Isaiah 55:8-9
These verses quite plainly indicate that God can never be any LESS than the highest and most perfect conception of Him any human mind can create.
(In other words -- imagine the noblest, most loving and perfect and wise human being coming up with the noblest, most loving, perfect and wise notion of what God would actually be like, what character He would have. Now realize that God, being above and beyond human ways and human thoughts, could never actually be anything LESS than that concept -- never anything LESS noble, kind, loving, wise, etc., as a result. Make sense?)
Human beings can always be counted upon to be imperfect and fallible. Thus obviously our highest and best notions of God will always fall short somewhere. However, in doing so, they will NOT err on the side of conceiving of Him as having a mercy and a love which in practical reality pans out as WORSE than the worst homicidal maniac or genocidal tyrant.
We can see clearly and easily that the actions of Hitler or an inquisitioner constitute evil. Yet for some reason we have a blind spot there when it comes to understanding Isaiah 55:8-9. Instead of realizing it to be telling us God can never be less than our best idea of Him, we get confused and think it intends to tell us that because God transcends our best idea of Him, we should therefore be open to calling behavior we would normally call EVIL in a human being, somehow "good" in HIM. That just plain does not make sense when talking of a God whose chief attributes would be LOVE and MERCY, and Whose idea of justice outright offends us because it does not include our imaginary "right" to exact "paybacks" and take our "pound of flesh" when offended.
But that essentially sums up what people have asked you to believe when they ask you to believe in an eternally burning hell or in God being any less than God, any less than perfect, any less than transcendent and able to save to the uttermost all who come to Him through Christ -- Who said if He got lifted up from the earth He would draw ALL to Himself. Either God means what He says AND has the ability to perform it, or He does not -- in which case He bes not God. Yet these people, for the sake of a small handful of verses taken out of context -- whose context suggest the employment of symbol rather than relating of the concrete and literal -- find it acceptable somehow to portray God, the merciful and all-mighty, powerful to save, as capable of such levels of self-interest and heinous torture or slaughter as would be readily recognized for atrocity in any human being, subject to life imprisonment or a war crimes tribunal in response, and encourage calling this "good"??? What bes the Bible saying on that -- woe to them that put evil for good, and good for evil, what servesy up light for darkness and darkness for light!
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5/03/2008 e.v. 11:31 p.m.
moses saying to pharaoh let my people go
that they may serve me in the desert
wow
bes like the whole earth the whole human world bes egypt
the whole human system, bondage
how many living in hope deferred
dreams put on shelf
because of that enslaving system
let them GO
let them GO so they can meet God out in the wilderness
like they bes starving for and wanting
how much hunger and desire for the living God stifled, shut away into neat convenient little boxes
just to get through another day in bondage to pharaoh
making bricks from straw and laying his foundations for him
because he cannot lay his own the lazy wastrel
all he can do bes cracksy them whip
on the backs of the noble of heart
the visionaries and seers and dreamers locked into invisible cages of time and circumstance
let them GO
let them GO
let them GO so they can GO MEET GOD out in the wilderness
AWAY from your tapestry of lies and deceit!
do we care if the court jesters and magickians can duplicate cheap trick versions of God's miracles?
it will fall on their heads in shame when it comes to the slaying of them firstborn, eyh?
who wants to duplicate that. woe to them that look forward to the day indeed
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
These verses quite plainly indicate that God can never be any LESS than the highest and most perfect conception of Him any human mind can create.
(In other words -- imagine the noblest, most loving and perfect and wise human being coming up with the noblest, most loving, perfect and wise notion of what God would actually be like, what character He would have. Now realize that God, being above and beyond human ways and human thoughts, could never actually be anything LESS than that concept -- never anything LESS noble, kind, loving, wise, etc., as a result. Make sense?)
Human beings can always be counted upon to be imperfect and fallible. Thus obviously our highest and best notions of God will always fall short somewhere. However, in doing so, they will NOT err on the side of conceiving of Him as having a mercy and a love which in practical reality pans out as WORSE than the worst homicidal maniac or genocidal tyrant.
We can see clearly and easily that the actions of Hitler or an inquisitioner constitute evil. Yet for some reason we have a blind spot there when it comes to understanding Isaiah 55:8-9. Instead of realizing it to be telling us God can never be less than our best idea of Him, we get confused and think it intends to tell us that because God transcends our best idea of Him, we should therefore be open to calling behavior we would normally call EVIL in a human being, somehow "good" in HIM. That just plain does not make sense when talking of a God whose chief attributes would be LOVE and MERCY, and Whose idea of justice outright offends us because it does not include our imaginary "right" to exact "paybacks" and take our "pound of flesh" when offended.
But that essentially sums up what people have asked you to believe when they ask you to believe in an eternally burning hell or in God being any less than God, any less than perfect, any less than transcendent and able to save to the uttermost all who come to Him through Christ -- Who said if He got lifted up from the earth He would draw ALL to Himself. Either God means what He says AND has the ability to perform it, or He does not -- in which case He bes not God. Yet these people, for the sake of a small handful of verses taken out of context -- whose context suggest the employment of symbol rather than relating of the concrete and literal -- find it acceptable somehow to portray God, the merciful and all-mighty, powerful to save, as capable of such levels of self-interest and heinous torture or slaughter as would be readily recognized for atrocity in any human being, subject to life imprisonment or a war crimes tribunal in response, and encourage calling this "good"??? What bes the Bible saying on that -- woe to them that put evil for good, and good for evil, what servesy up light for darkness and darkness for light!
========================================================
5/03/2008 e.v. 11:31 p.m.
moses saying to pharaoh let my people go
that they may serve me in the desert
wow
bes like the whole earth the whole human world bes egypt
the whole human system, bondage
how many living in hope deferred
dreams put on shelf
because of that enslaving system
let them GO
let them GO so they can meet God out in the wilderness
like they bes starving for and wanting
how much hunger and desire for the living God stifled, shut away into neat convenient little boxes
just to get through another day in bondage to pharaoh
making bricks from straw and laying his foundations for him
because he cannot lay his own the lazy wastrel
all he can do bes cracksy them whip
on the backs of the noble of heart
the visionaries and seers and dreamers locked into invisible cages of time and circumstance
let them GO
let them GO
let them GO so they can GO MEET GOD out in the wilderness
AWAY from your tapestry of lies and deceit!
do we care if the court jesters and magickians can duplicate cheap trick versions of God's miracles?
it will fall on their heads in shame when it comes to the slaying of them firstborn, eyh?
who wants to duplicate that. woe to them that look forward to the day indeed
