Experiment.

[Tigger]

I too trust God and love him - always remembering that he first loved me and did good to and for me - nevertheless genocide? infanticide? what of the mothers and fathers of the first born of Egypt, babies as well as older first born children all allegedly killed at God's hand by a plague (or the angel of death). How is that good and loving as well as moral? I can see a way of dealing with the ten plagues by treating them as lessons in a story that may not have happened quite the way it is told or may not have happened in any way. That is a possible solution but it leaves the issue of reliability hanging because if one story in the bible is a metaphor presented to teach a moral lesson then why not many or even all of the stories and then the story of the Lord Jesus Christ becomes a possible victim of the metaphor hermeneutic.

Our original parents initiated sin and death and by extension us by our fallen natures are reaping what we sow. The demise of the Amaleks is no more brutal than a cigarette smoker dying a slow painful death.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Genocide? Was the flood just?

Do you think it was just to destroy everybody except for eight people because everybody - including babies and young children - was allegedly wicked?

God is protecting israel by leading an army against savages because they were a sacrificing babies and what not,

God appears to regard the people he orders killed as a sacrifice to him, a burnt offering, at least in some passages. God accepts Jephthah killing his daughter and burning her body as fulfilment of his vow.

the rape thing is also bunk, they took the virgins as wives because they might be unclean (literally, stds) otherwise... then Jews were very aware of impurity, most likely why foreskin was removed because of bacteria growth..

Forced 'marriage' is likely to be rape especially of young virgins after their family is killed by the army of Israel. Imagine yourself in their position and tell us if it is just and good and loving and moral to deal with them this way.

Atheist will argue "so and so left out this so he must disagree with so and so over here"... that is simply because the scrolls could only fit so much at a time and so certain things were probably left out due to limited space (or they would have to start a whole new scroll)...

Maybe. It is possible that limited space in the scrolls limited what could be included. But maybe that is not the reason. Luke and Matthew are much longer than Mark, is that because Mark just had a short scroll and Matthew a much longer one?

Also they don't like to take ancient testimonies and writings at any value at all, sadly they can quote Plato but "oh no, not those silly Christian text"... all of history came to us in written form so they lose that argument too.

Some atheists are like that, the one whose videos I posted recently is not, he apparently has read significant portions of the bible and is willing to give citations for his claims.

Richard Dawkins thought he had a case when he asked Christians who authored the first book of the NT, and then a fellow asked him what the full title of Origins of Species was and he couldn't remember, then he muttered "oh God" as in 'help me remember' lol those pesky 'Athesist'

I've never thought of Richard Dawkins as a Stirling example of rational atheism. He's a bit of a verbal brawler at times but he is polite about it.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Also the length of a scroll is about the length of Luke. The others come very close if not even the exact same length

Count the pages in your new testament gospels and it is obvious that they are not the same length. In me RSV Matthew is 30 pages, Mark is 19 pages, Luke is 32 pages, John is 23 pages. That is significant spread in lengths.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Our original parents initiated sin and death and by extension us by our fallen natures are reaping what we sow. The demise of the Amaleks is no more brutal than a cigarette smoker dying a slow painful death.

A smoker dies because of a health problem allegedly brought on by smoking. The Amalekites died by being run through with a spear, sword, or were killed by other weapons at the order, allegedly, of Jehovah through the prophet Samuel. That's a very different proximate cause. Disease is quite different from execution and murder. The former is not a crime but the last is and the middle may be a crime depending on why it was carried out. Yet God is held forth as the moral standard by which all human interactions are to be judged. As one scripture says "shall not the judge of all the earth do rightly?". It is rhetorical in its setting but the question has significance in this thread. Is God doing right when he kills babies and when he orders human adults to kill babies? It's a tough question to say "yes" to unless you adopt a view like the one expressed in post number 13. But how does that view differ from any human attempt to justify slaughter and genocide? Even a Nazi supporter can say "But the Jews deserved to die because they were, at the time, a plague on humanity and used their power and influence to destroy whole nations; so is it not justice to apply a surgical excision on them (metaphorically speaking) and remove them from the earth so that others may flourish?" Of course the pro Nazi argument is specious so why isn't the argument justifying genocide by God (the flood) and at God's command (the slaughter of every man, woman, child, and infant of the Amalekites) also specious?

 

[Andrew]

Count the pages in your new testament gospels and it is obvious that they are not the same length. In me RSV Matthew is 30 pages, Mark is 19 pages, Luke is 32 pages, John is 23 pages. That is significant spread in lengths.

Any thing less than the book of Luke is considered within the scroll limitations, Luke is about as much as you can fit in one scroll without starting a new one, btw you say pages but it also depends on the size of the font

 

[MoreCoffee]

Any thing less than the book of Luke is considered within the scroll limitations, Luke is about as much as you can fit in one scroll without starting a new one, btw you say pages but it also depends on the size of the font

Font size and page number are related but the relative lengths of the four gospels are not font size and page number bound. Matthew is longer than Mark, Luke is longer than both, John is shorter than Matthew and Luke but longer than Mark. The proportions are what does not change when font and page size varies. That was the point I made. It is valid.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Our original parents initiated sin and death and by extension us by our fallen natures are reaping what we sow. The demise of the Amaleks is no more brutal than a cigarette smoker dying a slow painful death.

