Political Crossfire Forums

[Batarang Force]

A continuation of quotes from "The Sins of Scripture" book. The goal is to focus more on the isues that are brought forth and not to focus on the author... nobody cares about the author. It is the Bible that is the source of criticism here, nothing else. To discuss anything else is but a distraction from focusing on the terrible text found in the Bible or sins of scripture.

"Perhaps the strangest claim ever made for any written document in history is that its words are or somehow contain the “Word of God.”… Similar claims have also been made for the sacred writings of other religious traditions, but Christians have never taken these “pagan” claims seriously.

Somehow the claims coming from non-Christian sources are just too obviously absurd. One does not have to travel far, however, to hear the Christian version of this claim stated with liturgical precision. “This is the Word of the Lord.” That is the phrase that mainline Christian churches most frequently use following a reading from the Bible in the Sunday liturgy…

To call the Bible the “Word of God” is so commonplace in the tradition that t rolls off our tongues by rote with little thought as to what it means. However, when a debate begins in the church over some major social issue, the ultimate authority quoted most regularly is a biblical text. The assumption of these Bible quoters is that the Bible is in fact invested with the authority of God…

When some Christians say of the Bible, “This is the Word of God,” they mean quite literally that they believe this book was written or dictated by God and is therefore inerrant. That is the popular point of view asserted by America’s well-known television evangelists. One wonders, however, upon hearing that claim whether these people have ever read the entire biblical text!

… By “the sins of scripture” I mean those terrible texts that have been quoted throughout Christian history to justify behavior that is today universally recognized as evil.

I do not understand how anyone can saddle God with the assumptions that are made by the biblical authors, warped as they are both by their lack of knowledge and by the tribal and sexist prejudices of that ancient time. Do we honor God when we assume that the primitive consciousness found on the pages of scripture, even when it is attributed to God, is somehow righteous?

Do we really want to worship a God who plays favorites, who chooses one people to be God’s people to the neglect of all the others? When we portray the God of the Bible as hating everyone that the chosen people hate, is God well served?

Will our modern consciousness allow us to view with favor a God who could manipulate the weather in order to send the great flood that drowned all human lives save for Noah’s family because human life had become so evil God needed to destroy it? Can we imagine human parents relating to their wayward offspring in this manner?

Can we really worship the God found in the Bible who sent the angel of death across the land of Egypt to murder the firstborn males in every Egyptian household in order to facilitate the release of the chosen people?

Can the Bible still be of God when it portrays Joshua as stopping the sun in the sky for the sole purpose of allowing him the time to slaughter more of his enemies, the Amorites (Josh. 10:12-15)?

Can the Bible be the “Word of God” when it has Samuel order King Saul in the name of God to “Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass” (1 Sam. 15:3)?

Is it the “Word of God” when the Psalmist writes about the Babylonians who have conquered Judah: “Happy shall he be who requites you with what you have done to us! Happy shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rocks” (Ps. 137:8-9)

These are but a few of the questions I want the Bible quoters to answer. Is Christianity somehow irrevocably linked to this mentality because of our continuing claims for the Bible?

… According to the Bible one of these Internet offerings noted, it is permissible to sell one’s daughter into slavery (Exodus. 21: 7). It is of interst that sons as candidates for slavery are never mentioned. One may possess slaves, says the Bible, but only if they come from neighboring countries (Lev. 25:44). One wonders, as an American, if that makes both Canadians and Mexicans eligible!"

God be with you brothers and sistes. Let us rejoice in the holy word of our Lord that lets us kill in his name!

Batarang Force

[curisz]

Yup, as in any religious text the Bible contains both good and evil, wisdom and absurdity, and was most decidedly written my many very human beings over a great length of time. Is that necessarily a reason to reject the wisdom that is found there, particularly the teachings of Jesus? Nope.

But it does mean you have to take the thing with a goodly grain of salt, and laugh at those who want to pick and choose texts to support whatever personal moral agenda they might have.

[Batarang Force]

curisz wrote: Yup, as in any religious text the Bible contains both good and evil, wisdom and absurdity, and was most decidedly written my many very human beings over a great length of time. Is that necessarily a reason to reject the wisdom that is found there, particularly the teachings of Jesus? Nope.

But it does mean you have to take the thing with a goodly grain of salt, and laugh at those who want to pick and choose texts to support whatever personal moral agenda they might have.
I did not state anywhere to "to reject the wisdom that is found there". I am pointing out the evils that people, especially Christians, tend to be dismissive about. So, in answer to your question, "No" the evils there are not a reason to be dismissive towards the "good" things that are found in the Bible.

I see much more "picking and choosing" of texts to support the "goods" in the Bible than I ever hear about the evils in the Bible. The entire foundation of Christianity lies upon the words in the Bible. People just tend to have issues with the dirt and muck that lie under the rock. Instead, they want to talk about how pretty the rock looks on one side, ignoring the rest of the rock.

[John]

Quote: I am pointing out the evils that people, especially Christians, tend to be dismissive about.

The Bible tells the Truth. Sometimes the truth was ugly and to not look at and face what really happened...how are we to learn from it?

