Hit And Run Xtians

[Justin]

LNC. I have a question for you, you say that the bible has no contradictions?. Well could you help me understand how this isn't a contradiction.

 

It says clearly in Exodus 20:13 that "you must not murder" and yet in Ecclesiates 3:3 that there is "a time to kill..."

 

Now in case you're wondering the bible that I'm refering to is the New World Translation version since it's the only full bible I have but I've found that most bibles are the same it's the interpretation that is different.

 

Thanks in advance

 

Amongst many, i would like to hear what he says about when Jesus said that no man has ascended up to heaven except he who came down from heaven, himself. I guess Jesus failed to read the OT and about Elisha?

[Looking4Answers]

Amongst many, i would like to hear what he says about when Jesus said that no man has ascended up to heaven except he who came down from heaven, himself. I guess Jesus failed to read the OT and about Elisha?

 

... and Enoch.

[Ouroboros]

I'm amazed by your perserverance Hans and looking4a.

Been married for a long time, got many kids, three dogs, and a hell of problems and disasters falling on me and my family during all these years... so I grown a bit stubborn.

[Looking4Answers]

Amongst many, i would like to hear what he says about when Jesus said that no man has ascended up to heaven except he who came down from heaven, himself. I guess Jesus failed to read the OT and about Elisha?

 

It's actually Elijah who was taken up into heaven without dying. Elisha was his "disciple."

[Abiyoyo]

I'm amazed by your perserverance Hans and looking4a.

Been married for a long time, got many kids, three dogs, and a hell of problems and disasters falling on me and my family during all these years... so I grown a bit stubborn.

 

That sounds like me Hans

[Ouroboros]

That sounds like me Hans

You and me both.

 

Yesterday I went to the Freethinkers club at school. Very interesting experience. The president of the club is more iconoclastic than me!

[LNC]

It really doesn't matter if it was a whale or a huge fish. God told it to eat Jonah.

 

Don't deny the obvious.

 

I never denied that Jonah was swallowed by a great fish; however, I still won't deny that when vomited up Jonah still had a free choice to make. I am not saying that God won't influence our choices, but he won't make them for us.

[LNC]

So hearing the stories makes them true?

 

Well, do I consider these people to be lying? I have heard some of these stories told directly by the people who experienced them. Also, when multiple people from different areas all tell the same story, it tends to lend more credibility to the claim.

 

But let's look at the concept presented here. You say that some can come to Jesus WITHOUT the Gospel being given to them via a "preacher" and/or the Bible. There are a few problems with this:

 

1 - If people can come to believe in Jesus via dreams and visions apart from a Bible or apart from a "preacher" then why doesn't god, who desires that NONE should perish and that ALL should come to repentance, do this for every single person? It does not seem fair or just that some people have to struggle and wrestle with faith while another gets a dream of vision.

 

The Bible makes it clear that God has general desires and specific desires. I believe I laid this out in an earlier post to which you can refer.

 

2 - The Bible does not teach that, in the NT economy, that dreams and visions are the way that god leads people to himself. Instead, the Bible says that it is via the foolishness of preaching that god saves people (First Corinthians 1:21), not by dreams and visions. Paul carries this same theme in the book of Romans by stating that the unbeliever cannot believe in whom they have not heard and that they cannot hear without a preacher (Romans 10:14). There is no mention of god using dreams and visions to accomplish this task.

 

Really, then what do you say about Paul, the author of the majority of the NT? He came to faith by seeing a vision of the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus. None of the others with him saw what he saw. It may not be the normalized way, but it doesn't mean that God cannot use this way. In no way do the two verses that you cite exclude this possibility, you are making an argument from silence.

 

3 - If, because a man is cut off from others by living in a deep, dark jungle village somewhere, god can send a vision or a dream to convert the soul (despite the Bible saying this is not his chosen method) then Christians would really be messing things up by sending a missionary to that village. What would be more convincing? A vision or a dream directly from god? Or a man or woman walking into the village with a Bible under their arm? So the best thing for Christians to do is to stop sending missionaries so that god will send dreams and visions.

 

The Bible doesn't say that it is not his chosen method, the best we can say is that it is not normative. God can do it the way that he pleases. If he desires to bless a missionary by giving them the opportunity to go to these people, then he will do it that way; however, there are countries in which missionaries are excluded or simply haven't discovered a given people-group (or decoded their language), in those cases, God can work directly if he chooses.