I like this post because I like your avatar and because I really do sympathise with your argument even though I believe it is untenable. I know that God is good and he is Love as well as Truth and Life. Yet the holy scriptures really do contains a number of very troubling passages. They cannot be dismissed lightly not without the risk of undermining the whole of holy scripture as unreliable. I keep reminding readers that this is my view because I keep finding myself writing refutations or attempted refutations of the positions that good Christian people put forward to explain the horrific passages. Lord have mercy on us all yet doubt and questions arise because of what is written in the holy scriptures - would that there was a statement in them that said "I am the Lord your God and you shall do good and not evil never killing without absolute need and never mistreating anyone not keeping slaves not doing anything that is bad" and that we all knew was the formative and absolute foundation of the morality that God calls us to live.

 

[Albion]

Our original parents initiated sin and death and by extension us by our fallen natures are reaping what we sow.

That's a good way to put it. :thumbsup:

 

[Andrew]

Font size and page number are related but the relative lengths of the four gospels are not font size and page number bound. Matthew is longer than Mark, Luke is longer than both, John is shorter than Matthew and Luke but longer than Mark. The proportions are what does not change when font and page size varies. That was the point I made. It is valid.

Nevermind

 

[MoreCoffee]

Nevermind

I do not mind

 

[Tigger]

I like this post because I like your avatar and because I really do sympathise with your argument even though I believe it is untenable. I know that God is good and he is Love as well as Truth and Life. Yet the holy scriptures really do contains a number of very troubling passages. They cannot be dismissed lightly not without the risk of undermining the whole of holy scripture as unreliable. I keep reminding readers that this is my view because I keep finding myself writing refutations or attempted refutations of the positions that good Christian people put forward to explain the horrific passages. Lord have mercy on us all yet doubt and questions arise because of what is written in the holy scriptures - would that there was a statement in them that said "I am the Lord your God and you shall do good and not evil never killing without absolute need and never mistreating anyone not keeping slaves not doing anything that is bad" and that we all knew was the formative and absolute foundation of the morality that God calls us to live.

I agree there are some extremely difficult scriptures to deal with and with that said wouldn’t engage with an atheist who stubbornly wanted to defeat Christianity from that angle. When they approach it that way it shows me ‘typically’ their mindset and that they aren’t primed by the HS to receive the message of Christ. Without the HS scripture will fall on deaf ears.

 

[MoreCoffee]

I agree there are some extremely difficult scriptures to deal with and with that said wouldn’t engage with an atheist who stubbornly wanted to defeat Christianity from that angle. When they approach it that way it shows me ‘typically’ their mindset and that they aren’t primed by the HS to receive the message of Christ. Without the HS scripture will fall on deaf ears.

Do you think that having the Holy Spirit in some degree is necessary to understand the difficult passages? How exactly does the Holy Spirit help with such passages as the genocidal incidents recorded in the bible?

 

[Tigger]

Do you think that having the Holy Spirit in some degree is necessary to understand the difficult passages? How exactly does the Holy Spirit help with such passages as the genocidal incidents recorded in the bible?

Yes I would think it’s the HS in one way or another. First of all genocide or death for that matter is no problem to an omnipotent omniscient God. The problem comes in for the individual concerning their eternal existence. Sometimes on a natural level a person by their own willful blindness chooses not to see the simple answer right in front of their face. Sometimes I’ve seen something in a scripture I had never seen before even after many years of reading and studying that particular scripture. Once the Lord blessed me with His Divine energies and that gave me experiential understanding beyond personal study and sermons.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Yes I would think it’s the HS in one way or another. First of all genocide or death for that matter is no problem to an omnipotent omniscient God. The problem comes in for the individual concerning their eternal existence. Sometimes on a natural level a person by their own willful blindness chooses not to see the simple answer right in front of their face. Sometimes I’ve seen something in a scripture I had never seen before even after many years of reading and studying that particular scripture. Once the Lord blessed me with His Divine energies and that gave me experiential understanding beyond personal study and sermons.

And that made genocide okay?

 

[Tigger]

And that made genocide okay?

Don’t argue with me argue with God. veralls:

 

[Andrew]

And that made genocide okay?

God can do no evil so I say genocide in the bible is okay

 

[MennoSota]

Count the pages in your new testament gospels and it is obvious that they are not the same length. In me RSV Matthew is 30 pages, Mark is 19 pages, Luke is 32 pages, John is 23 pages. That is significant spread in lengths.

LOL

 

[MennoSota]

I agree there are some extremely difficult scriptures to deal with and with that said wouldn’t engage with an atheist who stubbornly wanted to defeat Christianity from that angle. When they approach it that way it shows me ‘typically’ their mindset and that they aren’t primed by the HS to receive the message of Christ. Without the HS scripture will fall on deaf ears.

In summary, unless God chooses to make them alive in Christ, they will remain dead in their trespasses and sins.

 

[MoreCoffee]

God can do no evil so I say genocide in the bible is okay

You approve of genocide if God does it and if God commands it.

 

[Andrew]

LOL

You can't laugh here we are having a very stern and serious conversation about the length of a scroll Menno!