What you seem to NOT understand is the whole purpose of the Old Testament is to show us how evil we really are and that we NEED a Redeemer. It's the History of a chosen people who FAILED to do as they were told over and over again. By chosen....I believe it means that if ANYONE was going to be able to do...they would have...but they couldn't. Have you ever met a Jew? They're pretty strong willed.

[Batarang Force]

John wrote: Quote: I am pointing out the evils that people, especially Christians, tend to be dismissive about.

The Bible tells the Truth.
Is it the only truth? How does it way against the truth of other religions?
John wrote:
Sometimes the truth was ugly and to not look at and face what really happened...how are we to learn from it?
Which is my purpose here for I have not seen Christians willing to look at that which is ugly or hard to look at. Kind of like a corporation surrounded by "yesmen" where they refuse to look at their balance sheet or Profit & Loss statements or even like a family with an abusive father where they never talk about it. The talk is hard.
John wrote:
What you seem to NOT understand is the whole purpose of the Old Testament is to show us how evil we really are and that we NEED a Redeemer. It's the History of a chosen people who FAILED to do as they were told over and over again. By chosen....I believe it means that if ANYONE was going to be able to do...they would have...but they couldn't. Have you ever met a Jew? They're pretty strong willed.

It has always been my observation and experience that the Old Testament was there as an epic story and guideline for the Jews. A sense of identity. It is a history of the "chosen people", how easily it is to say that, and how they have deviated from the path of their god when they "FAILED to do as they were TOLD over and over again." See John... it is that specifically that I am partially referring to... the "being told what to do". Being TOLD by their god.

Does it not put into question some basic thoughts? Being told to do something by god... and being punished over and over again until you do what "he" says. Is that not worth a discussion as a potential sin of scripture?

To call themselves "the chosen people of god". Is this not strangely ethnocentric to you? John.. I ask you, you seem strong in your faith, I ask you... are you resistant to go down the path to inspect potential evils of the Bible? Why the resistance? If this were a corporation and you were a VP or CFO would you not welcome an inspection or investigation of the acts of the business, the business plan, the mission statement? For after the inspection you just might find that your house is in tip top shape... or you just might find that there is room for improvement.

Many an apostate have been made by such a questioning. I don't think that you believe the Bible is beyond questioning. I wonder if it is the fear of what lies on the other side.

Either way, I welcome your response... as long as it is honest.
Batarang Force

[eynon]

Batarang Force wrote: John wrote: Quote: I am pointing out the evils that people, especially Christians, tend to be dismissive about.

The Bible tells the Truth.
Is it the only truth? How does it way against the truth of other religions?
John wrote:
Sometimes the truth was ugly and to not look at and face what really happened...how are we to learn from it?
Which is my purpose here for I have not seen Christians willing to look at that which is ugly or hard to look at. Kind of like a corporation surrounded by "yesmen" where they refuse to look at their balance sheet or Profit & Loss statements or even like a family with an abusive father where they never talk about it. The talk is hard.
John wrote:
What you seem to NOT understand is the whole purpose of the Old Testament is to show us how evil we really are and that we NEED a Redeemer. It's the History of a chosen people who FAILED to do as they were told over and over again. By chosen....I believe it means that if ANYONE was going to be able to do...they would have...but they couldn't. Have you ever met a Jew? They're pretty strong willed.

It has always been my observation and experience that the Old Testament was there as an epic story and guideline for the Jews. A sense of identity. It is a history of the "chosen people", how easily it is to say that, and how they have deviated from the path of their god when they "FAILED to do as they were TOLD over and over again." See John... it is that specifically that I am partially referring to... the "being told what to do". Being TOLD by their god.

Does it not put into question some basic thoughts? Being told to do something by god... and being punished over and over again until you do what "he" says. Is that not worth a discussion as a potential sin of scripture?

To call themselves "the chosen people of god". Is this not strangely ethnocentric to you? John.. I ask you, you seem strong in your faith, I ask you... are you resistant to go down the path to inspect potential evils of the Bible? Why the resistance? If this were a corporation and you were a VP or CFO would you not welcome an inspection or investigation of the acts of the business, the business plan, the mission statement? For after the inspection you just might find that your house is in tip top shape... or you just might find that there is room for improvement.

Many an apostate have been made by such a questioning. I don't think that you believe the Bible is beyond questioning. I wonder if it is the fear of what lies on the other side.

Either way, I welcome your response... as long as it is honest.
Batarang Force

I for one used to be a Christian who was greatly troubled by many of the narratives of the Old-Testement. But the more I studied the topic and prayed about it the more I came to view the entire subject in a very different light. Like John said the OT is one heavy dose of reality in all it's brutal glory. The late-bronze and early-iron ages were not very nice times, blood and iron(or bronze) was the law of the time(go read the Illiad, a contemperarious work and even more violent and brutal).

The key thing is that the OT is a narrative about a people trying to survive in this harsh reality AND more importantly about their realtionship with God. Their lives come down to us as examples, often very flawed examples, but I find just as much wisdom in a life poorly-lived as one lived-well.

[psholtz]

John wrote: Have you ever met a Jew? They're pretty strong willed.
Have you?

Houston, TX isn't exactly Jew-Central, USA..

I thought you said once that Duchifas was the first Jew you had ever met in your life, online or offline..

