tattedsaint said:for some reason your post here got me thinking, so first off, thanks for your response.
the only way to even say that those actions are a part of God's nature (even though the laws he set for humanity may differ)/codone it, is, one has to believe the Bible is a living entity/bible idolatry as many liberals want to call it.
Where do you get the idea the bible is a living entity? That is not bibical at all...the bible does not ask us to woship it ...the bible is there to teach us about God..its a tool, its the Word of God, but it would be committing idol woship, which God hates, by the way, by woshiping it! That is no different then woshipping the moon which God made...rather then God, Himself. I am wondering where you got this idea from to start with?
one has to not question Moses. one has to believe that every action that we see in the Old Testament, is a sign of God's character, even though that does create problems.
What problems does the story of Moses cause you...maybe I can help...I have no problems with it. But I have done more indepth studying on it too.
so i think we are either to accept the contradictions that we read with morality and the laws that were given and then the proclaimed violent actions deem them as a mystery, something that we can't understand because God's thoughts are not our thoughts.
There are no contradictions...and we don't need to blindly just accept them either with no understanding of why God did what He did. Its not that difficult to understand anyway...just a little bible studying is all it takes.
then to the flip side of it, to me that is, God is a transcedent being that finite creatures can only see through a dim mirror, as Paul said. but we have the Holy Ghost to be our guide. so why can't we live in peace with seeking things out, instead of bowing down to never understanding, or at least getting our mirror not so dim anymore? wouldn't God want His creations to see Him, to know His thoughts? or wouldn't God want us to seek this out and try to understand Him more than what we do (ie Christian or non-Christian)?
Well yes, of course He wants us to understand Him...
so personally, i'm lead to believe that the violent actions of God that are described in the Old Testament cannot be condoned as moral, but they also cannot be condemned as immoral. how can a modern day believer, condone actions that Moses wrote and said this was of God? it's not a matter if he was right or wrong. their perception reality (at least to what we can see in by reading the scriptures), at least to me, shows us that, the writings of God being violent, would have never been written different. the culture, the perception of reality is different than ours, even as Christians. we can go on day and night, condoning, or condemning those violent actions. but any points is coming from this modern mentality, just as what i'm saying is coming from.
Our modern age has nothing to do with it...we are just as voilent towards each other as they were them! Only now instead of using swords, we use bombs....more die using bombs too by the way. We are totally no different in our thoughts and feelings then the people living in the OT. The only difference is understanding the time and culture they lived in...there is a huge difference there, which we cannot understand without doing some studying on this. Once we learn how they lived and lived things, then the OT does make more sense to us.
there's a world of difference between the perception of reality from the Old Testament writers, and us today.
if the Old Testament was written today, how would the Old Testament be written? i think very differently, than how those writers wrote the Bible.
If the OT was written now, instead of Moses using swords, he would be using bombs...instead of chariots they would be using tanks and airplanes...other then that..there really wouldn't be much difference.
so am i saying it is all wrong/invalid? no way. we cannot diss the point of religious followers that came before us. we may not agree with them and that's fine, and many Christians don't agree with Moses eye to eye. but nevertheless the confliction with our understanding, i believe to be only fair and to give the Old Testament justice, we must give it high respect and we must discredit it because of our modern mindset, or condone every contradiction because of mysteries that are beyond our way of understanding. to discredit it because of our modern mentality is ignorant, and to condone it because of some idea that we have to accept mysteries while being the creations of God to just accept mysteries prior to the time the Holy Spirit was given as helper is being ignorant.
You lost me on this paragraph totally...
we cannot condone or condemn the actions of a transcendent/spiritual being recorded by human beings. it's just not logically, theologically possible. when we try to condone/condemn this, we have what we have here. a search for knowledge that has no end, and that can never be answered.
and for the ending, this of couse is my two cents. God Bless you all! <><
Yes it CAN be answered....we do not have to just accept anything in the bible on blind faith...at the same time the Lord obviously wants us to understand His actions in the OT or they wouldn't have been written down in the first place.
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