The Bible says, in Genesis 6, that people were constantly imagining evil thoughts, and committing violence. You know like, genocide, soldiers inventing cruel torture methods. and like serial killers kidnapping and doing things to little kids........stuff like that. The Bible says God was grieved in his heart. God Is love, you know? How do you think He feels about child molesting, murder, and rape? I would say those thiungs are the direct opposite of "love " wouldn't you? The Bible says God hates wickedness. So the Bible says that Noah preached for 120 years. Then I believe they were like seven days boarding the vessel. They were sufficiently warned wouldn't you say? Then the New Testament, Jesus says that the last days will be like 'the days of Noah". So, in our age, we had the Holocaust, the killing fields, Darfur, Ted Bundy, partial birth abortions...things like that. And we can't build prisons fast enough. So I would say, yeah, peoples imaginations are corrupt. just like Noah's time; Instead of doing constructive things, you have people dreaming up ingenious ways to steal other people's personal information, 419 scams I've often pondered on this passage, myself. But here are a few observations: #1 Job's sons and daughers were obviously partying..'eating and drinking' #2 Job was worried about how they were living. #3 Job, evidently, was not invited to the parties....why? Maybe they knew Dad wouldn't approve? Just a thought. #4 The Bible says "it is appointed unto men, once to die"...everybody has their time to go.....God knows when your time is, as well. #5 In the end, the "sick, evil dictator, narcissist' gave Job back far more than what he had previously. #6. We ALL go through suffering in this sin cursed world. And, since we can READ all of this, the story is a benefit to us, to show that being faithful to God will be rewarded in the end. Had Satan been merciful, he could have chosen not to carry out his cruel oppression....but he happily proceeded anyway....The the Bible says the devil will be punished for all eternity, so his time is coming. Like I quoted above, all God asks of you is to trust in His son, Jesus. And his only real requirements are to love Him and love your neighbor.
god hates child molesting, murder, and rape? so what does he do? he murders ever child on earth in a flood to show his love. makes perfect sense. it is amusing to watch belivers twist logic to defend their fairy tale.
God isn't a personality and has nothing to do with anything other then keeping the universe(s) running.
not according to Heartstrings. he believes his god sent a flood to murder every living thing on earth because they were wicked. take it up with him.
Heartstrings, you sound like a nice person. But you never question why god make people who are evil (in the first place) then torture and kill them because that god is mad? So god torture and kill people for (his) mistake of making people evil?
stu, I respect the fact that you formulate your arguments within yourself.......this takes time, which denotes passion, and for this quality I endeavor to show due respect to your positions. We seem to live in an age where "links" substitute for thought and reason. But I must add that this position of yours that Jesus is not an historical figure, is the weakest argument that I have encountered from you ( and I have encountered some pretty darn good arguments from you !). I have studied most of the period historians and commentators, none of which have intimated in their writings that Jesus was not an historical figure. The evidence from the "manuscripts aciens" is overwhelming. Justin (the Apostate) would have most assuredly used this rebuttal if it was in the slightest way plausible in his "Arguments". The "anti" commentators have labeled Jesus an imposter, a false messiah, a dengenerate and every manner of derogatory epithet, but the charge that Jesus is a mythical entity is missing. We will have to respectfully disagree on this argument.
Hi Barth I appreciate your comments With a mutal respect then, if you are reading historians of the period, one would not usually objectively conclude that a figure they are writing about is itself historical because the historians writing about it don't say it isn't. That's a default to unfounded presumption and if you don't mind me saying, is a very dodgy way to understand things. The Bible itself is an historical thing. The texts themselves within it are historical. They are so because it has been confirmed by overwhelming evidence and beyond all reasonable doubt and for obvious reasons, the Bible is itself historical. You cannot, nor has any historian, brought any kind of same or similar standards of confirmation to the Jesus character, nor indeed to mythical figures mentioned in the Bible or its texts, because it is itself historically (both NT & OT) - a fiction, not a factually correct historical document. It requires substantial separate independent investigations, corroboration and validation to make things mentioned within an historical document, historical too . The Bible mentions a King here a Prophet there? Then there must be independently established documents or events, which undoubtedly confirm actual existence of the King and the Prophet. An historian talking of that King within the narrative of the Bible is not trustworthy evidence. The best that can be said about Jesus I think is - it is a persona fashioned from the syncretic assortment of Jewish fables and beliefs developing within a dominating influence being exerted over peoples' lives during times of all powerful Imperial Rome. A fictional savior comes around yet again, another appeal in desperation which inevitably draws together various believers and cults of varying kinds , especially attractive to superstitious naive human nature, offering everlasting life over Empire based upon a Jewish god, robbed of self-determination. In that regard, nothing special. There is plenty of historical evidence for same and similar god men myths aimed towards acculturation passed off onto the ever irrational masses, but more usefully to some, used as a warrant for a form of control and lawmaking. The Jesus image is not unique. It predates Christianity in myth as does the ever ungrounded insistence that all such things are actually real.