[Batarang Force]

Eynon81 wrote: I for one used to be a Christian who was greatly troubled by many of the narratives of the Old-Testement. But the more I studied the topic and prayed about it the more I came to view the entire subject in a very different light. Like John said the OT is one heavy dose of reality in all it's brutal glory. The late-bronze and early-iron ages were not very nice times, blood and iron(or bronze) was the law of the time(go read the Illiad, a contemperarious work and even more violent and brutal).
The fact that the times mentioned were "not very nice" is not an excuse for you God to kill millions, or billions of people on a whim. You are not willing to look at the sins in the book you proclaim to respect and read. The Illiad is a mythological story. If only people looked at the Bible as mythology my point would not be an issue. But (many) people look to the Bible as if it were THE WORD OF GOD. Many people look to it for guidance, they look to it for what is proclaimed to be GOOD, while at the same time they gloss over the evils.

I am not saying the Bible is Chock Full of evil and nothing else. I am not proposing a discussion on the "good" that is in the Bible. I am merely presenting an opportunity for people to look at the evils and I am continuously set upon by people who refuse to even consider such an act.

Why is that? Is your faith in your own religeon, your own Bible so paper thin that it cannot stand up to scrutiny for sins?
Eynon81 wrote:
The key thing is that the OT is a narrative about a people trying to survive in this harsh reality AND more importantly about their realtionship with God. Their lives come down to us as examples, often very flawed examples, but I find just as much wisdom in a life poorly-lived as one lived-well.
It is more than a people's relationship with God, ... it is God's commandments! It is God's punishment if you don't play by his rules, and that punishment is death. I don't care about the narrative of people trying to connect to their God. This issue isn't about that. What I care about is presenting and unveiling the sins that are in the Bible and you are unwilling to discuss, much less look at what is there.

None of the responses have shown any type of reflection of the hint of the sins that I have presented. I begin to present a sin in my right hand and all I see are arguments about how great the fruit is in your left hand. You will not look at the sin in my right hand that I find in your book of faith. You will not discuss the sin from your faith.

Why is that?

No matter. The sins are there. It is your choice to ignore them. I will do my best to bring the truth forward.

[John]

psholtz wrote: John wrote: Have you ever met a Jew? They're pretty strong willed.
Have you?

Houston, TX isn't exactly Jew-Central, USA..

I thought you said once that Duchifas was the first Jew you had ever met in your life, online or offline..


Duchifas is the first practicing Orthodox Jew that I've ever had a conversation about religion. Mainly because I grew up on the side of town where the majority of the people were black...there was only like 5 or 6 white kids in the whole school....and I don't think any of them were Jews. Then I joined the Navy and met a few Jews but never really talked to any of them about religion. Growing up, my mom's best friend was a Jewish woman who had converted to Christianity (a very strong willed person indeed). And to top it off my grandfather was a Russian Jew who immigrated over here as child...and he was extremely strong willed.

Strong willed Jews have been pretty much the standard as far as my experience is concerned. Is yours different?

[John]

Quote: No matter. The sins are there. It is your choice to ignore them. I will do my best to bring the truth forward.


Do you even know what a sin is? It means to miss the mark with God, it means that your will is different that His will.

[lucidnightmare]

It's a contradiction to say "sins of scripture".To say something is a sin is to compare an action or idea to an ideal.What is your ideal?If something is in scripture and appears to be a "sin"in accordance with other scriptures you read it may be that we misunderstand the scripture to begin with.Thou shalt not kill is often used,when actually it is "thou shalt not murder".

Quote: Do we really want to worship a God who plays favorites

Imagine you are a being that has access to a lot more knowledge of human nature and the future than we as a humans have.

It is your goal to steer human development,to do so you have to act to favor those people who are or will in the future take human development to the most desirable place.

Quote: Can we really worship the God found in the Bible who sent the angel of death across the land of Egypt to murder the firstborn males

He was given ample chance to release them before it got to that point.As I said above ,this being had decided,if we were to accept scripture to use this group of people to influence human history,and they without a doubt have.They had to be freed at this point in their development.

About morality in general.I believe morality is situational and relative,but in a different way than it is usually understood.I always tell people that the choices in life isn't always between good and evil but sometimes bad and worse.That may be the position of a deity at times.

Look at so called natural evil.For thousands of years people would ask the question"how good a benevolent deity allow things like hurricanes and forest fires?Both kill people.We now understand though that without forest fires the forest will sap the soil and will die,after years of just fighting forest fires park rangers now light them for the health of the forest.Hurricanes distribute heat and cold over the earth and the consequences of stopping them would kill far more than the actual hurricanes.

Our understanding of the big picture is always limited.That is where faith comes in,which is everyones choice.To look at things with only logic (with limited information) you come to the conclusions that you have.


What if the message brought to us by these Prophets of old averted disasters that would be more destructive than anything done to ensure that that message reached human kind through them.

[Batarang Force]

John wrote: Quote: No matter. The sins are there. It is your choice to ignore them. I will do my best to bring the truth forward.


