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We stayed on the big island last year and there is so much to see! Volcano National Park and green sand beaches to name a few. If I hit the lottery, to Hawaii I go!

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-perseverance-rover-scientists-find-intriguing-mars-rock       Scientists caution that this is NOT a confirmation of past life on Mars (a 7) but is a 1, a possible signal that has been detected and must be thoroughly checked.       Thank you,   Walter.    

Returning to the main theme of this thread, but still focusing on reconciling contradictions in scripture, it appears that there is a bible contradiction in the argument I've put forward for god being true cause of human disobedience and sin.   Romans 11 : 28 - 32   28 As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies for your sake; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs,  29 for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.  30 Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience,  31 so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now[h] receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you.  32 For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.   James 1 : 13 - 15   13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;  14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.  15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.     These two passages appear to contradict each other.   In Romans Paul says that god has bound everyone into a state of disobedience.  He did this so that everyone needs his mercy.  Therefore, all human disobedience is caused by god overriding our will and causing us to sin.  And yet James says that god tempts nobody.  So, what is the solution here?  How can we reconcile and harmonise these two passages so that they don't contradict each other?  How can the bible remain god's unified Word in the face of this apparent contradiction?   The answer is to focus on who is doing what.   If god does not do any tempting in the scriptures, then who does?  The answer is Satan and his rebel angels.  They could ALL have been bound in chains of darkness and kept from tempting people to sin, from harming the human race.  2 Peter 2 : 4 and Jude 6 tell us that only SOME of these spirits are imprisoned in this way.  The rest are free and abroad in the world, tempting and harming people.  These are the demons and unclean spirits mentioned in the bible.  They are free in accordance with god's will.     Therefore, all temptation is performed by Satan and his cohorts.  Not god.     Now we can see the true situation.  God doesn't tempt anyone but allows everyone to be tempted by Satan's demons.  This clears god of the accusation that he tempts people to sin and do evil.  This allows god to bind everyone's will so that they will disobey him and sin, without him directly performing any overtly evil act like tempting anyone.  The overtly evil actions are performed for him by the demons.   We can see this in action in the 1st book of Samuel, after King Saul's disobedience, where god repeatedly sends an evil spirit to torment him.   1 Samuel 16 : 14 - 16   14 Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. 15 Saul’s attendants said to him, “See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you.  16 Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the lyre. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better.”   1 Samuel 18 : 10 & 11   10 The next day an evil spirit from God came forcefully on Saul. He was prophesying in his house, while David was playing the lyre, as he usually did. Saul had a spear in his hand  11 and he hurled it, saying to himself, “I’ll pin David to the wall.” But David eluded him twice.   1 Samuel 19 : 9 & 10   9 But an evil spirit from the Lord came on Saul as he was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand. While David was playing the lyre,  10 Saul tried to pin him to the wall with his spear, but David eluded him as Saul drove the spear into the wall. That night David made good his escape.   So, by appealing to scripture we can reconcile the apparent contradiction between Paul and James.  God doesn't directly and overtly do evil by tempting anyone because he never directly and overtly tempts anyone.  But this new understanding now raises an interesting question.     Seeing as they are free to do evil by his will, is god at all responsible for the evil done by these demonic spirits?      Thank you,   Walter.          

Today I've mentioned how Christians find rationalizations and solutions for the contradictions thrown up by scripture and how I used to do this myself.  As a brief aside to the theme of this thread I'd just like to say that my not being able harmonise certain contradictions in the bible was part and parcel of the breaking of my Christian faith.  The following example being perhaps the most significant.   In the book of 1 Samuel, chapter 15 we read about god commanding King Saul to destroy the Amalekites.    1 Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord.  2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt.  3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels, and donkeys.’”   After Saul disobeyed god for not destroying all the Amalekite livestock he was rejected by god and Samuel for disobedience.   27 As Samuel turned to leave, Saul caught hold of the hem of his robe, and it tore.  28 Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to one of your neighbours—to one better than you.  29 He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a human being, that he should change his mind.”   So, how could I reconcile this OT passage with these NT ones?  In both cases god himself speaks, in the OT through one of his prophets and in the NT as God made in human flesh and blood, Jesus Christ.  The statement that he does not change his mind as a humans do MUST apply in both cases.  Otherwise no promises or covenants made by god can be trusted.  No laws that he makes can be trusted.  No judgments that he makes can be trusted.  Nothing that he says can be taken as true - because he might just change his mind.   With that thought in mind, these were the NT passages I couldn't reconcile with 1 Samuel 15.   Matthew 5 : 43 - 48   43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’  44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?  47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?  48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.   Luke 6 : 27 - 36   27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,  28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.  29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them.  30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.  31 Do to others as you would have them do to you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.  33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that.  34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.  35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.  36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.   So what's going on?   If god never changes his mind why did he command genocide to be carried out against Israel's enemies in the OT but then command that enemies must be blessed, forgiven and prayed for in the NT?   I could never reconcile these two, totally contradictory commands coming from a god that never changes his mind.  I could never harmonise these contradictory passages.  I could never rationalize their differences, nor find any kind of solution to the problems they created for my faith.     Thank you,   Walter.          

