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Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Please Read OP)
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Riki, I told you before you are taking quotes from the Bible way out of context.
Other posters on here are also telling you the same thing, you are taking quotations way out of context.
Previously you stated that you have spent over 10 years studying the Bible, yet you had no understanding of the symbology used to represent the state of Israel.
I would advise you to desist from studying the Bible, because you are only tieing yourself up in knots, adding confusion upon confusion.
You are akin to a person driving a truck, with no understanding of how to drive or the rules of the road. The more you persist the longer the trail of destruction in your rear view mirror.
While you a able to produce various quotations, you have zero understanding of them. It is akin to somebody speaking German, but they don't know what the words actually mean. When they do come across a word like unterseeboot, they express outrage at how ridiculous that a ship should be underwater, sure everybody knows ships are supposed to float.
There is an old saying...."A little knowledge is dangerous", and that certainly applies to yourself WRT understanding the Bible.
Nope, I will continue studying it. As for my most recent reply, think about it. The guy there was basically saying my quote was not an advocacy for genocide, but rather some guy writing about how Israeli women should not marry into other races i.e. racism. I was pointing out how stupid it is for someone to reply back to me saying "No, the quote you gave isn't about evil thing A, it's actually evil thing B instead!" as if that would endear him to me.
P.S. your analogy doesn't work. Physical destruction is not the same as this discussion, which does get heated.0 -
antiskeptic wrote: »Killing as punishment because punishment follows wrongdoing.
Thankfully, you have no say in the punishments for crime in this country
Of course you're not sure. "Wrong" has a unique distorted place in your brain.antiskeptic wrote: »I'm not sure what's wrong with either of those.
Your idea of God, has a different scale to every civilised society. Fortunately, this God doesn't exist, except in the heads of religious zealots.antiskeptic wrote: »Your finding the scale disproportionate, the punishment exceeding the crime ... revolves around your idea of proportionality. You could grant God would have a different scale than you.
nobody's rights should be restricted because some extreme people believe in an imaginary, violent, vengeful, God.antiskeptic wrote: »As ever I invite you to tell me from whence any sense you have rights to anything other than those God would grant you.
We have ranted about outrageous comments supporting infanticide, by someone who doesn't recognise that killing young children is infanticide.antiskeptic wrote: »haven't been rational in this post of yours. You've simply ranted - like so many others today when faced with the insurmountable idea of God as Sovereign.0 -
RikuoAmero wrote: ».. but rather some guy writing about how Israeli women should not marry into other races i.e. racism.
Or separatism. Israel was set apart for a specific purpose of God - indeed, I think I outlined that to yourself not long ago. It's not unusual for people to be set or set themselves apart for a purpose such as to preclude them taking part in certain activities detrimental to that purpose. Would you call an athlete refraining from sex the night before a big race, frigid?
Intermarrying would have been detrimental to the aim of maintaining the Israelites as a separated, chosen people (since it would be diluted with unchosen people, much as any culture is diluted as a consequence of inward migration by foreigners.). People chosen, groomed and prepared for, amongst other things, the birthing the Messiah.
But you understand nothing of that even though it's a drumbeat theme. And apply the blunt instrument of racism.
Get a grip RA, I mean, really.0 -
antiskeptic wrote: »Or separatism. Israel was set apart for a specific purpose of God - indeed, I think I outlined that to yourself not long ago. It's not unusual for people to be set or set themselves apart for a purpose such as to preclude them taking part in certain activities detrimental to that purpose. Would you call an athlete refraining from sex the night before a big race, frigid?
Intermarrying would have been detrimental to the aim of maintaining the Israelites as a separated, chosen people (since it would be diluted with unchosen people, much as any culture is diluted as a consequence of inward migration by foreigners.). People chosen, groomed and prepared for, amongst other things, the birthing the Messiah.
But you understand nothing of that even though it's a drumbeat theme. And apply the blunt instrument of racism.
Get a grip RA, I mean, really.
TL:DR Racism0 -
antiskeptic wrote: »...or not
I appreciate there are Christian views which, although right in a narrow sense, have it wrong in another, overall sense. Let me explain.