 

Again, you have relied upon what you have heard from men instead of what you claim to be the very word of god. The Bible says that the word must go forth and that people are to carry that word that unbelievers must hear and accept or reject that message. You say that god sometimes uses dreams and visions for this purpose, but the NT says this is not the way for it to be done.

 

The example of Abraham is not valid here. We don't have the whole story (i.e. we don't know how he came to faith). But, not only that, the times were different. Abraham did not have to place his faith in the name of Jesus because he had no cotton picking' idea who Jesus was. Yet the NT says that there is salvation in no other name. So there is a difference between the OT and the NT. Perhaps men could come to faith in OT times via dreams and visions, but the NT says that in this day and age it is via the foolishness of preaching.

 

Therefore, according to the teachings of the NT, that man in the jungle, he is doomed. Unless god violates his own laws. And if he is willing to do this for the man in the jungle, what about the rest of us? And if he violates his own laws, then he is not just anyway and, as a result, is not who he supposedly declares himself to be (holy and just).

 

You can spin it all you want, but you keep getting it wrong.

 

Ah, but I gave the Apostle Paul as an example, so your claim doesn't hold up. There is nowhere in the Bible where it says that people must carry that word for people to come to faith. That is God's normative method, but not his exclusive method. My good friend became a Christian by reading a Bible in the desert in the Middle East while in the service. No one proclaimed the gospel to him, he read it out of the Bible.

 

In Abraham's case, we do know how he came to faith, your claim is simply false. He spoke directly with God, God gave him a promise (Gen. 15), Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. That was the moment of faith for Abram (his name at the time. Paul confirms this in Romans 4. Now, to say that Abram didn't have to place his faith in Jesus is true, but meaningless since the people of the OT obviously didn't know Jesus yet; however, Paul tells us that they were saved by their faith in God nonetheless (Rom. 4), and God applied Jesus death back to them. I don't know how this does anything for your case regarding the people in remote areas, in fact, it weakens it if anything.

 

So, in summary, your objection is moot on the basis of Paul alone, not to mention the many people who claim these types of dreams and visions today. Would you say that they have not truly come to faith since they claim to have come by this method? If so, it would seem bit presumptuous on your part.

[Abiyoyo]

I never denied that Jonah was swallowed by a great fish; however, I still won't deny that when vomited up Jonah still had a free choice to make. I am not saying that God won't influence our choices, but he won't make them for us.

 

Alright then LNC. If you say so. I don't see being swallowed by a fish, spit out from near death, a choice.

[Ouroboros]

Alright then LNC. If you say so. I don't see being swallowed by a fish, spit out from near death, a choice.

Jonah choose to be swallowed by the fish, because he was naughty. God likes to play with people like that.

 

But I find it quite amazing that some people think this story to be true. Just think about it, a man swallowed by a fish, surviving for three days without drowning, without food or drinkable water, and embedded in digestive juices. It's obviously another fairy tale.

[LNC]

The situation in the Saw movies is NOT a free choice at all. It is an extremely limited choice ... a bound choice where no matter what the person does it is wrong and leads to disaster. This is not what is normally meant by "free choice."

 

So, just because a person's choice is limited it is not free? That would mean that we don't have free elections in the U.S. since our choice is generally limited to a few candidates (often just two).

 

Coercion is force ... and a very powerful force indeed.

 

A person always has a choice to not comply when being coerced. There are Christians throughout history who have been told to recant or die. They chose death. They had a free choice, although under extreme threat and intimidation, to choose to comply or die, and they believed it was more honorable to die.

 

Then you have not read your Bible. The Bible stories show men and women in these types of situations all the time. Just as Jigsaw threatened the first man to kill the second man or else have his family murdered, god would tell Israel to slaughter a tribe of people or suffer divine retribution. Deuteronomy chapter 28 details how the people of Israel could be blessed or cursed based on their obedience to god. God threatens them with withholding rain, failing crops and cattle, disease, starvation, the enemy overrunning them and enslaving them ... how is this different? Serve me or I will kill you, god says. While it may not be with a gun directly in the hand of god, it is via disease, or an enemy empowered by god, etc. It is the same thing.

