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originally posted by: Jimjolnir
a reply to: Cuervo
I find this rather interesting! Don't think I've heard it quite like that before. Do you have some links to anything that covers this?
originally posted by: jmdewey60
a reply to: dieseldykJob is not actual history but is a parable about Israel, using the shortened version of Jacob, who was the original "Israel", to describe the spiritual goings-on behind the scenes of the destruction of Israel and Judea by the Assyrians and the Babylonians.
God tests everyone, at all times. If you take the book of Job, as an a example, you have to ask the question, was God testing Job? or was God testing Satan?
Which god of the various contributors of the Old Testament made this new deal?
What most people do not understand is that the God of the OT made a deal with the barbaric Hebrews which we see as a covenant. Now that deal is not the same deal that the same God made in the NT.
Because it can't. It is not because God wills to permit it.
In His perfect will He would love to see all people agree totally but then He knows that it will never be done on this earth.
I don't expect people to necessarily agree, as you mentioned, but to look at alternatives.
. . . you have given me an awful lot to reconsider at times.
Right, I did say that, and it doesn't make me happy saying thing things like that, and I wish that I was wrong.
You accuse me of being a Luciferian rather that a Christian because I said knowledge came from evil?
Where do you get that? I would suggest forgetting all that mythology because it isn't exactly helpful.
Why would God create Evil knowing that His very first celestial creation would embrace this disobedience?
That just means that Judea wasn't destroyed by the Babylonians because Marduk was stronger than YHWH.
Isaiah_45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
They were doomed to die on that day, when they got sent out into the harsh reality of the world outside the garden.
Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
originally posted by: Evanzsayz
I know the Old Testament is pathetic, you think God would of let whoever was writing the Bible know that the Earth was round first.
I wonder if God would let the Pope (not present) into heaven for starting wars that led to millions dying? This is the filth people cling onto, nothing more than mideval mind control.
To me it is obvious, but that is just me, and I did not arrive at that until after studying the book and thinking about it a lot.
Is Job a Parable? sure, why not.
Text Which god of the various contributors of the Old Testament made this new deal? You just got through saying that Christianity is "a dumping ground for all sorts of ideas." Do you think that the Jews or Israelites or Hebrews or whoever were somehow immune to the same problem that you feel Christians are subject to?
Text Because it can't. It is not because God wills to permit it. How would God not permit it (if He so willed), short of just killing everyone?
TextWhere do you get that? I would suggest forgetting all that mythology because it isn't exactly helpful. Things are just bad, that's the nature of things, and there isn't really anything to be done about it in the short term. In the beginning was the abyss, which was chaos. It was subdued to a point but never completely vanquished, simply because of unforeseen negative repercussions, such as things we don't know of that feeds off of chaos, that are important to sustaining the universe in general.
TextI just got the book in the mail today that I ordered, Peoples of an Almighty God: Competing Religions in the Ancient World (Anchor Bible Reference Library) by Jonathan Goldstein, that dwells on this very thing for 500 pages.
TextThey were doomed to die on that day, when they got sent out into the harsh reality of the world outside the garden. How I reconcile it is by assuming that The Lord did not put the evil tree in the garden but grew up on its own, as an outpost of the harsh world, inside the plush world of the confines of the garden. The first parents were unknowing lured outside by an attraction which would have been better ignored.
This wording here makes the statement contradict what you just said before that.
As a created creature you and I are at His mercy regardless of how distasteful that is to you.
That just comes out of nowhere, as far as I can tell.
As far as choice is concerned, God was not compelled to do anything at anytime. He chooses to do at His pleasure because He is the Creator.
Can you understand what the word "myth" means?
I did say - "Why would God create Evil knowing that His very first celestial creation would embrace this disobedience?"
and you gave no comprehensible answer.
This is the sort of thing that makes me think you are preaching a Luciferian gospel. What makes you think God "created sin"?
The answer is that God in His foreknowledge did know that the celestial host would sin even before He created sin.
I find this stuff very uninteresting so don't expect me to give an answer.
This was then introduced to the terrestrial creation through the host that was cast to the earth and into the garden.