Most Christian viewpoints hold that unless you believe Jesus is your Lord and Saviour then you will be lost. Yet Abraham, who no Christian would hold to be other than saved, didn't believe Jesus was his Lord and Saviour. Jesus hadn't yet walked the Earth.
Clearly there's a subtlety to things that a bald "must accept Jesus" doesn't quite capture.
My own view (based on the fact that many Old Testament figures are, what we now called, saved) isn't that one need be a Christian - in the sense of an outward conscious acceptance of and understanding of Christian teaching on the subject of salvation. I mean, what about the sheep herder up the side of a mountain in Tibet ca. 250AD who never heard of Jesus Christ so as to "accept him into his heart" (another common-today way of phrasing the requirement for salvation)
The mechanism of salvation must (from my previous deduction regarding it's be equally available to all men at all times) somehow account for all these various categories of people and so can't be as specific as the (even mainstream) Christian denominations make it out to be.
My view is that folk are posed with, and answer, God on the issue of their position w.r.t. his query of them each and every day. In the course of their normal lives and faced with the everyday challenges and temptations and crises that affect all, everywhere. They don't have to believe he exists in order to be asked by him or in order to answer him. Yes, Richard Dawkins is speaking to God today, and everyday.
And at some point, when the threshold for giving one's answer has been passed, the person is either saved or damned. I don't suppose this threshold to necessarily extend up to the point of a persons death. Them being saved won't necessarily result in them believing in Jesus Christ in the classic way demanded of by many Christian denominations. I mean, what about someone in a remote tribe ca. 500AD who had no access to Christian teaching?
There is biblical support for this view, especially since it is described how some sheep (a description of the saved) act in surprise and the point of separation of sheep and goats (a description of the lost) in finding out that they in fact belong to God's flock. The mechanism of salvation sifted them out without their even knowing it in fully conscious fashion.
And so. God see's the heart and the heart gives it's answer in a currency freed from the ties of Religion, country of birth, era of living, education, intelligence. Free of all that isn't relevant, in fact.
Do you desire what I stand for or what I don't stand for? That's the question. It's the heart (or core of a person) that answers. Not the vehicle we travel around in.
A useful reply. I sense in your reply a different attitude to God and perhaps a different view of God from what I would call the mainstream Christian image of God.
I think that religion, certainly Christianity, is one, maybe the only one, area of our lives where adults are given the same story as children.
I suspect that the central, maybe core, part of this thread should be about our perception of God.
Maybe that's obvious - but my point is that the classic view of God - the one I think most people have - is incompatible with some of the issues raised in this thread.0 -
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RikuoAmero wrote: »TL:DR Racism
If you want to shoehorn 21st Century concepts into the past, then sectarianism maybe - but not racism.
In the Old Testament there are plenty of instances of people from other nations converting to Judaism and thereby becoming part of the nation of Israel. Heck, that's what the entire book of Ruth is about - how a Moabite asylum seeker ended up being an ancestor of King David (and of the Messiah - who we know as Jesus).
No, the division between Jew and Gentile was a religious one, not a racial one. The Israelites were forbidden to take 'foreign' wives because those wives would introduce them to 'foreign gods.'
The same goes with the Syrophoenician woman that received a miracle for her daughter from Jesus in the New Testament. It wasn't that she was racially different - Jesus worked miracles for believers in the Jewish God who were from other races. She was a Gentile - and therefore religiously different.
If you read the New Testament to understand it, rather than searching for quotes you can rip out as weapons, then you will see that the plan was for the Gospel to be declared among the Jews first, then, after the death and resurrection of Jesus, to the Gentiles also. This strategy was for theological, not racial reasons.
The Syrophoenician woman, by her great faith, jumped the queue and received a miracle 'out of time'.0 -
If you want to shoehorn 21st Century concepts into the past, then sectarianism maybe - but not racism.