 

The Israelites never followed through in destroying any nation completely, so what was the retribution that they suffered for it? Did God wipe them out instead? No, in fact, he sent his son to be born through the line of one of those groups that the Israelites were commanded to destroy, the Midianites (Ruth, a Moabitess, was in the lineage of Jesus). So, again it gets back to whether it really was God's will for them to destroy these people.

 

Today we hear the same messages. Repent or suffer the consequences! Christians may not want to openly admit that god acts like Jigsaw, but we see evidence that they believe it at some level. After all, when Katrina was hit and so many died, instead of tears, Christians rejoiced in god's supposed act of retribution against that supposed sin-laden town.

 

What if you had terminal cancer and your doctor said you needed to get an operation and go through chemo, which may kill you, in order to be healed. Would you say that they doctor was threatening you? Get operated on and fill your body with poison or die. The fact is that we are all on our way to hell and God is offering a rescue plan, much like the doctor. We just want to paint God as the bad guy because he points out our illness.

 

At one point in Judah's history (the southern kingdom once Israel was divided) the Bible records that god was determined to cause the people of Jerusalem to suffer because they did not heed him. How was he going to do that? By causing starvation and disease to run rampant among them. He even went so far as to state that mothers would eat their own children! Sounds like a nice god, huh?

 

God claims to be a father ... and a good and loving one. However, what father would demand absolute obedience from an imperfect son and then, when the son fails, strike him with horrible diseases and threaten him with an eternity of punishment.

 

No, god does not put people in the same situations as the fictitious Jigsaw character. The god of the Bible seems to by much worse by far. As you pointed out in another post, god commanded Saul, then the king of Israel, to totally obliterate an entire tribe of people ... genocide. When Saul fails by not killing the king or all the animals, god becomes angry for being disobeyed and removes Saul from the throne. How is this unlike Jigsaw? Jigsaw also commanded that someone should kill and threatened a punishment if disobeyed. God did the same with Saul. Except Jigsaw never went after entire tribes of people. God has and, if you believe the prophecies, he will do so in the future.

 

By comparison, the Christian god seems much worse than the devil himself. The devil temps, but god kills ... and he does so by the billions. The devil is reported to seek whom he may devour. But god just wipes out whomever he pleases and then condemns the vast majority to an eternity of hell as if thousands of years of bloodshed just are not enough for him.

 

The god of the Bible is simply a sick bastard! Sick! Sick! Sick! And those that believe in him are either delusional or sick psychos themselves.

 

Well, I am sure that you have your mind made up on this one, so I don't know that anything that I would say would make a difference to you here. However, the understanding of passages that refer to these instances is that the people are extremely rebellious and God gives them over to their enemies (since they want nothing to do with him), in essence, he pulls away his protection of them. In the siege that occurs, they are left desperate, without food, and they resort to all sorts of evil to survive, including the eating of their own children. Now, does God make them eat their children? It would appear so from the English translation, but in context, which I am sure you don't care about since you have a point that you want to make and context only gets in the way of making it, how God causes this to happen is by leaving them vulnerable to attack. They make the choice to eat their children. I do believe that this is sick, sick sick. It is a sign of our desperately wicked the human heart can be, and to what desperate lengths it will take us.

 

Now, let's get back to your judgmental attitude here. You apparently have a moral system by which you would judge God guilty here. May I ask on what you are basing your judgment? Surely you must have some objective basis upon which you make such righteous claims. May I know what that is? Or, is this just self-righteous moral indignation coming out?

 

Can you tell me the tenets of your moral standard? Just give me the core of what you believe and how you came to these beliefs, and why anyone should be bound to them.

[Neon Genesis]

I never denied that Jonah was swallowed by a great fish; however, I still won't deny that when vomited up Jonah still had a free choice to make. I am not saying that God won't influence our choices, but he won't make them for us.

How do you reconcile freewill with Ephesians 1:4-5?

4just as (K)He chose us in Him before (L)the foundation of the world, that we would be (M)holy and blameless before Him (N)In love

 

5He (O)predestined us to (P)adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, (Q)according to the kind intention of His will,

Isn't this clearly a reference to predestination?

 

There is nowhere in the Bible where it says that people must carry that word for people to come to faith

How do you explain Mark16:15-16 then?

And He said to them, "(A)Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.

 

16"(B)He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.