Do you even know what a sin is? It means to miss the mark with God, it means that your will is different that His will.
This is a continual deflection. I'm sorry it is not the focus of the thread to define "sin". If I were to say "Cola" is good, people have a pretty good idea what I'm talking about whether it is RC, Pepsi or Coke. To get into semantics does not further the goal of dialogue over the “sins” or “evils” of scripture.

Not trying to be rude, just focused.

[eynon]

Batarang Force wrote: John wrote: Quote: No matter. The sins are there. It is your choice to ignore them. I will do my best to bring the truth forward.


Do you even know what a sin is? It means to miss the mark with God, it means that your will is different that His will.
This is a continual deflection. I'm sorry it is not the focus of the thread to define "sin". If I were to say "Cola" is good, people have a pretty good idea what I'm talking about whether it is RC, Pepsi or Coke. To get into semantics does not further the goal of dialogue over the “sins” or “evils” of scripture.

Not trying to be rude, just focused.

ok, ok.....lets break it down then....one issue you bring up is the repeated order from God to destroy entire tribes of people, such as at Jerico. One thing I always found interesting is that in these instances God ordered the Hebrews not only to kill all the people, but to destroy all the livestock and property.
Standard protocal for a tribal peoples at war during that time would be to kill all the males of a defeated tribe and take all that tribes' women and stuff as loot. Yet the Hebrews are ordered not to do this.........no looting, just destruction.....weird huh?

maybe, but also consider that these instructions to the Isrealis when they are on the verge of even greater wars....against a Confederation of Cainanite kings after Jerico and the Philistines after the Amelek. In both cases the Hebrews were going up against enemies far more powerful then themselves.

So why destroy an easy enemy before going agaisnt a harder one? easy......it forges a tough and diciplined army. Killing people is hard to do, just on a pcycological level it's hard(go read "On Killing" by James Grossman). Soldiers, in particular, soldiers in irregular armies such as that of the Hebrews, will freeze in the face of the enemy and when the time comes, be unwilling to kill them. More-over soldiers of these style of armies would often be more concerned with loot then defeating their enemy....history is full of battles such as Kadesh or Gualgamela where one side was slaughtered simply because their troops were to busy looting and not fighting. These 2 factors would mean total destruction in the face of a tough and ruthless enemy such as the Philistines.

So how do you get around this? how do you assure that your army will be able to kill and focus on destroying their enemies? well the OT has a great example of how to do this.........destroy a smaller enemy entirely. As sick as it sounds if a militia man can kill a child he'll have no problem killing an enemy soldier. If he can burn the rich spoils of a defeated town, he'll totally ignore the oppertunity to loot an enemy camp at the height of a battle.

Sounds gross to us moderns, growing up as we do in our 2000 year old culture that values mercy and compassion. But that is our luck, a luck that didn't exist during the heat, dust, and blood of the ancient Middle-East.

[Batarang Force]

Excellent. Somebody responded to the actual issues in the original post. Great! Things always work much more better when people respond to the topic at hand!
lucidnightmare wrote: It's a contradiction to say "sins of scripture".To say something is a sin is to compare an action or idea to an ideal. What is your ideal? If something is in scripture and appears to be a "sin"in accordance with other scriptures you read it may be that we misunderstand the scripture to begin with.Thou shalt not kill is often used,when actually it is "thou shalt not murder".
Killing innocents is a good place to start. It happens by the tens of thousands quite frequently. However, you are talking about semantics which is not the focus. Let us just all agree on what "sin" is and the the "scriptures" is just another term for the Bible. We could say "evils" in the old and new testaments, but "Sins of Scriptures" has such a nice ring to it.. .don't you think?

lucidnightmare wrote:
Batarang Force wrote: Do we really want to worship a God who plays favorites
Imagine you are a being that has access to a lot more knowledge of human nature and the future than we as a humans have.

It is your goal to steer human development, to do so you have to act to favor those people who are or will in the future take human development to the most desirable place.

So then you do want to worship a God who plays favorites. It didn't sound like you said a "no". "those who are seated at the right hand of the Father". Basically... those who do as God says... are not killed. If you do not do what he says, you are punished or killed. When do we ever stop and think about that? Is the concept ok for you? Do you "punish or kill" your children when they do not do what you say?

When Lot's wife turned to look at Soddom and Gamorah what happened? She was turned into a pillar of salt! It wasn't God who told her "to not look back" it was one of his angels. AND... they didn't even tell her [them] what the consequences are for looking at the city of innocents being killed by the hand of God! Moses was not let into the "holy land"! Why?

Literally, I'm asking this to you all. Why was Moses refused entry into the "holy land" after he led his people, "the chosen people" out of Egypt? [$10 bucks says none of you guys answer cause you know the answer s*cks!]

You talk about "imagining we are a being with access to more knowledge than we could possibly know. Basically you're saying, "who are we to question the ways of the lord?", are you not? Who are we?? We are people who have been endowed with reason and intellect, keep in mind that we have "eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil", we have been "looked upon by God and God said that we were good". It is less about God knowing more than us. It is more about us knowing right from wrong and us calling the Bible on the evils that lie dormant within it's pages.

lucidnightmare wrote:
Batarang Force wrote: Can we really worship the God found in the Bible who sent the angel of death across the land of Egypt to murder the firstborn males

He was given ample chance to release them before it got to that point. As I said above, this being had decided, if we were to accept scripture to use this group of people to influence human history, and they without a doubt have.They had to be freed at this point in their development.