As a sceptic and an atheist I have no problem with Dan McLellan's analysis.     I'm quite happy to accept that the bible is a mishmash of different tales and myths written by different authors, heavily influenced by Sumerian, Babylonian, Zoroastrian and Greco-Roman sources.  I'm also quite happy to accept that many of what are now considered to be the basic tenets of Christianity are actually post-biblical rationalizations and reworkings of earlier, more primitive concepts.   However, in this thread I'm acting as Devil's Advocate and playing the role of a Christian who takes the whole of the bible as one seamless and integrated message from god.  Therefore, to hold to that position, I need to find solutions to the points raised by McLellan, ones that allow me remove the contradictions and so keep my faith intact.   1.  In the second chapter of Genesis all of creation is not good.   To bring chapters 1 and 2 into alignment so that both accounts have a fully good creation the lack of a suitable helper for Adam can't be an oversight or shortcoming on god's part.  Our church used to rationalize this problem by claiming the following.   That god made no mistake in not providing a suitable helper for Adam.  Instead, this was done so that Adam would discover for himself that none of the animals brought to him for naming were suitable helpmates for his work in the garden of Eden.  Once he had discovered this god created Eve from one of his ribs.   This removes the embarrassing possibility that god made an error, when he should have been able to provide a helper from get go.  By doing this god's foreknowledge of all things is preserved and he no longer looks like a limited, fumbling mortal who only discovers his mistakes after the fact.     2.  God lies about Adam dying on the day he eats the forbidden fruit.   This was neatly dealt with by claiming that god wasn't speaking about Adam dying physically, but spiritually.  The seed of decay and physical death was sown in him on that day, but wouldn't come to fruition until 900 or so years later, when Adam did die a physical death.     3.  There were other people in the world besides Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel.   This contradiction is removed by claiming that a significant length of time had elapsed between there being just four people in the world and the day that Cain murdered Abel.  Enough time for humans to multiply and for there to be other people who might do Cain violence.   Is there sufficient justification in the text itself to support that claim?  Genesis 4 : 3 reads...   In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord.   The words, 'in the course of time' was key to this rationalization of the contradiction.  Its sufficiently vague and also sufficiently broad to allow enough time for the population of the otherwise empty world with the people Cain mentions.  The ones he thought would kill him.     Thank you,   Walter.  

Ah, now I get it.   Thanks very much for clearing that up, midniterider.   Everything falls into place and I'm no longer puzzled.     Thank you,   Walter.

I think I see the problem. In the 1990s I became a Christian. That's when I emulated other Christians.   Then in 2020 I gave it up. I quit the faith. I don't hang out with or think/believe/feel the way Christians do anymore.    I meant to say that back in the 90s when I was a believer, the Christians I learned from didn't care that much about literally following the Bible's exact words.    I am not a Christian.

This is what I experienced, despite holding on to Christianity for 25+ years.

Yes, we clearly think differently.     As a Christian I believed that every word of the bible was god's Word.  Therefore, if I chose one verse or one passage over another, I was passing judgment on god - something that I was clearly unfit and unworthy to do.  The watchwords of my years as a Christian were humility and submission.  So, if there was something in the bible that I didn't like or couldn't understand then that was my fault and my responsibility, not god's.  And I would pray to him to increase my understanding and to decrease my wilful stubbornness.   No, I didn't try to follow every jot and tittle of scripture.  I realised that my personal limitations wouldn't let me do that.  So instead I just tried to do my best 'today' and hoped to do better tomorrow.     You're familiar with the idea of the Word of god being a two-edged sword, cutting both ways, midniterider?  Well, what would have happened to me if I had wielded a metaphorical pair of scissors and cherry picked the parts of the bible I liked and disregarded the rest?  The answer is that God's Word would have cut me.   By this I mean that every time I chose my own way over god's I would have been cutting out the spiritual riches that were there in scripture, for my benefit.  I would have been like like a sick person who's been told to take his meds five times a day, but who chooses to take them only once.  I'd have been hurting myself instead of receiving the healing that I needed.   Does that help explain things?     Thank you,   Walter.