[Looking4Answers]

I never denied that Jonah was swallowed by a great fish; however, I still won't deny that when vomited up Jonah still had a free choice to make. I am not saying that God won't influence our choices, but he won't make them for us.

 

Really? If I was swallowed by a giant fish because I disobeyed god and then vomited up on land, do you really think I would exercise my "free choice" and try to run away again? After the bully beats you up a few times and you realize you cannot win, you stop exercising your free choice and simply voluntarily give up your lunch money. It becomes a matter of survival at that point. And the case in point is the end of the book of Jonah. After god has mercy on Nineveh, Jonah is ticked off.

 

Well, do I consider these people to be lying? I have heard some of these stories told directly by the people who experienced them. Also, when multiple people from different areas all tell the same story, it tends to lend more credibility to the claim.

 

They are either lying or they have become convinced that something is true that may not be true. I, too, have heard the stories. I have served on the mission field. I have heard the dreams and visions and, you know, they are all so subjective and, when told over time, they can become more specific until they "fit" whatever reality the one who had the dream wants to make of them.

 

And, no, just because the stories are repeated in other regions does not lend credibility to them. As an example, there are stories in various regions of the world of alien spacecraft landing and/or abducting people. Many of these stories are very similar to each other. They are also told by those that witnessed them. So, according to your criteria, these stories are credible, right?

 

Oh! Wait! You will probably try to tell me that it was demons trying to convince people that aliens are real (and, yes, I have heard that one from preachers before as well). Well, if we want to go there, then I suppose that these same demons could give people dreams and visions to accept the false christ god, too.

 

What it comes down to is that this is not proof.

 

Really, then what do you say about Paul, the author of the majority of the NT?

 

Paul admits himself that he is an oddity. He was an apostle born out of place and time, so to speak. But it is Paul, that writer of the majority of the NT that himself says that god has chosen the foolishness of preaching to save the lost (not dreams and visions) and that no one can believe without hearing and none can hear without a preacher (again, not by dreams and visions). So, the very man who claims to have been personally discipled by the resurrected Jesus teaches that salvation comes by HEARING and the Gospel via the foolishness of preaching.

 

What you have to do here is one of two things (for the sake of this argument): 1) You have to either admit that the Bible is in error because it says there is only one way to get saved (hearing the gospel via a preacher via the foolishness of the proclaimed Gospel) or 2) admit that there are more than one way to get saved (dreams, visions, the very voice of Jesus in a light, etc). Which ever way you go you run into problems because the Bible then contradicts itself. And if god can use dreams and visions (and has not restricted himself to only the proclamation of the Gospel) then god is the supreme asshole because he doesn't offer these dreams and visions to each person. And if he does not offer these dreams and visions to each person, then he really doesn't "desire that none should perish but that ALL should come to repentance."

 

The Bible doesn't say that it is not his chosen method, the best we can say is that it is not normative.

 

Oh, but it does. The Bible states very emphatically (and it is even more emphatic in the Greek than in the English) that god has CHOSEN the foolishness of preaching to save the lost. Even when the rich man lifted up his head in hell and begged for Abraham to send back Lazarus, the answer was that they had Moses and the prophets and to let them HEAR them. Abraham did not even hint at dreams and visions.

 

Again, if god does not send dreams and visions to every man, then god is an asshole that is just playing a big, fat game and, more than that, he is a damned liar as well, trying to tell men that he wants everyone to be in heaven.

 

There is nowhere in the Bible where it says that people must carry that word for people to come to faith.

 

Yes it does and I have pointed it out several times. Man! You make claims as a Christian and you don't even use the Bible to support your claims. I am not even a Christian and I have been disproving you with your own fucking book! Get a life! This is the reason my so many Christian denominations send forth missionaries ... because they realize that the Bible teaches that god's chosen method of getting his word out is via the man or woman of god proclaiming it. Jesus himself commanded that his disciples go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel.

 

My good friend became a Christian by reading a Bible in the desert in the Middle East while in the service. No one proclaimed the gospel to him, he read it out of the Bible.

 

Sure they did. Someone got the Bible to him somehow. It either was placed there by someone so he could find it, was given to him, mailed to him, etc. The idea of "proclaiming" does not necessitate the spoken word. The idea of "hearing" does not necessitate that vibrations enter the ear drums. This is why some use tracts and some hand out Bibles. The idea, in the Bible, is that the Gospel was ordained by god to be spread from man to man by man and not via a divine dream or vision. Your friend proves my point and disproves yours. He was not in the desert without a Bible, without a Christian, etc and then had a dream or a vision from god to tell him to accept Jesus into his heart. He had the supposed word of god that was printed by some believer somewhere, brought to the country where he was and left there (or handed to him) so that he could read it. That is a form of "proclamation."