So, you put the responsability on the innocent Egyptians, "hey, you guys had plenty of time to leave... you should have left long ago! IT'S NOT GOD'S FAULT THAT YOU WERE IN THE WAY WHEN HE SENT HIS MISSLES DOWN ON YOU [Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Baghdad!] They were innocents! What part of "Thou Shall Not Kill do you not understand? If killing is wrong, where does the killing of innocents stand on the scale of sins and evils?

lucidnightmare wrote:
About morality in general. I believe morality is situational and relative, but in a different way than it is usually understood. I always tell people that the choices in life isn't always between good and evil but sometimes bad and worse. That may be the position of a deity at times.
"Morality is relative" ..... yes, I believe you are right... it CAN be relative at times. Other times, it is just plain black and white, not relative or subjective. The killing of innocents is wrong. It is wrong in the U.S., it is wrong in Mexico, it is wrong in Iraq, it was wrong 2,000 years ago and it will always be wrong. There is no argument that can make the killing of innocents not wrong. It might, MIGHT, be necessary at times [which is a totally different argument and not intended for this forum] but it is still, never the less, wrong. A society's culture is a poor excuse for commiting a universal evil.

lucidnightmare wrote:
Look at so called natural evil. For thousands of years people would ask the question"how good a benevolent deity allow things like hurricanes and forest fires? Both kill people. We now understand though that without forest fires the forest will sap the soil and will die,after years of just fighting forest fires park rangers now light them for the health of the forest. Hurricanes distribute heat and cold over the earth and the consequences of stopping them would kill far more than the actual hurricanes.
This can be explained in four different ways:

God is conducting a test tube experiment and we are all farm ants. Literally, this is one of the choices, unattractive but still a plausible answer.
God is insane and enjoys tormenting people. Literally.
There are multiple gods, as it says there are in the Bible, not just one. One is responsible for hurricanes, another for forest fires, another for the sea, and another for the winds and each god occasionally triumphs over another at times.
There is no god and it is only us here by ourselves.

These are our choices. Look them over, think about it, see if you can come up with any other choices before getting your undies tied in a knot, and then respond if you wish.
lucidnightmare wrote:
Our understanding of the big picture is always limited.That is where faith comes in,which is everyones choice.To look at things with only logic (with limited information) you come to the conclusions that you have.
Our understanding is limited of anything, yes. But we have the capability of reason and questioning and finding conclusions. To use the statement of “who are we, of such small intellect, to ask or question the actions of our Lord” as an excuse to… well, basically as an excuse to not ask questions is a cop out. It is a deliberate choice to keep one’s head in the sand. We are humans, endowed with reason, God’s favorite creation, and for some reason we cannot question him on his acts?
lucidnightmare wrote:
What if the message brought to us by these Prophets of old averted disasters that would be more destructive than anything done to ensure that that message reached human kind through them.
Let me put it this way. Does God favor the antelope or the lion? Does he obviously hate the antelope so much, that they are cursed with a life of surely being eaten alive by the lion? Does God favor the lion so much that they are to kill at their pleasure. Kill an innocent just to satisfy the needs of their stomach?

Your God plays favorites. Your God kills innocents with relish as if they were chips to be bartered over, i.e. see Soddom and Gamorrah when Abraham was haggling with God, getting him down from 50 innocents down to 10 before killing the entire city. No concept of rehabilitation. Just “Kill them all and let me sort them out” mentality.

I thank you LucidNightmare for responding to the topic at hand.

[lucidnightmare]

Quote: So then you do want to worship a God who plays favorites. It didn't sound like you said a "no". "those who are seated at the right hand of the Father". Basically... those who do as God says... are not killed. If you do not do what he says, you are punished or killed.

No,it's not about who deserves what,in fact the people who are "gods own"seem to die as often or sometimes more often than others.

It's about the macrocosm,who Will steer the system as a whole in the direction this being wishes it to go.He/she would even use the evil to those ends(even in the bible it speaks of God using pagan tribes around the Jews to punish them for their crimes).

God wouldn't value our temporal life as much as we do(knowing that our souls are eternal) and would be willing to or be obligated to allow suffering if it severed a greater purpose.

I just try to think from the perspective of God(as feeble as it is).

It appears that God does not like to deal with humans directly,or at least overtly for whatever reason.So he has to act through willing people and events.

Events are so intertwined and complex that it is hard to pick out what good and evil is in the totality of things.

Most of our medical knowledge was learned from wars,are wars good or bad?The knowledge we gained from them has likely saved more lives than they have taken.But god could stop wars and teach us another way couldn't he?But any action has subjective negative and positive results for us.

I don't really believe in good and evil on an objective scale,I believe that we live in a dynamic system and even "evil" has a role and even if not good is needed and appropriate.

In a personal sense I know some things are wrong and right.But this system we live in thrives off death and decay.It just does.It's never "good'.But has to be.

Respond to the rest later.Good points

[Batarang Force]

Most excellent. Another person focusing on the nitty and the gritty instead of deflecting.
Eynon81 wrote: Batarang Force wrote: John wrote: Quote: No matter. The sins are there. It is your choice to ignore them. I will do my best to bring the truth forward.


