You are to take the stories in the Bible as a guidline and figure out what aspects of the faith work for you.

If the religion you want to take part in (Christianity in this sense) warns you to follow your god's way and only your god's way then this is what must be done.

There are many reasons others will give you as to why 'god' hasn't made himself known to the public... he could be outside of our realm of understanding just that which he is... or he could simply not exist.

Whatever you choose to believe is up to you. Try not to worry too much about it and just try to enjoy what being a part of your religion does for you :-)

philologos

If Adam and Eve were the only two people alive, why after Cain killng his brother Abel, does he fear others killing him?

Genesis 4:13-14 wrote:

Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”

Reading through some commentaries, some interpret it to involve a wish. I.E - I may as well be dead. Others regard it as potentially referring to a wider family, and yet again, others refer to it being people other than Adam and Eve.

On the incest front, I think this offers an interesting explanation:

Difficulties in the Bible wrote:

Cain doubtless had his wife before going to the land of Nod and took her there with him.
But who was she, and where did he get her?
In Genesis 5:3–4 we learn that Adam in his long life of 930 years begat many sons and daughters. There can be but little doubt that Cain married one of those numerous daughters.
But someone will say, “In that case Cain married his own sister!”
Yes, that was a necessity. If the whole Adamic race was to descend from a single pair, the sons and daughters must intermarry. But as the race increased, it remained no longer necessary for men to marry their own sisters, and the practice, if continued, would result in great mischief to the race. Indeed, even the intermarriage of cousins in the present day can bring frightful consequences. There are parts of the globe where the inhabitants have been largely shut out from intercourse with other people and intermarriage of cousins has been frequent, and the physical and mental results have been very bad.
....
But as the race multiplied and such intermarriages became unnecessary, and as they were accompanied with great dangers, God by special commandment forbade the marriage of brother and sister, and such marriage would now be sin because of the commandment of God; but it was not sin in the dawn of the race when the only male and female inhabitants of the earth were brothers and sisters. Such marriage today would be a crime, the crime of incest, but we cannot reasonably carry back the conditions of today into the time of the dawn of human history and judge actions performed then by the conditions and laws existing today.

Achilles wrote:

Whatever you choose to believe is up to you. Try not to worry too much about it and just try to enjoy what being a part of your religion does for you :-)

Although very kind, I'm not sure if this is the best advice. People should be trying to understand things, and now that the OP has come here with a question, it is only right that some of us help him along with it.

prinz

denballs wrote: »

first id like tosay that i am not trying to offend anyone or mock anyones faith but have serious questions and want answers.
1...........if adam and eve were the only people alive at one point...did everyone else come from incest between their children.....?

They weren't. IMO anyway. On the 'fifth day'...

Genesis 1
26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

I would say there were people... and then there was our Adam and Eve. Some have claimed that Adam and Eve represent God's chosen people out of all who were living. Others have said the Adam and Eve represent the first farmers etc as opposed to hunter gatherers, i.e. the beginning of civilisation.

denballs wrote: »

2.......how is it that god has no beginning or no end........where did god originate or is god some wsort of symbol for existance.........?

God doesn't need to originate.

denballs wrote: »

3....it seems that if you are bad........like if you kill people you do not go to heaven but instead go to hell............but is,nt god refusing allowing somone into heavan and therby dooming them to eternal ultimate suffering the worst and most callous act possible......isnt it even worse than killing isnt it evil...........and does that make god evil?

God doesn't refuse people... people choose to refuse God.

denballs

THANKS FOR THE REPLIES............so is it ok to kill somone in self defence and not be sorry about it azs you blame the other person?

Fanny Cradock

Wow!

Anyway, I can't imagine many people would kill somebody in self-defence and not feel some remorse or regret.

denballs

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Wow!

Anyway, I can't imagine many people would kill somebody in self-defence and not feel some remorse or regret.

if somone came at me with a knife and they died as a result of their actions then i would not be responsible............its like in the grapes of wrath when tom joad has killed somone with a shovel in self defence after they stabbed him..........he feels no remorse......

Fanny Cradock

denballs wrote: »

if somone came at me with a knife and they died as a result of their actions then i would not be responsible............its like in the grapes of wrath when tom joad has killed somone with a shovel in self defence after they stabbed him..........he feels no remorse......

That's a work of fiction.

I'm discussing two emotional states that are inexorably linked - regret and remorse. If somebody came at you with a knife and they ended up dead I would think that most people, even if they justified it as self-defence, would regret that events transpired as such. Perhaps if the attacker had decided to stay at home that day none of this would have happened. Perhaps if you missed the bus or lingered a little longer at the shop you wouldn't have been attacked. This can be seen as distinct from remorse that your hand was forced and that somebody died.

I have no idea how God would look upon their actions. But I would think the rather amoral of somebody to not to feel either regret or remorse.

denballs

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

That's a work of fiction.

I'm discussing two emotional states that are inexorably linked - regret and remorse. If somebody came at you with a knife and they ended up dead I would think that most people, even if they justified it as self-defence, would regret that events transpired as such. Perhaps if the attacker had decided to stay at home that day none of this would have happened. Perhaps if you missed the bus or lingered a little longer at the shop you wouldn't have been attacked. This can be seen as distinct from remorse that your hand was forced and that somebody died.

I have no idea how God would look upon their actions. But I would think the rather amoral of somebody to not to feel either regret or remorse.

ah sorry i misunderstood you the first time