 

In Abraham's case, we do know how he came to faith, your claim is simply false. He spoke directly with God, God gave him a promise (Gen. 15), Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

 

No. My claim is not false. You have jumped three chapters ahead of the story. Abraham is introduced at the tail end of chapter 11 of Genesis and the Bible fully focuses on him in chapter 12 and on ward. Abraham had already shown himself faithful to god well before chapter 15's proclamation of Abraham's faith. Abraham simply appears on the scene as a god-fearer from the get go. No one knows how he became a god-fearer to begin with. He lived in a pagan city, yet he follows the voice of god to leave all and to go to a new land. The Jews have created a story to try to explain how Abraham came to faith (it has to do with his father being a maker of idols and Abraham destroying them), but the Bible does not state how he came to faith. It simply says he was faithful. So, once again, you blow it and show that you don't know what in the hell you are talking about!

[LNC]

LNC,

 

Adam and Eve's result was they banned from Eden, man to toil the earth, and woman to have pain during child birth. That's called a punishment.

God took His anointing from Saul, causing him to go insane, consult a spiritualist, then he died.

Sampson lost his power, dying in a last call to God.

 

All punishments, consequences, aftermath by disobeying God. None of your examples display freewill, as they all had consequences to their choices.

 

The NT does not have God in the same character as the OT. Jesus is the main focus point, while his interactions with His followers were more representing His ministry.

 

If there is any part of the Bible involving the here and now people of the Bible being given freewill, it would have to be Jesus and His dealings with the people around Him.

 

I would agree with you regarding Adam and Eve. But, if that is all that you believe it was you are missing the important half of the story. God also sent them out of the garden so that they would not have access to the tree of life and live forever in their sinful condition - that is called mercy.

 

I think you ascribe too much to God when you say he caused Saul to go insane. God took away Saul's kingdom because he first violated his role by assuming the role of priest (1 Sam. 13), then Saul disobeyed God's command concerning the Amelekites (1 Sam 15). So, it was Saul who caused his own demise and his ego that led him to repeatedly try to kill David and then to consult the medium of En-dor. I don't know how you can lay that at God's feet. Was he supposed to overlook Saul's many sins?

 

Sampson was also disobedient, many times violating his Nazarite vow. Do you claim that he didn't freely make these choices? The same question could be asked of Saul, Adam and Eve, did they not make free choices leading to their subsequent punishment? I am not sure how you could come to conclude that they didn't.

 

Again, I don't see you making your case with these examples. Jesus took the OT law and ratcheted it up in the Sermon on the Mount. "You have heard it said (OT Law)...but I say to you (stricter interpretation of that Law). So, maybe we could say that Jesus had stricter interpretation of the Law.

[Looking4Answers]

So, just because a person's choice is limited it is not free? That would mean that we don't have free elections in the U.S. since our choice is generally limited to a few candidates (often just two).

 

Limited choice is not really free. It is limited to the choices. And, no, we do have a free election because, despite the candidates, you have the freedom to write in whomever you would like to vote for. So if you want to try to elect Snoopy, you can add his name to the ballet.

 

A person always has a choice to not comply when being coerced. There are Christians throughout history who have been told to recant or die. They chose death. They had a free choice, although under extreme threat and intimidation, to choose to comply or die, and they believed it was more honorable to die.

 

You can keep seeing that as freedom all you like. In fact, you have helped me to see how so many Christians have been duped into thinking they are free when in fact they are slaves and how they can think they are so happy with such a yoke upon their necks.

 

What if you had terminal cancer and your doctor said you needed to get an operation and go through chemo, which may kill you, in order to be healed. Would you say that they doctor was threatening you?

 

The difference is that the doctor didn't give me the cancer to begin with.