Do you even know what a sin is? It means to miss the mark with God, it means that your will is different that His will.
This is a continual deflection. I'm sorry it is not the focus of the thread to define "sin". If I were to say "Cola" is good, people have a pretty good idea what I'm talking about whether it is RC, Pepsi or Coke. To get into semantics does not further the goal of dialogue over the “sins” or “evils” of scripture.

Not trying to be rude, just focused.

ok, ok.....lets break it down then....one issue you bring up is the repeated order from God to destroy entire tribes of people, such as at Jerico. One thing I always found interesting is that in these instances God ordered the Hebrews not only to kill all the people, but to destroy all the livestock and property.
Eggs-Zactly! That is just but one item of something that I would bring up.

Eynon81 wrote:
Standard protocal for a tribal peoples at war during that time would be to kill all the males of a defeated tribe and take all that tribes' women and stuff as loot. Yet the Hebrews are ordered not to do this.........no looting, just destruction.....weird huh?

Maybe, but also consider that these instructions to the Isrealis when they are on the verge of even greater wars....against a Confederation of Cainanite kings after Jerico and the Philistines after the Amelek. In both cases the Hebrews were going up against enemies far more powerful then themselves.
... when we are talking about wars in the Bible that do not refer to God's orders, then there could be all sorts of contemplating about military strategy and the proper way to take over a nation. All of which are not the issues here. Maybe I should tighten the perceived definition of “Sins of Scripture” here. When I am talking about “Sins” I am referring to specific times when “God” is taking a personal interest in the acts of the humans by either:

Ordering humans to kill other humans who do not deserve to die, i.e. Caananites, innocents etc.
Ordering humans to sacrifice, or attempt to sacrifice, other humans to God, Yahweh etc.
Or just plain killing innocents or people in general because they didn’t do what God told them to, or blatantly went against his orders, i.e. by masturbating and ejaculating on the ground, which does not seem to be a severe enough infraction of “the law” to warrant death.

That is basically what I mean by “Sins of Scripture”. Now, again, we aren’t here to talk about battle plans or tactics. We are here to talk about, and discuss… in a nut shell, “are the parts in the Bible where God condones, supports, orders or conducts MURDER (especially of innocents) wrong and evil?” Now, we don’t need to go into the specifics of each war, unless God is taking a more specific role that might be worthy of drawing attention to itself as a blatant act of evil or a sin, we don’t need to go into specifics when we can talk about the generalities of the situation.

When God tells his people, whether it is his “chosen people” or any group of people, “to go to war” we are condoning killing. Again, I ask you, “What part of ‘THOU SHALL NOT KILL’ do you not understand?” It wasn’t, “Thou shall not kill unless I order you to” or “in the following exceptions”. No. It was, “Though shall not kill”.

Now…. We all know that killing is wrong. (Yes, yes, I hear your “yeah buts”! It doesn’t matter: self defense, in time of war, when somebody threatens to harm or kill another, when a cop pulls a gun out….. etc. It doesn’t matter. We have, in general, all come together and accepted that “killing is just something that should not be done because it is wrong”. Do not read into it, do not create scenarios, keep it simple…. “Thou Shall Not Kill” is a pretty darn good rule to live by, don’t you think?)

But… we have God telling the “Chosen People” to kill the Canaanites.

Is this wrong. Literally, I’m asking you. Is this wrong?

The same concepts apply to Jericho, Philistines, Amelek and so forth. If God is telling people to kill… is this not wrong?

[Batarang Force]

lucidnightmare wrote: Batarang Force wrote: So then you do want to worship a God who plays favorites. It didn't sound like you said a "no". "those who are seated at the right hand of the Father". Basically... those who do as God says... are not killed. If you do not do what he says, you are punished or killed.

No, it's not about who deserves what, in fact the people who are "gods own"seem to die as often or sometimes more often than others.

It's about the macrocosm, who Will steer the system as a whole in the direction this being wishes it to go.He/she would even use the evil to those ends(even in the bible it speaks of God using pagan tribes around the Jews to punish them for their crimes).
I disagree. It is not about Macro or Microcosims. It is not about "Gods own people" dying as much as others. It is not about "steering the planet in the direction of God's will....how could anyone know what God's will is for you stated in your earlier statement the same thing in opposition to questioning God. "Imagine you are a being that has access to a lot more knowledge of human nature and the future than we as a humans have." Now, I will have to cry Foul here and simply state "that you cannot have your cake and eat it too!" You cannot state "who are we to question the almighty God for he knows so much more than we do" when it suits you and then turn around and state "there are some chosen people who serve God's purpose for we know his purpose and we are on his path." The quotes are my summations of many Christians arguments, I think you get the general idea of what I'm saying here. So.... "foul".

lucidnightmare wrote:
God wouldn't value our temporal life as much as we do(knowing that our souls are eternal) and would be willing to or be obligated to allow suffering if it severed a greater purpose.
1) How do you know what God values? Literally.... how would you, or anyone know what God values?
2) How could suffering serve a greater purpose? Literally, I'm asking you this as a direct question? How could suffering serve a greater purpose? You could respond with... well on Star Trek II Spock gave his life for the Enterprise and her crew. Although he underwent a minimal amount of suffering, he had an obvious amount to warrant earning the title that "he suffered, then he died". This would be a case where "suffering might serve a greater good" or "the suffering of one allowed for the greater good of many to survive". We know that suffering is not a good thing. It is unpleasant, hence the name.
lucidnightmare wrote:
I just try to think from the perspective of God(as feeble as it is).