In the Old Testament there are plenty of instances of people from other nations converting to Judaism and thereby becoming part of the nation of Israel. Heck, that's what the entire book of Ruth is about - how a Moabite asylum seeker ended up being an ancestor of King David (and of the Messiah - who we know as Jesus).
No, the division between Jew and Gentile was a religious one, not a racial one. The Israelites were forbidden to take 'foreign' wives because those wives would introduce them to 'foreign gods.'
The same goes with the Syrophoenician woman that received a miracle for her daughter from Jesus in the New Testament. It wasn't that she was racially different - Jesus worked miracles for believers in the Jewish God who were from other races. She was a Gentile - and therefore religiously different.
If you read the New Testament to understand it, rather than searching for quotes you can rip out as weapons, then you will see that the plan was for the Gospel to be declared among the Jews first, then, after the death and resurrection of Jesus, to the Gentiles also. This strategy was for theological, not racial reasons.
The Syrophoenician woman, by her great faith, jumped the queue and received a miracle 'out of time'.
Would that be the same woman whom Jesus compared to a dog? The same woman who had to prostrate herself and sacrifice all dignity and self-respect before Jesus would even look at her?
Again, you have shot yourself in the foot. Israelites were forbidden to take foreign wives so as to not be introduced to foreign gods, you say. This does not square at all with god supposedly being able to see the future, (or as I've been told several times, see all of history play out in some sort of eternal present). God would know in that situation that while there would be times where the Israelis worship foreign gods, they would come back to him, so why would he be worried? This does not make god out to be compassionate at all, rather jealous to the extreme.
What you're doing there is cherry-picking. You're deliberately ignoring or twisting all the horrible parts of the bible that show your god to be not nice, but whenever there is something there that paints him in a good light, you take it as it is written.
I don't do that. I take both types as they are written. I don't do special pleading.0 -
That's the woman. The one who received a great miracle.RikuoAmero wrote: »Would that be the same woman whom Jesus compared to a dog? The same woman who had to prostrate herself and sacrifice all dignity and self-respect before Jesus would even look at her?Again, you have shot yourself in the foot. Israelites were forbidden to take foreign wives so as to not be introduced to foreign gods, you say. This does not square at all with god supposedly being able to see the future, (or as I've been told several times, see all of history play out in some sort of eternal present). God would know in that situation that while there would be times where the Israelis worship foreign gods, they would come back to him, so why would he be worried? This does not make god out to be compassionate at all, rather jealous to the extreme.
Nonsense. They often did not turn back to him. In fact ten of the twelve tribes were carried away into captivity and never returned.
Being jealous, in the sense that a husband doesn't want his wife shagging the neighbours, isn't a bad trait.What you're doing there is cherry-picking. You're deliberately ignoring or twisting all the horrible parts of the bible that show your god to be not nice, but whenever there is something there that paints him in a good light, you take it as it is written.
I don't do that. I take both types as they are written. I don't do special pleading.
Oh, the irony.
Any response yet on the command to bash babies heads in that you invented yesterday?0 -
That's the woman. The one who received a great miracle.
So no refutation on my points where she was compared to a dog? You don't rebut me mentioning she had to grovel in the dirt? Is this a tacit admission on your part that (at least in this instance) Jesus is displaying either racism or sexism, or both? (If it's not either, if his behaviour here is not motivated by race or sex, then he's just being a dick for no reason)0 -
RikuoAmero wrote: »So no refutation on my points where she was compared to a dog? You don't rebut me mentioning she had to grovel in the dirt? Is this a tacit admission on your part that (at least in this instance) Jesus is displaying either racism or sexism, or both? (If it's not either, if his behaviour here is not motivated by race or sex, then he's just being a dick for no reason)
No, because I've already pointed out that it was not racism :rolleyes:
Nor did her gender have anything to do with it.
As I've already explained to you, the message was first to preached to Jews (a religion, not a race) and afterwards to Gentiles.
Again, if you would stop cherrypicking, and actually read the New Testament then you would know this.
Her persistence got her what she wanted, even though she and Jesus both knew that such things were only going to reach the Gentiles after the Jews had definitively rejected Jesus. (The whole exchange is rather funny in that Jesus compares Himself to crumbs off the table).
