People forget that the Devil, Satan, whatever you would call that personification, gets all his power from the same electric company as Jesus Christ did.... One God, everything flows from that One God..... Without God's allowing that power to flow, there would be no Heaven, no Hell, no good, no evil, no duality..... This world is nothing but duality, every concept we have rests on the experience of duality, and when I speak of real spirituality, this spirituality has absolutely nothing to do with the good or evils of this world, it has only to do with the unification of man's heart, mind, and soul with God.... In the blinding flash of less than instantaneously, Satan could return to his former unity with God with a simple act of surrendering that desire for duality (That is of course assuming that Satan is not doing exactly as God wishes, in the part that he plays). All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. ----William Shakespeare---- It is my belief that the only thing that is not an act, is that inner spiritual relationship with God...
The recipe for hypocrisy and zero integrity is a "message from God if there ever was one?" With very little exception, and you not being part of that exception, this forum has been overrun by pseudo-intellectual psychobabblers.
The reality is that the Egyptians had the Hebrews as slaves, and the Hebrews had their own slaves. In short, slavery was the "ancient Biblical custom" and was widespread in both societies. God did not set the Hebrews free from Pharaoh merely because they were slaves, because if He thought slavery was malum in se, then he wouldn't have made malum prohibita rules under which the Hebrews could maintain slaves. Even the New Testament has passages which continue slavery as acceptable practice. To wit, Ephesians 6:5: "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ;" Therefore, the simple and inescapable conclusion is that your God condones and permits slavery. And, this my friend, begs the most important question of all, and the one which you seem to be afraid to answer: Do you condone slavery?
Sorry pardner, but while your New World Translation of the Bible may make you feel better, my King James Version, and history, tells an entirely different tale... Exodus 21:16 "And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death." Your interpretation of Exodus seems to suggest that God permits only "voluntary" servitudes. My interpretation is that God permits both voluntary and "involuntary." In support of my position, as recent as 100 years ago, the crime of kidnapping did not exist. Instead, the crime would have been called "false imprisonment." So, there is no possibility that the ancient Hebrews or Greeks could have intended the word "kidnap," to have the modern meaning of "moving another person against their will." Thus, "stealing" a man, means to unlawfully take a slave from the rightful owner, and not to take a person and force them into involuntary servitude.
Why does god tell people to eat $hit? Ezekiel, chapter 4 10: And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it. 11: Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an hin: from time to time shalt thou drink. 12: And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight. 13: And the LORD said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them. 14: Then said I, Ah Lord GOD! behold, my soul hath not been polluted: for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth. 15: Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.
My favorite one is the fact that the God of the bible has ordered Genocide in the bible, for his orders were to eradicate the tribes in the promised land. He did not wish to simply uproot them and maybe move them to Antartica or something, He wanted them dead! Worse, he didn't even have the gumption to put his own work in and do the dirty work himself. Sometimes he ordered the total destruction, i.e. every man, woman, child, and animal in the town to be destroyed. At others it was kill all the males and take the females for yourselves, and that amounts to slavery of the most brutal kind......a sex slave. Now I am not an atheist, I have a firm foundation in faith, belief, and good works. But, honestly, this God of the bible seems a bit deranged. Does anyone care to take a stab at this Genocide thing????
An appropriate choice of words since, in biblical times, the willing were only able to take a stab at it. However, with the development of modern weaponry, those so inclined can now also take a shot at it.