It appears that God does not like to deal with humans directly,or at least overtly for whatever reason. So he has to act through willing people and events.
This appears to me to be incorrect. You might say, "God has not appeared to talk to as many people in the last 15 centuries as he did during the first five centuries." But that's about it. He has dealt with humans numerous times and has ordered them to either be killed or has killed them himself or by proxy, i.e. Soddom. He has taken a direct role in people's deaths... including innocents.

When you say "God has to..." Let us refresh our learning... God is supposed to be an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omnipresent being. God doesn't have to do anything. Am I wrong here? Please correct me if I am.
lucidnightmare wrote:
Events are so intertwined and complex that it is hard to pick out what good and evil is in the totality of things.
I am sorry... this is a cop out. We all know what good and evil are. Stop shaking your head! You are not a sheep. We are not toads. We are not lemmings. We are human beings with minds, intellect and reason. We KNOW when we are doing wrong. At every step of the way, we know when we have done wrong... we just don't want to be responsible for it and it is statements like the one you just made which allows us to run rampant without responsibility. This is not me crying foul! This is me saying, "You should know better and shame on you for even thinking that."
lucidnightmare wrote:
Most of our medical knowledge was learned from wars, are wars good or bad?
Wars are bad. Wars are unfortunate. Yes, even "Just wars", even wars against Hitler, all of them. Why?.... come on people... it's not that hard. Set your emotions aside... why are wars bad? Imagine you are asking a 9 year old.

"Suzie...., hi suzie, I want you to answer me... are wars good or bad?"
".... wars are bad!"
"Excellent Suzie! Thank you for being honest! Now... please tell me... why are wars bad?"
".... because people die and it's wrong to kill people!"

So lovely! Thank you Suzie. I won't even go into the killing of innocents in wars (since more innocents die in every war than soldiers.... yes they do). I won't go into fighting evil blah blah blah, again, this isn't about justification etc. It is about right or wrong.

In a nut shell... wars are wrong but we sometimes have to do the wrong thing to prevent long term suffering or to stop evil in it's tracks, i.e. Hitler. Not every German soldier was a corrupt Nazi. Keep that in mind. And not every American soldier was a saint. I speak this as a veteran trained to kill people, not as a civilian playing arm chair quarterback nor as a REMF.
lucidnightmare wrote:
The knowledge we gained from them has likely saved more lives than they have taken.But god could stop wars and teach us another way couldn't he?But any action has subjective negative and positive results for us.
Yes... we heard the same thing from the studies of Hitler... and it is wrong to use such "enlightenment". War is wrong, innocents die.
lucidnightmare wrote:
I don't really believe in good and evil on an objective scale, I believe that we live in a dynamic system and even "evil" has a role and even if not good is needed and appropriate.
That is sad. I do. And I will stop evil wherever I can, even to the point of killing. We have reason and can learn the lessons of evil without having to go there.
lucidnightmare wrote:
In a personal sense I know some things are wrong and right. But this system we live in thrives off death and decay. It just does.It's never "good'.But has to be.
Death and decay is not murder or the condoning of murder, especiall of innocents. We are not innocents, none of us are, in the eyes of death. But... in the eyes of God and other humans, the murder of innocents is wrong, it is evil, and it should be stopped.

lucidnightmare wrote:
Respond to the rest later. Good points
Thank you. Thank you for responding to the topic. I am afraid that I will be offending many, if not all, of you Christians, if I have not already. I will not apologize... I will apologize for being rude, which I will try not to in the future, but I cannot apologize for the things that I bring up. I tell you now… although I am baptized Roman Catholic, went to private grade and high school, and am currently reading the Bible… I am no friend of the church. In fact, you just might say I am the exact opposite. However, even if I am “an enemy of the state” I do not wish to be rude. I simply wish to bring up topics that I think are more important, that are often ignored.

The murder of innocents is condoned by God in the Bible. And I will show you.

[sLiPpY]

Batarang Force wrote: curisz wrote: Yup, as in any religious text the Bible contains both good and evil, wisdom and absurdity, and was most decidedly written my many very human beings over a great length of time. Is that necessarily a reason to reject the wisdom that is found there, particularly the teachings of Jesus? Nope.

But it does mean you have to take the thing with a goodly grain of salt, and laugh at those who want to pick and choose texts to support whatever personal moral agenda they might have.
I did not state anywhere to "to reject the wisdom that is found there". I am pointing out the evils that people, especially Christians, tend to be dismissive about. So, in answer to your question, "No" the evils there are not a reason to be dismissive towards the "good" things that are found in the Bible.

I see much more "picking and choosing" of texts to support the "goods" in the Bible than I ever hear about the evils in the Bible. The entire foundation of Christianity lies upon the words in the Bible. People just tend to have issues with the dirt and muck that lie under the rock. Instead, they want to talk about how pretty the rock looks on one side, ignoring the rest of the rock.