Both the woman and Jesus seemed happy with the end result - so I don't know why you're piously cribbing about it 2000 years later.0 -
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No, because I've already pointed out that it was not racism :rolleyes:
Nor did her gender have anything to do with it.
As I've already explained to you, the message was first to preached to Jews (a religion, not a race) and afterwards to Gentiles.
Again, if you would stop cherrypicking, and actually read the New Testament then you would know this.
Her persistence got her what she wanted, even though she and Jesus both knew that such things were only going to reach the Gentiles after the Jews had definitively rejected Jesus. (The whole exchange is rather funny in that Jesus compares Himself to crumbs off the table).
Both the woman and Jesus seemed happy with the end result - so I don't know why you're piously cribbing about it 2000 years later.
You must be reading a completely different text to what I am. The one I'm reading has no part at all where Jesus compares himself to crumbs. Here's the text I'm reading
I see Jesus comparing her to a dog, and she goes one better, to crumbs off the table and Jesus doing nothing to dissuade the notion.The woman came and knelt before Him. “Lord, help me!” she said. 26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” 27 “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”0 -
Interesting article today on the BBC website about when believers marry atheists - Christian, Muslim and Jew..
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-307082420 -
Interesting article today on the BBC website about when believers marry atheists - Christian, Muslim and Jew..
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30708242
Interesting article. I admit I can't wrap my head around the atheist partners who willingly marry religious people. How can you call it a loving marriage where the religious partner believes that the atheist one is deserving of and destined for eternal punishment in hell merely for a lack of belief? Especially that part where it mentions one of the religious wives believing that she herself is now bound for hell because she's married to a non-believer. Surely that would cause a great deal of resentment?0 -
"Religious people" =/= "people who believe that atheists are deserving of and destined for eternal punishment", and none of the believing spouses in the article actually say this about their unbelieving spouses (or about anyone, for that matter). It's true that Jez does say that "I can only go to hell, by [my wife's] set of beliefs, if her religion is the true one", but his wife is not quoted as saying anything like this and, as she is a Catholic, it is not likely that she believes this.RikuoAmero wrote: »Interesting article. I admit I can't wrap my head around the atheist partners who willingly marry religious people. How can you call it a loving marriage where the religious partner believes that the atheist one is deserving of and destined for eternal punishment in hell merely for a lack of belief? Especially that part where it mentions one of the religious wives believing that she herself is now bound for hell because she's married to a non-believer. Surely that would cause a great deal of resentment?
As for the wife who believes that she is bound for hell because she is married to an unbeliever, I note (again) that the unbelieving husband says she believes that, but she isn't interviewed so we don't know whether she would agree. He seems to be all over the place in terms of how he sees his marriage; I'd take everything he says with a pinch of salt.
I can see that disagreement over something that is of fundamental importance to either or both spouses is a problem in any marriage, and of the marriages discussed in this article one in particular looks pretty disfunctional. But there are plenty of examples of successful marriages between partners whose religious views are incompatible, and I don't see why this should suddenly become impossible if the reason for the incompatability is that one of the spouses is an atheist.0 -
Peregrinus wrote: »"Religious people" =/= "people who believe that atheists are deserving of and destined for eternal punishment", and none of the believing spouses in the article actually say this about their unbelieving spouses (or about anyone, for that matter). It's true that Jez does say that "I can only go to hell, by [my wife's] set of beliefs, if her religion is the true one", but his wife is not quoted as saying anything like this and, as she is a Catholic, it is not likely that she believes this.
As for the wife who believes that she is bound for hell because she is married to an unbeliever, I note (again) that the unbelieving husband says she believes that, but she isn't interviewed so we don't know whether she would agree. He seems to be all over the place in terms of how he sees his marriage; I'd take everything he says with a pinch of salt.
I can see that disagreement over something that is of fundamental importance to either or both spouses is a problem in any marriage, and of the marriages discussed in this article one in particular looks pretty disfunctional. But there are plenty of examples of successful marriages between partners whose religious views are incompatible, and I don't see why this should suddenly become impossible if the reason for the incompatability is that one of the spouses is an atheist.