 

Well, I am sure that you have your mind made up on this one, so I don't know that anything that I would say would make a difference to you here. However, the understanding of passages that refer to these instances is that the people are extremely rebellious and God gives them over to their enemies (since they want nothing to do with him), in essence, he pulls away his protection of them. In the siege that occurs, they are left desperate, without food, and they resort to all sorts of evil to survive, including the eating of their own children. Now, does God make them eat their children? It would appear so from the English translation, but in context, which I am sure you don't care about since you have a point that you want to make and context only gets in the way of making it, how God causes this to happen is by leaving them vulnerable to attack. They make the choice to eat their children. I do believe that this is sick, sick sick. It is a sign of our desperately wicked the human heart can be, and to what desperate lengths it will take us.

 

You really need to read the passages in context. The first context to consider is the prophecy of Deuteronomy chapter 28. Hundreds of years before the events in Jerusalem god told them of the horrible ways that god, himself, would cause them to suffer for their disobedience. He makes it clear that he is the one bringing the calamities upon Israel. What happens in the days that Babylon attacks Jerusalem is considered a fulfillment of god's plan as told in Deut. 28. So, yes, god is to blame for the women eating their young and the enemy slitting open the stomachs of the pregnant women.

 

Secondly, if you read the immediate context, you would find that god was bringing the enemy in to punish Israel. This means that god was intending for this to happen. He is ultimately responsible. He could have provided manna to feed the women so that they did not need to eat their children. He did not. He camped the enemy at the door himself. He drew ol' king Neb. down with a "hook in his nose" (as the Bible says ... referring to Neb's hunger for Jerusalem's gold). God is to blame. Period.

 

You can dance and squirm and try to make your god look good all you want, but he stinks and reeks of murder, death and, frankly, insanity and I, for one, am glad that he does not exist. However, I am saddened by those that follow him and call evil (god) good.

 

Now, let's get back to your judgmental attitude here. You apparently have a moral system by which you would judge God guilty here. May I ask on what you are basing your judgment? Surely you must have some objective basis upon which you make such righteous claims. May I know what that is? Or, is this just self-righteous moral indignation coming out?

 

Again, you show that you don't read. I have stated (as have others) many things by which we have judged this fictitious being you call a god. The main judgment comes from the supposed Holy Bible itself. It claims to be a book that is true, yet it is filled with contradictions and errors. That simple fact alone makes the book untrustworthy and, as a result, the claims the Bible makes about its god become equally untrustworthy. I don't need a moral code to look into the Bible and see its errors. I do have a moral code, but that does not affect my judgment for the veracity of the Bible and, thus, the trustworthiness of what it says about its god.

[Looking4Answers]

I had already addressed this (but you either missed it or ignored it):

 

Sampson was also disobedient, many times violating his Nazarite vow.

 

Samson (not SamPson) did not take the vow of the Nazarite. The vow was thrust on him while in the womb. He was not given a choice to be a Nazarite or not. Here is the verse (again):

 

For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. - Judges 13:5

 

No free will there.

[agnosticator]

I'm amazed by your perserverance Hans and looking4a.

Been married for a long time, got many kids, three dogs, and a hell of problems and disasters falling on me and my family during all these years... so I grown a bit stubborn.

 

I think you may have also picked up some patience too, of which I myself have lost in this thread.

[Abiyoyo]

But I find it quite amazing that some people think this story to be true. Just think about it, a man swallowed by a fish, surviving for three days without drowning, without food or drinkable water, and embedded in digestive juices. It's obviously another fairy tale.

 

Maybe. I always saw it as embellishment, yet I think that regardless, God still nagged Jonah to do what he wanted him to do, Biblically that is. Doctrine is derived from the Bible. If I choose to argue doctrine, then the Bible would have to be my ground work for the conversation. Right? I quoted this about Jonah because LNC was implying that we have total freewill, and I say no. Jesus is a good example, He didn't say screw this, I'm out. He already knew God's will for Him, as the Holy Spirit was upon Him, right? So, Jonah, I guess didn't know enough to handle it on His own.

 

Which is it was where I was getting with LNC. Freewill, or God's will?

[Abiyoyo]

I would agree with you regarding Adam and Eve. But, if that is all that you believe it was you are missing the important half of the story. God also sent them out of the garden so that they would not have access to the tree of life and live forever in their sinful condition - that is called mercy.