You might want to study the actual Bible some time, then you would know all of this, what it actually says about the things that you see coming back in Revelation.
By your answer it is clear to me that you have no understanding in the matter of the true Christianity.
Well, what in the world do you think it is talking about?
I gave you the scripture - "Isaiah_45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things" and you gave nothing in return except to tell me - "That just means that Judea wasn't destroyed by the Babylonians because Marduk was stronger than YHWH."
I wasn't "very aware" of his work until I ran across this book, which just happens to be about something that I am interested in, and it matters not that he is Jewish since the book is not about Christian topics, though it does affect the thinking of some Christians as evidenced by your post and how you misinterpret something that should be obvious to anyone reading the entire book of Isaiah.
I am very much aware of Jonathan A. Goldstein's work and I also am aware of the fact that he is originally from the Jewish Theological Seminary. God rest his soul. I know that much of his work is highly controversial in the scholarly field of history and I doubt that his interest was ever with Christianity whatsoever.
You should look at several translations of Genesis 2:9 and notice that there are two ways to translate it, where one way it is clear that it does not specifically say that The Lord put it there. It just says that in the midst of all these trees, there were the two trees, one of life and the other the deadly one, without saying how they got there.
You tell me that God did not put the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden but it grew there all by itself. I think you had best reconsider your education of the scriptures.
originally posted by: DarknStormy
a reply to: theyknowwhoyouare
Maybe you should read the verses before the one you quoted. Like these ones
"I will punish the world for it's evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will halt the arrogance of the proud, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible - Isaiah 13;11
God is willing to punish evil with evil.
Very good.This is one of many reasons the flood as described in the bible could not have happened.Because ocean life would have all been dead.You see,if it rained as much as they said it did in that book then all salt water would have been watered down far too much for salt water fish to survive.We would not have the sea life we do today if the flood happened like as described in the bible.
originally posted by: Aleister
The biggest serial killing by god was the flood that killed every human and animal and plant on earth, except for a few members of one family. Satan, if there is such a cat, must have been shaking his head at the hideousness of this deed. Drowning everything that lived on land, I'm surprised he didn't have it in for the ocean life as well.
originally posted by: OptimusSubprime
a reply to: Akragon
I've actually read the book...a lot. I study the Bible pretty much everyday, and you couldn't be more wrong.
"Vengeful" can mean "bringing about justice".
It says that god is infinitely forgiving, and then he's a vengeful god.
Obviously He doesn't, and even the Bible doesn't make that claim.
Because god has infinite power, he should be able to eradicate suffering . . .
originally posted by: ctophil
a reply to: theyknowwhoyouare
As discussed by my some of my brothers and sisters here, the god in the Old Testament is not what whom you think he happened to be. I am about to tell you a few things that may shock you, or you may already know about it. Firstly, you may already know that Yahweh was not the Creator. He was a god who was assigned to look after Earth at that time period. Though he was powerful since he was a god, he had many human traits due to a being who existed in the 3rd dimension just like us. He was jealous, chose the people liked or disliked, strict to the core, and even hated most human beings and wanted some of us dead. However, as awful as that seems to be, Yahweh listened to people who were loyal and followed his laws. There was love in his heart, but in his own way.
So with this understanding, the True Creator is not at all like the god in the Old Testament. The Creator of this Universe, in fact, live in an entirely different reality that is ONENESS compared to this world with Polarity (always splitting the ideas of Good, Evil, or just Neutral). Have you not heard of the unconditional Love of our Creator? This unconditional Love is very different from the Love you are used to where it requires others to do something for you. The mentality of scratching my back and I'll scratch yours is the essence of Duality Consciousness we live here.
In Heaven where there is no Duality (the 5th Dimension and where the first world of true God Consciousness), you will finally realize that Good and Evil don't exist, but are merged together into ONENESS. Yes, there is still Duality in the 4th Dimension, but much less. In times past, Archangel Michael represented the Light while Archangel Lucifer represented the Darkness. But neither are better than the other in God's Eye. Because they are here to help us understand the two sides of the coin, but yet it is just a Single coin.