Well, I wouldn't be too quick to suddenly say what exactly the catholic wife's views on hell are, given that catholicism's views on it have been all over the place, just look here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_Hell#Roman_Catholicism
It's hard to pin down exactly what the RCC teaches what hell is, it changes from century to century. That link quotes Pope Pius X as saying hell is a state of punishment and eternal torment, then later we have John Paul II saying that is symbolic (could've sworn popes were supposed to be infallible?)
Anyway, myself personally, I can't see myself marrying a devout religious person while I myself am an unbeliever, at least in terms of the three abrahamic religions. All three at one point or another in their holy books say that an unbeliever is destined for eternal suffering in hell. I wouldn't be able to live with a partner who subscribes to that mode of thought, that my ultimate worth as a human being (and fate of my soul, if it exists) is predicated on whether I am gullible enough to believe in what is essentially magic without strong evidence to back it up.0 -
A useful reply.indioblack wrote: »I sense in your reply a different attitude to God and perhaps a different view of God from what I would call the mainstream Christian image of God.
I think that religion, certainly Christianity, is one, maybe the only one, area of our lives where adults are given the same story as children.
I've recently come across the word "heuristic", the idea that you travel in a vehicle to progress your journey but have to change at some point into another vehicle that better suits the next stage of the journey.
Church as it is done, I've concluded, is a heuristic. It serves a useful purpose and it might well bear many aspects of the Christian message that are true and useful. But it can suffer from all kinds of pitfalls incl. groupthink, birds of a feather (as those who align with the particular church stay and those who don't leave: this especially so when it comes to independent evangelical type churches. You can end up with a bit of a Dead Sea), settled dogmatism and religiousity.
I think God is too big a journey to sojourn at a fixed place for too long. And the nature of settled theology is to open yourself to sojourning at a fixed place. This isn't the same as saying all need be left utterly open but is quite different to all being closed down and fixed. I mean, some popular doctrines of today were developed hundreds of years ago. That doesn't make them wrong (since truth arrived at is always truth) but it does mean you should at least examine them critically.I suspect that the central, maybe core, part of this thread should be about our perception of God.
It's a catch all thread but that would be a useful sub-element. You do kind of see it already: the contra-God-exists view largely fixating on the wrathful aspect of God with attempts by at least some believers to explain the reason for that and to juxtapose the loving aspect of God and how the two merge and are not contradictory.
Uphill task however.Maybe that's obvious - but my point is that the classic view of God - the one I think most people have - is incompatible with some of the issues raised in this thread.
I think there are a few classic views of God. The unbeliever view of God as authoritarian dictator. And the believer view of God as all loving (involving a kind of brushing under the carpet of the OT God). And then the view which attempts to combine OT God and Jesus.
Which one had you in mind?0 -
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antiskeptic wrote: »Hark, the sound of R.A.'s shutter closing firmly against the floor
And when is the last time you accepted any other point of view on here ?0 -
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antiskeptic wrote: »
Where is rape mentioned. Or are you just presupposing that rape took place based your view today? What was the view of women on those days? If they considered themselves the possession of the men who had authority over them and it their duty to sleep with them then would it be rape?
MrP0 -
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antiskeptic wrote: »
Where is rape mentioned. Or are you just presupposing that rape took place based your view today? What was the view of women on those days? If they considered themselves the possession of the men who had authority over them and it their duty to sleep with them then would it be rape?
Are you saying that different standards and definitions applied then than now ?0 -
Are you saying that different standards and definitions applied then than now ?
Oh no no no I hear the apologists cry, the bible never endorsed slavery, God never once told his children to go out and own people as property, women were always considered equal to men, when women are mentioned as being forcibly married when all their loved ones have just been killed, rape doesn't happen...