 

I think you ascribe too much to God when you say he caused Saul to go insane. God took away Saul's kingdom because he first violated his role by assuming the role of priest (1 Sam. 13), then Saul disobeyed God's command concerning the Amelekites (1 Sam 15). So, it was Saul who caused his own demise and his ego that led him to repeatedly try to kill David and then to consult the medium of En-dor. I don't know how you can lay that at God's feet. Was he supposed to overlook Saul's many sins?

 

Sampson was also disobedient, many times violating his Nazarite vow. Do you claim that he didn't freely make these choices? The same question could be asked of Saul, Adam and Eve, did they not make free choices leading to their subsequent punishment? I am not sure how you could come to conclude that they didn't.

 

Again, I don't see you making your case with these examples. Jesus took the OT law and ratcheted it up in the Sermon on the Mount. "You have heard it said (OT Law)...but I say to you (stricter interpretation of that Law). So, maybe we could say that Jesus had stricter interpretation of the Law.

 

Which one wins LNC,...freewill, or God's will? So, it's like a set of scales. X amount of people are God's people, and then X amount of people are 'evil, against God' right?

 

These scales then change constantly? If someone has freewill, to choose, then we would all be able to choose salvation at the same time. Correct? No. Because God's has a will that includes, people against God. Right?

 

Like I said, frewill, or God's will?

[LNC]

Actually, that proves everything because the Bible is the only source the Christian has for who and what god is. Apart from the Bible the Christian would not know to call on the name of Jesus, would not know that there is a hell, would not know that they needed salvation and that that salvation was purchased for them by god sending his son, etc. So if the Bible, the only source for "true" knowledge about the "one, true god" were to be found full of errors and contradictions, then it would show that the "one, true" source was not reliable. Any rationally thinking person would have to conclude that they, therefore, could not know for certain what the truth was about god if the book about god was so full of holes. So, no, a superior knowledge is not needed in the least.

 

It would not prove that Jesus didn't exist or that God didn't exist. What I am saying is that the existence of God and Jesus are independent of whether we have the Bible to tell us about them. However, we do have the Bible and other revelation, so this is a moot point.

 

Let's look at a few verses:

 

“And these [are they which] ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they [are] an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray, And the vulture, and the kite after his kind; Every raven after his kind; And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind, And the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl, And the swan, and the pelican, and the gier eagle, And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.” (Le 11:13-19 AV)

 

Do you see the two words I highlighted? The "bat" is included in the list of "fowls" along with other known fowls such as the eagle, owl and pelican. Whatever the meaning of the Hebrew word for "fowl" it is clear that the bat is included among the feathered and winged creatures.

 

 

Here is where using the English Bible is not helping you. The word for fowl is 'owph' which means a creature with wings. Last time I checked bats had wings, and if I am not mistaken, they still do.

 

Just for fun, let's look at the verses that follow:

 

“All fowls that creep, going upon [all] four, [shall be] an abomination unto you. Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon [all] four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth; [Even] these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind. But all [other] flying creeping things, which have four feet, [shall be] an abomination unto you.” (Le 11:20-23 AV)

 

Here we read about "fowls" that creep "on all fours." So here we have WINGED creatures that have FOUR feet. Among the list of such amazing animals we have ... are you ready for this ... locusts, beetles and grasshoppers. Uhm ... where did Moses take his math class? None of these animals have four feet. They all have MORE than four feet as well as wings to fly with. It really seems that the writer had some problems with kinds ... bats included with feathered creatures and four legged beetles and grasshoppers. Maybe the grasshoppers have evolved since then, having originally had four feet. Oh ... but most Christians don't believe in evolution ...

 

I suggest that you go out and start plucking the extra legs off the beetles, locusts and grasshoppers so that the Bible will be right (for a change).

 

So, you're telling me that the people who ate these creatures as a regular part of their diet didn't happen to notice that they had six feet rather than four? Apparently, they must have considered the jumping legs of a different class as the other four legs. I don't see that as a reason to deny God and the Bible.

 

Back on topic:

 

Here is another set of verse (even better than the previous set):

 

“[Of] all clean birds ye shall eat. But these [are they] of which ye shall not eat: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray, And the glede, and the kite, and the vulture after his kind, And every raven after his kind, And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind, The little owl, and the great owl, and the swan, And the pelican, and the gier eagle, and the cormorant, And the stork, and the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.” (De 14:11-18 AV)

 

Do you see the two highlighted words? The first one, "bird," is the Hebrew word "tzippor." It means "bird." It is for those creatures that are not mammals but are winged, feathered and lay eggs. And, yes, I speak and read a bit of Hebrew. I also lived in Israel for a while. So the above passage is certainly speaking of BIRDS and not just winged animals. This list includes BATS as BIRDS.