1. Is God constrained by His construction of the Universe? 2. If so, then God is of limited power, therefore He is not God. 3. If not then the Universe requires no explanation, because it is merely a manifestation of God's will, and subject to modfication at any instant. And, a Universe subject to indefinite change from moment to moment, cannot be measured or explained scientifically, which is what your post above seeks to do. Therefore, this leaves only two possibilities: a. God is not God. b. You are not Jesus. Aloha, kjkent1
Why God's law in the OT seems to be so complicated and sometimes looks "ridiculous" from the our modern point of view ? The demands of God's law have not changed, even a little. He still demands modern people perfect obedience to His law. Jesus coming did not change God's demands. Instead, Jesus fulfilled all of God's demands in His own person. He was the only human being to ever have perfectly, sinlessly fulfilled God's covenant. Because of this He is a perfect Savior. The blood sacrifices of bulls and goats in the OT were necessary to show how awful sin was to the Israelites. This demand has not disappeared. But those sacrifices only pointed forward to the true once for all perfect and sufficient sacrifice in Jesus. They had no saving power in themselves. But know this!!! God still demands the entire law be kept even now for all persons. Unbelievers must keep the whole law if they have any hope to be saved. But of course, such a demand is beyond the possibility of any man ... it is an impossible supposition because we are bent on rebellion ... and this is God's purpose in the Law, so that we might be conscious of sin (Rom 3:19, 20) and so that He might show mercy to us (ROM 11:32). Christ met the laws demands and so those who are in Him, who are united to Him by the Spirit, are accepted by God AS IF they themselves had fully kept the law. He counts us righteous in Christ because He obeyed all of those "ridiculous" laws. His life of perfect obedience to the law and His death which He was a lamb without blemish, were given for us, in our place. Otherwise we would be judged and receive the resurrection of the unrighteous. Regarding slavery, Exodus 21:16 says "He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death." Deuteronomy 24:7 likewise says, "If a man is caught kidnapping any of his countrymen of the sons of Israel, and he deals with him violently or sells him, then that thief shall die; so you shall purge the evil from among you." In other words, slavery was not the same thing as the kind we saw in 19th century America where people went to Africa, kidnapped people and brought them home to sell them to the highest bidder. Such would be a capital crime in the OT, according to these passages. Instead, persons who were slaves were either paying off a debt, or persons who attacked Israel and captured in battle. You may have some problems with this but it is not the type of slavery we usually think of today. Also, regarding polygamy, you may want to differentiate between what someone does and what God's law is. God nowhere gives us a law saying that polygamy is His will. But we do find some persons, even some godly, who engage in this practice. David was said to be a man after God's own heart (1 Sam. 13:14; Acts 13:22), but he did a variety of things that were not according to God's heart, i.e. he murdered Uriah the Hittite after committing adultery with his wife Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11:27). That he practiced polygamy does not make it God's perfect will. Jesus points out that from the beginning (Genesis) that one man and one woman would become one flesh and so adultery was always wrong (Matthew 19:1-9). Therefore even the OT itself does not hold up polygamy as the ideal. While the law may have permitted polygamy in their weakness, but Genesis reveals this was not the ideal toward which the people were to set their faces toward. The ideal was the model of creation: one man and one woman in a monogamous relationship. God is not obligated to wait another second before executing His wrath. [/QUOTE] ==================== Good quotes, helpful thread. Actually you dont have to have a Strongs scientific study concordance which has ALL the Hebrew -English words keyed to numbers ,to understand the Holy Bible, but it helps Scientific study of scripture or markets can help; small sample usually does not help, in scripture or markets . Disagree with the idea that wicked black muslims/white south & north slaveholders were the same as Hebrew servant [slave ]masters. [New American Standard uses the word ''slave'' for servant] Exodus 21;6 says'' And if the servant [ slave] shall plainly say , I love my master, my wife, I will not go free''...King James Version. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- So the Hebrew servnat was given afterwards, the 7 year option , of working for the hebrew master or not according to hebrew servant's choice, LORD's word, says in same chapter.[ Exodus 21;1,2] And the bottom line =Israel & the Church are an example for us; having the privilege of doing business with Hebrews-Christians, ''I love '' it. If 11 out of 12 are good; dont worry about the ratio of 1 crook out of 12 or 13 people of excellence.
Looks like we have come down to the fundamentalist who take the Bible on faith, then rationalize what it says vs. those who have no faith in the Bible and attack the literal fundamentalism. People who read scriptures like a lawyer reading a brief. Too funny..... If an instruction in the Bible says to employ faith while reading the Bible, what is there left to argue about? Either you take it on faith, or you don't.... I mean, the Bible is not my faith, but who am I to actually question what it means from the point of view of faith? Or who are you to question what it means without faith? The faithless question the Bible, the faithful accept it. It really is that simple.....