*shakes head in despair*0 -
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For the record, antiskeptic, yes, I am concluding (not presupposing, concluding based on logic and evidence) that when I'm presented with a story/historical account of a group of soldiers being ordered to go into a habited area, kill all the men, but leave the women and children alive and take them as property, that it is extremely likely in that scenario that then some if not all of the women would be pressed into sexual servitude. It is rape since the women would have just seen all of their loved ones and neighbours killed by an invading horde of savages and they would have been forced into sexual acts under threat of violence and death. What you wrote confirms what I've been saying all along, that your religion teaches and endorses slavery (in at least one section of its holy book) (after all, why would you say there that women considered themselves property of the JEWISH invaders, if you don't believe that the OT endorses slavery?)0
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RikuoAmero wrote: »Oh no no no I hear the apologists cry, the bible never endorsed slavery, God never once told his children to go out and own people as property, women were always considered equal to men, when women are mentioned as being forcibly married when all their loved ones have just been killed, rape doesn't happen...
*shakes head in despair*
The 80/20 rule is beginning to fit your m.o.
You do lots of shaking head and precious little arguing//0 -
antiskeptic wrote: »I asked you the question.
I really can't answer as to what you think. Or has the equivocation started already ?0 -
A question to those people who here have said that god respects free will, respects the choices apparently made by the Israeli people into worshipping other gods.
Whatever happened to "I am a jealous god"? Isn't that in the decalogue? Being jealous for the worship of your chosen people (racism in and of itself right there) is antithetical, contradictory to the notion of respecting free will.
What about Deutoronemy 13? That chapter is all about killing prophets from other gods, even if they prophesy and do miracles. At the end of the chapter, it says that god says to the Hebrews, that if they go into a town that he is so generously giving them and just one person is an unbeliever...kill them all. ALL OF THE INHABITANTS. Leave the town a ruin until the end of time. It's only when all the unbelievers, both actual and those who could potentially be simply for living in the wrong town, are slaughtered that god will show his 'mercy'. For those of you who liken god to a husband, then this husband is promising he'll show mercy to his wife, but only after his wife comes crawling back to him after she bathes in the blood of her victims.
Yeah. The bible is not contradictory. Yeah, the bible shows god to respect the free will of the Israeli people into which gods they want to worship. In fact, let's just ignore the fact that the entire mess with sin started because god didn't respect the free choice of Adam and Eve, a situation so dire that the only way this all powerful being can respect that free choice, is to incarnate and die on a cross.
Deuteronomy 32:21-27With their idols they have made me angry,
jealous with their so-called gods,
gods that are really not gods.
So I will use a so-called nation to make them angry;
I will make them jealous with a nation of fools.
22 My anger will flame up like fire
and burn everything on earth.
It will reach to the world below[c]
and consume the roots of the mountains.
23 “‘I will bring on them endless disasters
and use all my arrows against them.
24 They will die from hunger and fever;
they will die from terrible diseases.
I will send wild animals to attack them,
and poisonous snakes to bite them.
25 War will bring death in the streets;
terrors will strike in the homes.
Young men and young women will die;
neither babies nor old people will be spared.
26 I would have destroyed them completely,
so that no one would remember them.
27 But I could not let their enemies boast
that they had defeated my people,
when it was I myself who had crushed them.
That isn't a husband saying to a cheating wife, "go out and live with those you slept with, since you chose them". This is a husband saying you cheated on me, I will brutally end you. I will torture and ruin you".0 -
antiskeptic wrote: »A useful reply.
I've recently come across the word "heuristic", the idea that you travel in a vehicle to progress your journey but have to change at some point into another vehicle that better suits the next stage of the journey.
Church as it is done, I've concluded, is a heuristic. It serves a useful purpose and it might well bear many aspects of the Christian message that are true and useful. But it can suffer from all kinds of pitfalls incl. groupthink, birds of a feather (as those who align with the particular church stay and those who don't leave: this especially so when it comes to independent evangelical type churches. You can end up with a bit of a Dead Sea), settled dogmatism and religiousity.