 

Now, here is what Christian "scholars" will do. They cannot deny the meaning of the word "tzippor" so they will look at the one word that does not fit the list (bats) and put a note there. They will say, "uncertain." Yeah. Good job. The word means bat.

 

Actually, the "tsippowr" does not really apply to any of the birds mentioned after it in the list as it means a bird that hops or skips across the ground, and that doesn't describe any of the birds that follow in the list. So, the author must have a different intention for that word and the animals that follow in the list. However, he does use the word "owph" in the following verses, 19 & 20, so apparently, he was tying these winged creatures to those verses.

[Ouroboros]

Maybe. I always saw it as embellishment, yet I think that regardless, God still nagged Jonah to do what he wanted him to do, Biblically that is. Doctrine is derived from the Bible. If I choose to argue doctrine, then the Bible would have to be my ground work for the conversation. Right?

Good point.

 

I quoted this about Jonah because LNC was implying that we have total freewill, and I say no. Jesus is a good example, He didn't say screw this, I'm out. He already knew God's will for Him, as the Holy Spirit was upon Him, right? So, Jonah, I guess didn't know enough to handle it on His own.

I agree.

[Ouroboros]

I think you may have also picked up some patience too, of which I myself have lost in this thread.

Well. I'm done with LNC. It's no point.

[Looking4Answers]

It would not prove that Jesus didn't exist or that God didn't exist. What I am saying is that the existence of God and Jesus are independent of whether we have the Bible to tell us about them. However, we do have the Bible and other revelation, so this is a moot point.

 

You are either missing the point or not willing to admit that you are wrong. The Bible is the only source for telling people about Jesus and the Judeo-Christian god. If that source turns out to be filled with error and contradictions, which is a fact, then the rest becomes unreliable. If the Bible did not exist, no one would be claiming that Jesus is god. If the Bible is full of errors and contradictions, then the result is the same in that we have no reliable evidence for Jesus being god, that there is indeed a heaven or a hell nor is there any evidence for how to get to either of them. Therefore, even if Jesus is a god, it doesn't matter. Mankind does not have a reliable source for knowing. Period.

 

Here is where using the English Bible is not helping you. The word for fowl is 'owph' which means a creature with wings. Last time I checked bats had wings, and if I am not mistaken, they still do.

 

Again, you prove your absolute ignorance and you prove that you don't read what people have written in this thread. I will try to make it clear (though I mentioned this in an earlier post):

 

I READ HEBREW!

 

Here's a photo I just took of the Bible I used when I used to preach as a missionary in Israel:

 

 

I am not relying on an English translation. And, if you had read my original post, you would see that I stated that the first mention uses a word that means something along the lines of a "winged creature." However, the second set of verses uses the unmistakable word for "bird." There is simply no way around this. When translating from one language into another it is often crucial to view words in their contexts especially since many words have multiple meanings. Even words that are clear in meaning are better understood by their contexts. In the passage that uses "tzippor" the word is followed by a list of animals with "bat" being the last one. The other animals are all "birds." It is obvious that the author is intending birds in his list and includes the bat as one of them.

 

So, you're telling me that the people who ate these creatures as a regular part of their diet didn't happen to notice that they had six feet rather than four? Apparently, they must have considered the jumping legs of a different class as the other four legs. I don't see that as a reason to deny God and the Bible.

 

You don't see any reason because you come at the Bible with the presupposition that it is holy and without error. The facts are the facts. Insects with six legs are being describes as insects with four legs in the Bible. It is an error. If you did not have this presupposition, you would see this. The language is simple. The error is plain.

 

Well. I'm done with LNC. It's no point.

 

I agree. As am I. May this thread rest in piece.

[Neon Genesis]

I think you may have also picked up some patience too, of which I myself have lost in this thread.

I'm still waiting for LNC to prove he's a true Christian by drinking poison and surviving but he's apparently ignoring me in my own thread. The bloody coward.

[Ouroboros]

L4A, you read Hebrew? That's very cool. I bet the only situation you feel you have any use for it now is the one like this... arguing interpretation of the Bible. *blargh*