Picking and choosing is the highest of Christian traditions. i.e. The Book of Acts goes into quite some detail as to whether Gentiles were acceptable followers of Christ? It's not even a question any more, but that doesn't mean there aren't millions of Gentile Christians today who agonize over whether to cut their infant's little winky skin off. :?

Makes you wonder why they choose to ignore James (Jesus's brother) compromise that allowed Gentiles to be Christian without any winky choppn going on.

Then we have John Marc, who ignored most of Paul's letters and reinterpreted Pauline doctrine.

It goes on and on and on and on and on... btw...I'll be glad when the New Testiment class I'm taking is over. Reading and comparing the contradictions between gospels is giving me a massive headache, and I hope never to ever, read the darn thing from front to back again! *ouch I need an aspirin.*

[eynon]

Batarang Force wrote: Most excellent. Another person focusing on the nitty and the gritty instead of deflecting.
Eynon81 wrote: Batarang Force wrote: John wrote: Quote: No matter. The sins are there. It is your choice to ignore them. I will do my best to bring the truth forward.


Do you even know what a sin is? It means to miss the mark with God, it means that your will is different that His will.
This is a continual deflection. I'm sorry it is not the focus of the thread to define "sin". If I were to say "Cola" is good, people have a pretty good idea what I'm talking about whether it is RC, Pepsi or Coke. To get into semantics does not further the goal of dialogue over the “sins” or “evils” of scripture.

Not trying to be rude, just focused.

ok, ok.....lets break it down then....one issue you bring up is the repeated order from God to destroy entire tribes of people, such as at Jerico. One thing I always found interesting is that in these instances God ordered the Hebrews not only to kill all the people, but to destroy all the livestock and property.
Eggs-Zactly! That is just but one item of something that I would bring up.

Eynon81 wrote:
Standard protocal for a tribal peoples at war during that time would be to kill all the males of a defeated tribe and take all that tribes' women and stuff as loot. Yet the Hebrews are ordered not to do this.........no looting, just destruction.....weird huh?

Maybe, but also consider that these instructions to the Isrealis when they are on the verge of even greater wars....against a Confederation of Cainanite kings after Jerico and the Philistines after the Amelek. In both cases the Hebrews were going up against enemies far more powerful then themselves.
... when we are talking about wars in the Bible that do not refer to God's orders, then there could be all sorts of contemplating about military strategy and the proper way to take over a nation. All of which are not the issues here. Maybe I should tighten the perceived definition of “Sins of Scripture” here. When I am talking about “Sins” I am referring to specific times when “God” is taking a personal interest in the acts of the humans by either:

Ordering humans to kill other humans who do not deserve to die, i.e. Caananites, innocents etc.
Ordering humans to sacrifice, or attempt to sacrifice, other humans to God, Yahweh etc.
Or just plain killing innocents or people in general because they didn’t do what God told them to, or blatantly went against his orders, i.e. by masturbating and ejaculating on the ground, which does not seem to be a severe enough infraction of “the law” to warrant death.

That is basically what I mean by “Sins of Scripture”. Now, again, we aren’t here to talk about battle plans or tactics. We are here to talk about, and discuss… in a nut shell, “are the parts in the Bible where God condones, supports, orders or conducts MURDER (especially of innocents) wrong and evil?” Now, we don’t need to go into the specifics of each war, unless God is taking a more specific role that might be worthy of drawing attention to itself as a blatant act of evil or a sin, we don’t need to go into specifics when we can talk about the generalities of the situation.

When God tells his people, whether it is his “chosen people” or any group of people, “to go to war” we are condoning killing. Again, I ask you, “What part of ‘THOU SHALL NOT KILL’ do you not understand?” It wasn’t, “Thou shall not kill unless I order you to” or “in the following exceptions”. No. It was, “Though shall not kill”.

Now…. We all know that killing is wrong. (Yes, yes, I hear your “yeah buts”! It doesn’t matter: self defense, in time of war, when somebody threatens to harm or kill another, when a cop pulls a gun out….. etc. It doesn’t matter. We have, in general, all come together and accepted that “killing is just something that should not be done because it is wrong”. Do not read into it, do not create scenarios, keep it simple…. “Thou Shall Not Kill” is a pretty darn good rule to live by, don’t you think?)

But… we have God telling the “Chosen People” to kill the Canaanites.

Is this wrong. Literally, I’m asking you. Is this wrong?

The same concepts apply to Jericho, Philistines, Amelek and so forth. If God is telling people to kill… is this not wrong?

actually it's "thou shall not murder"............and I don't really agree with the premise that "killing is wrong".....as you pointed out there are many senerios where killing can be justified. And when I really, really get down to it I find that the Hebrews killing off Jerico more justified then say our bombing campange against Japan during WW2. We were never threatened with complete destruction at the hands of the Japanese, yet destroyed whole cities. The Hebrews were almost constantly on the edge, they had to have a diciplined and blooded army in order to survive........drastic times call for drastic measures you know.

If it was between killing an old-woman in Jerico and having my wife and child be raped, murdered, or sold into slavery, I would kill the old woman.