I think God is too big a journey to sojourn at a fixed place for too long. And the nature of settled theology is to open yourself to sojourning at a fixed place. This isn't the same as saying all need be left utterly open but is quite different to all being closed down and fixed. I mean, some popular doctrines of today were developed hundreds of years ago. That doesn't make them wrong (since truth arrived at is always truth) but it does mean you should at least examine them critically.
It's a catch all thread but that would be a useful sub-element. You do kind of see it already: the contra-God-exists view largely fixating on the wrathful aspect of God with attempts by at least some believers to explain the reason for that and to juxtapose the loving aspect of God and how the two merge and are not contradictory.
Uphill task however.
I think there are a few classic views of God. The unbeliever view of God as authoritarian dictator. And the believer view of God as all loving (involving a kind of brushing under the carpet of the OT God). And then the view which attempts to combine OT God and Jesus.
Which one had you in mind?
I'd say the classic view of the Christian God is the one most people were raised on. All loving, all knowing, all powerful - a very large version of ourselves - minus the flaws!
The God of Christmas cards and church attendance - the one prayed to when things go wrong.
The God of the bible - without the awkward bits in the OT.
So mainly the God of the NT - and Jesus.
People coming to this thread, in this forum, would surely have that image as a starting point - a point of reference.
The God of Christian history and heritage - and the bible.0 -
RikuoAmero wrote: »A question to those people who here have said that god respects free will, respects the choices apparently made by the Israeli people into worshipping other gods.
Whatever happened to "I am a jealous god"? Isn't that in the decalogue? Being jealous for the worship of your chosen people (racism in and of itself right there) is antithetical, contradictory to the notion of respecting free will.
What about Deutoronemy 13? That chapter is all about killing prophets from other gods, even if they prophesy and do miracles. At the end of the chapter, it says that god says to the Hebrews, that if they go into a town that he is so generously giving them and just one person is an unbeliever...kill them all. ALL OF THE INHABITANTS. Leave the town a ruin until the end of time. It's only when all the unbelievers, both actual and those who could potentially be simply for living in the wrong town, are slaughtered that god will show his 'mercy'. For those of you who liken god to a husband, then this husband is promising he'll show mercy to his wife, but only after his wife comes crawling back to him after she bathes in the blood of her victims.
Yeah. The bible is not contradictory. Yeah, the bible shows god to respect the free will of the Israeli people into which gods they want to worship. In fact, let's just ignore the fact that the entire mess with sin started because god didn't respect the free choice of Adam and Eve, a situation so dire that the only way this all powerful being can respect that free choice, is to incarnate and die on a cross.
Deuteronomy 32:21-27
That isn't a husband saying to a cheating wife, "go out and live with those you slept with, since you chose them". This is a husband saying you cheated on me, I will brutally end you. I will torture and ruin you".
Rik you are most persistent in continuing to take the Bible out of context.
Deuteronomy means second law. It was so named because this law is recorded in the Bible after the laws found in Leviticius and Numbers. Nevertheless it was partially written before those books. Deuteronomy was the first attempt at unifying commands and customs in order to give Israel the Law in which it would find life.
When Deuteronomy was edited in the 7th Century BC, more than 500 years had passed since Moses encounter with God. The land of Cannan had been conquered, the Kingdom of David and Solomon had been established, then divided. The largest and most prosperous area to the north called the Kingdom of Israel had ceased to exist and the same destiny was at that time threatening the Kingdom of Judah the southern province.
It was then that this law of Yahweh became known, a law which revealed to the people the cause of their defeats and which offered them an opportunity for salvation.
Deuteronomy was welcomed by the people of Israel and their shepards as the word of God and the teaching of Moses, but the Arthur's were priests and prophets who summarised in those pages the experience the Israelites had acquired throughout their history.
As happens in other books of the OT, the arthor's of Deuteronomy placed on the lips of Moses the very discourses they themselves wanted to address to their people.
In a fictitious way they imagine that before his death Moses forsaw the tragic faith awaiting his people.
They attribute to Moses the warnings and laws which could still save Israel.
Deuteronomy in fact uses the teaching of the prophets concerning Justice and love. It was the first effort ever made in the world to establish a responsible and fraternal society.
