A few questions for Christians

Originally posted by jmdewey60
You do know you are a moral relativist, right?
I was giving you some friendly advice in suggesting a book for you to read.
Maybe all the books you read on the OT were "safe" for fundamentalists books.

I am not a moral relativist, and I am not a fundamentalist, either.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
I was just reading a newly published, important, scholarly book on the OT tonight where the the author was quoting von Rad, so this is someone everyone who works on biblical criticism uses as a baseline, so to speak, for where to start from in most any sort of inquiry into the OT, so he is very influential, just as that blurb said, but you just don't read the right kind of books to know that.

I did not say that von Rad didn't do important works. I said that he doesn't qualify as "the most influential scholar". This is merely a marketting tool to sell books. Again, he works on the documentary hypothesis, and I consider it a solution seeking for a problem.

Originally posted by jmdewey60

God has no obligations whatsoever of keeping you, or anyone else, alive.

You are sure to win some souls with that philosophy. Not, I was being sarcastic.

I do not care. Reality doesn't care if you like it or not. Reality is. Things are the way that they are, and I don't compromise. I tell you the truth, because truth will set you free. Lies will only cause you to have your worldview shattered when reality shows you the truth.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
You are talking about people murdering other people because someone told them it was OK to do that. God does not work that way.

No. I am saying that God is always just when killing somebody. He has sovereign, period. He is the giver of life, and He has no obligations whatsoever of keeping you alive. You live by His mercy, and His mercy alone. If He decides to forgo such mercy towards you, He is entitled to do it. He has the sovereign right to terminate your life any time He wants, for no reason whatsoever but that He wants to do it. It is His right as the giver of life. So, it is pointless to discuss whether it is just for God to kill someone, or to order someone to be killed. It is always just.

Whether God "works that way" or not is debatable, but it does not change the fact that He has the right to do it.

This is a different argument than saying that those that kill in the name of God were telling the truth when they said that God ordered them to do the killing.

reply to post by Leahn

I am not a moral relativist . . .

Could have fooled me, while you are comparing one evil with another and saying your brand of evil is not any worse than someone else's brand of evil.

I said that he doesn't qualify as "the most influential scholar".

You probably have a different definition of scholar. But according to people I would consider a scholar, he is, but you have no way to know that if all you read is just reassurance for people to just keep on believing what they already believe in, which is not science but pablum.

Lies will only cause you to have your worldview shattered when reality shows you the truth.

And this is what you wish on people who do not agree with you? Have like what happened to the people who did not believe in Noah, the rains came down and the angel had shut the door? Just you wishing that on people, as a way to vindicate you and to punish those who did not listen to you means you will suffer the same punishment because you do not have a converted heart.

. . . it is pointless to discuss whether it is just for God to kill someone . . .

There is a point, if you were someone interested in the truth. We need to judge this fictional character in the story and decide if he is being evil or good. Once we get to the place where we can see that this portrayal is of an evil person, then we know to reject this as an accurate portrayal, not to bend our morality to fit it, for the sake of preserving an object of worship. That is idolatry, plain and simple, to worship a story. Salvation is to know Jesus, and the One who sent him. Those are the words of Jesus as told by the Gospel of John. It has him saying that for a reason and it also has him telling the temple priesthood that they are from below because they do not know God.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
Could have fooled me, while you are comparing one evil with another and saying your brand of evil is not any worse than someone else's brand of evil.

This is your strawman rendering of my argument, not my argument.

Originally posted by jmdewey60And this is what you wish on people who do not agree with you? Have like what happened to the people who did not believe in Noah, the rains came down and the angel had shut the door? Just you wishing that on people, as a way to vindicate you and to punish those who did not listen to you means you will suffer the same punishment because you do not have a converted heart.

God ordered me to spread the truth, not pretty lies. You can study and learn what the truth really is, or you can keep believing in your pretty lies until reality comes knocking, and then there will be crying, in the very same way that there was crying back in the days of Noah.

Originally posted by jmdewey60There is a point, if you were someone interested in the truth. We need to judge this fictional character in the story and decide if he is being evil or good.

Prove it is a fictional character.

reply to post by Leahn


You seem to know so much about the subject that I am compelled to ask why you and so many others refer to god as "he"?

reply to post by Leahn

God ordered me to spread the truth, not pretty lies.

I will believe in Jesus, thank you very much.
I really don't get too enthusiastic over modern day prophet teachers.
Now that does not mean I don't think that people should be their own prophets because I do. I think everyone should receive prophecy for their own personal use.

Originally posted by Garfee
reply to post by Leahn

 

You seem to know so much about the subject that I am compelled to ask why you and so many others refer to god as "he"?

That would be a bit redundant if you already have a female who created the universe. You need a male god to counterbalance it a bit.

Originally posted by Garfee
You seem to know so much about the subject that I am compelled to ask why you and so many others refer to god as "he"?