Moses had ordered the conquest of the land of Canaan. Deuteronomy says that since this land is a gift from God, Israel must obey the Law in order to keep the land.
God is the one who loves first. God does not give his love indiscriminately to everyone, but loves especially those whom he chooses to serve him (Dt 7:6-8), and the proof that he has chosen Israel is found in the supernatural interventions of God in their favour, when he took them out of the land of Egypt (Dt 4:32-40).
Israel must respond to God with Love from the Heart ( which was not in the Ten Commandments, Dt 6:1-9
The Israelites must preserve solidarity, they must be able to love and forgive each other (Dt15).
They must also be united around the Holy Temple in Jerusalem (Dt 12).
The way to love God is to love him faithfully (Dt 13).
Deuteronomy 13 is about being loyal to God, a prophet may perform wonders: if it is rbring about separation from the Lord then that prophet is a fraud. God does not want his believers to change their membership from one church to another in order to go where we think miracles are happening. The text stresses that the word of God and his commandments are the only foundation of faith: we do not believe because we have seen signs and wonders but because God has spoken. John 4:46
Your quote about 32: 21 to 27 is a hymn.
It is a hymn about the constant love of God who guides all of Israels history.
Yahweh chooses Israel, 7 to 9
He leads Israel through the desert to the promised land 10-14
Israel fully satisfied shuns God and gives itself to the idols, 15-18.
Yahweh becomes Israels enemy 22-30.
The people humbled and exiled must rely on the compassion of Yahweh who, in the end will liberate them and make them victorious over the wicked. 31-43
Rik I have mentioned this many times to you before, you have very little understanding of the meaning of the Bible, you continue to quote out of context persistently.0 -
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ABC, do you mean that you believe Moses to have been a real historical character, as real as Napoleon or George Washington were?the arthor's of Deuteronomy placed on the lips of Moses the very discourses they themselves wanted to address to their people.
Evidence please? Where does it say in the bible that the authors (not arthurs or arthors) are putting words in Mose's mouth?
If you take this book to have been attributed to Moses but not written by him, why then do you believe other texts to have actually been written by him?
Remember, I'm coming at this from the perspective that what the bible says is 'true': if true, then what it's saying here is blood-soaked beyond imagining.the proof that he has chosen Israel is found in the supernatural interventions of God in their favour,
Yet when I read the warning not to heed the prophets of other gods even if those prophets do miracles too...what? What I read there is Yahweh saying that even though there are other gods and other prophets who can do magic just like Yahweh can, don't go with them or he will destroy you with fire and sword.
If Deuteronomy is as you say fictitious, then what is it doing in your holy book? If one fictitious book got in there, shouldn't this throw the ENTIRE volume into question in your mind?
There is no archaeological evidence that the Hebrews were ever as a race enslaved in Egypt.when he took them out of the land of Egypt
Funny, I've been told numerous times both here on this forum and elsewhere that he does in fact love all. I seem to recall a little known claim...something to do with a guy called Jesus, who got nailed to a cross? Something about that being God somehow being so loving as to sacrifice his son/himself?God does not give his love indiscriminately to everyone
Which is it?
First commandment, "I am the Lord thy God, Thou Shalt Have no other Gods before Me"Israel must respond to God with Love from the Heart ( which was not in the Ten Commandments
Ring a bell?
That's what's in your mind after reading Dt 13? What happens to the parts about burning a town with everyone in it, slaughtering all the inhabitants if just one of them turns out to worship a different god? Do your eyes just glaze over and skip over those parts?The way to love God is to love him faithfully (Dt 13).
So what's the point of all the magic and miracles then? Why would god bother then with doing them? Isn't the entire point of the christian religion because Jesus supposedly did the miraculous sign of wondrously coming back from the dead? Isn't that what was supposed to grab people's attention?we do not believe because we have seen signs and wonders but because God has spoken
I don't see compassion anywhere in that book. At all. You don't call compassionate someone who has just said that because you reject him, he will rain fire and destruction down upon you.the compassion of Yahweh0
This discussion has been closed.
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