English does not possess a gender-neutral pronoum to refer to beings, and grammar dictates that one ought to default to the male pronoum in such situations. To bother with such fact is merely misandry.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
I will believe in Jesus, thank you very much.

Then you will believe me, since I do not teach any doctrine other than what he taugh.

Originally posted by Leahn

Originally posted by Garfee
You seem to know so much about the subject that I am compelled to ask why you and so many others refer to god as "he"?

English does not possess a gender-neutral pronoum to refer to beings, and grammar dictates that one ought to default to the male pronoum in such situations. To bother with such fact is merely misandry.

I don't believe that it is at all, in fact I consider it very important when all I hear from believers is how much they know and how it is fact.

If they can speak about something that may or may not have happened, thousands of years ago, interpreted in so many ways, translated time and again - as absolute fact - something so small as referring to god as male should be easier to answer than that.

Originally posted by Garfee
I don't believe that it is at all, in fact I consider it very important when all I hear from believers is how much they know and how it is fact.

If they can speak about something that may or may not have happened, thousands of years ago, interpreted in so many ways, translated time and again - as absolute fact - something so small as referring to god as male should be easier to answer than that.

Kierkegaard, "There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe a lie. The other is to refuse to believe the truth."

There is no easier answer than the truth. The Bible personalizes God both as male and as female in different occasions. Remember what is said in Genesis, "God created them in His image. Male and female He created them."

It is they, not he, who were created in God's image, which follows that God possesses both sides, and is the reason why the woman is complementary to the man. Together, they possess all of God's qualities.

God is neither male, nor female. He has no gender.

reply to post by Leahn


I'm enjoying your replies, I hope you don't take offense to how I ask questions on this subject

Can you imagine the uproar if there were a version of the bible that replaced 'He' with 'She'?!!

Originally posted by Garfee
reply to post by Leahn

 

I'm enjoying your replies, I hope you don't take offense to how I ask questions on this subject

Can you imagine the uproar if there were a version of the bible that replaced 'He' with 'She'?!!

Yes, I can. As I said, it would be a severe demonstration of misandry. It is grammatically correct to use "he" as a pronoum for a gender neutral being. It isn't grammatically correct to use "she" as a pronoum for a gender neutral being. "she" is always female. To replace "he" with "she" would indicate a denial of the male side of God's characteristics as it would establish God as only female.

reply to post by Leahn


Do you mean pronoun? I'm not sure what pronoum means.

I'd have thought 'it' would be more appropriate if god has no gender.

Originally posted by Garfee
reply to post by Leahn

 

Do you mean pronoun? I'm not sure what pronoum means.

I'd have thought 'it' would be more appropriate if god has no gender.

Yes, pronoun, sorry.

It isn't appropriate because it is destined to designate objects and animals, and God isn't either.

Here is the Wiktionary link for the correct usage of He:

1 (personal) Refers to a male person or animal already known or implied.

2 (personal) Refers to a person whose gender is unknown.

God is a person. Not an object or an animal. The use of "he" to designate God is the correct way in the absence of a gender-neutral pronoun.

reply to post by Leahn


I see.

'It' might be incorrect, but that little word could have saved so much time and hassle and maybe even lives over the millenia

This very conversation would have been heresy enough for us to be burned, torured or flogged I imagine. This is why I think it is no small thing.

Originally posted by Garfee
reply to post by Leahn

 

I see.

'It' might be incorrect, but that little word could have saved so much time and hassle and maybe even lives over the millenia

This very conversation would have been heresy enough for us to be burned, torured or flogged I imagine. This is why I think it is no small thing.

Maybe, maybe not. I do not think people understand what the Inquisition was about, and why it was important, even necessary, for it to exist. It was a sad thing, but I see many people applying two weights, two measures when the same attitudes are done by secular governments.

The French Reign of Terror was the atheist's own version of Inquisition, done against all religions in the name of "reason" and it killed about 12 times more people in its short duration of less than one year than the Spanish Inquisition (the one that people think of when they talk about 'Inquisition') killed in its over 300 years of existence.

According to the Wikipedia article on the Spanish Inquisition, despite its "bloody" nature, it killed a confirmed count of merely 1294 people. According to the Wikipedia article on the Reign of Terror, it killed an unconfirmed count of at least 16000 people, with some estimates going as far as 40000. We don't know the exact number because records were not kept.

The things that they accuse the Inquisition of, many of them myths, were actual practices of the "enlightened" leaders of the Reign of Terror (including the idea of 'convert or die'), but despite its far more murderous nature, I do not see any atheists rallying against it. Quite the opposite, actually.

Ya Atheists are responsible for the French Revolution and its aftermath.........

Ive heard some pretty desperate claims in the past, and this is right up there with the funniest

reply to post by Prezbo369


Ignorance of history is not an excuse when information is just a google query away.

You mean a google query that would lead me to a christian creationist website right?

Because that's the most likely place to find incorrect and dishonest distortions of history, or maybe you could find me a source that states that atheists were directly responsible for the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror due to their atheism?