Are you horrified by any Scripture?

[PloverWing]

Alas, here you're imposing an external definiton of evil on God.

That is correct.

 

[Wgw]

That is correct.

This has the disagreeable implication of dualism, or is alternately rather too anthropocentric.

 

[PloverWing]

This has the disagreeable implication of dualism, or is alternately rather too anthropocentric.

I acknowledge this difficulty. However, if we define "good" to mean "whatever God does", then the statement "God is good" becomes true by definition and therefore tells us nothing about God. I judge that to be a more significant difficulty.

 

[SarahsKnight]

1) The phrase "and they are discovered" indicates complicity.

2) The father can refuse his daughter to anyone in marriage (in Torah law, see Ex. 22:17) and in this case he gives her to him

3) The word "tapas" doesn't mean rape.

Hunh. I didn't think about that. That would certainly cause the passage to make a lot more sense.

 

[grandvizier1006]

I honestly have never really understood the "rape victims must marry their rapists" criticism of the Bible. Anti-Christians or whatever they are called act like it's a blanket rule, but I honestly haven't seen it in the Bible and if it's there then the law probably is meant to punish the woman for letting a man who is not her husband have sex with her--the idea being that if she didn't cry out in fear, she wanted it. Faulty? Probably, but they didn't know about the psychological issues rape victims have, and how some people might be so afraid or whatever that they would be in shock. It could be much worse. Women weren't just raped freely like the criticism implies.

I know this is probably controversial, but I understand that some women will (in ignorance) have a sexual fantasy of being raped by a man so that they can "get away with" having sex with a person who they "aren't supposed to" have sex with. That's very offensive to actual rape victims, some of which were afraid that they did enjoy it, but apparently fantasies like this happen, as wrong as they are. If anything, the Israelites might have actually understood better than the Victorian Protestant the idea that, yes, women can enjoy sex. People could read the verse, however, and think, "well, since those fundamentalists don't think women can enjoy sex, the Israelites in the OT must have had the same mindset." But I think most "fundamentalists" don't take culture into account with the exception of things like coveting donkeys.

I'm thinking that maybe this law, if It says what people assume it does, was meant to punish women trying to fake a victim status. The sex, for them, could have been consensual and the Israelites could have stoned the man so that the woman could "cover up her tracks". I should also point out that something similar happened with Potiphar's wife and Joseph--a woman tries to seduce a man that isn't her husband, he refuses her advances and she claims that she was raped. And considering that women's testimonies, in the ancient world, were inferior to a man's, they wouldn't just go on the woman's word that she was raped--and sometimes people claim things like that for victim hood.

 

[redleghunter]

I however do not believe many of these things about God. I do not think many of the things in the OT are accurate representations and descriptions of what is God is doing or what is happening. Many things are lost in translation or mistranslated or influenced by the views of translators and writers of scripture(who are human and can make mistakes).

Apply the most cited attribute of YHWH in the OT and everything else makes sense.

That would be YHWH is Holy, Holy, Holy.

The TaNaKh also shows us YHWH is merciful and longsuffering.

Holiness is the one missing piece to your statements. Holiness is the key to better understand God's revelation to mankind, the Holy Scriptures.

 

[redleghunter]

The verse about the unforgivable sin. That scares me. And some of the stuff in Revelations about the end days.

I believe those are healthy concerns. Shows you take God's Holiness soberly.

 

[redleghunter]

I believe Jesus Christ himself is the word of God. As for the bible I just accept it was written by humans and humans often make mistakes about something or don't fully understand what they are experiencing or just ignorant about something(like the world and thinking the earth is flat). I see the bible as authoritative on many things but not inerrant. Human error is just too common.

What is your understanding of Biblical inerrancy?

Which portions do you see as inspired of God and authoritative?

 

[redleghunter]

That makes it better, yes, but it's still troublesome that God asked Abraham to do something deeply evil. In most stories in the Bible, following God's command means doing what is good. This story is different.

We should not forget God was not asking Abraham to do anything He was not already committed to do.

The offering of Isaac was instructive to father Abraham and us. It was a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ offered by the Father for our sins.

We Christians look to Christ Jesus when we relate our life experiences. This is good. However we sometimes forget The Father and His relationship to The Son.

For example, we all know the pain Jesus Christ went through at Gethsemane, yet where do we see the anguish of The Father? We can look to Abraham when told to offer his son and heir.

 

[redblue22]

What is your understanding of Biblical inerrancy?

Which portions do you see as inspired of God and authoritative?

How do you know the bible is inerrant, inspired, and authoritative? But let's say the bible is inerrant, inspired, and authoritative. How do you know when your interpretation is inerrant, inspired, and authoritative?

 

[redleghunter]

How do you know the bible is inerrant, inspired, and authoritative? But let's say the bible is inerrant, inspired, and authoritative. How do you know when your interpretation is inerrant, inspired, and authoritative?

In the Holy Scriptures God speaks. Prophets proclaim "thus saith The LORD. We have God instructing in many places "write this down."

We have Jesus Christ quote extensively from the TaNaKh, tell His apostles what they seek of Him can be found in TaNaKh, and we have the apostles quote from and provide theological dissertations from Scriptures.

God says His Words are authoritative.

That's how we know.

 

[Vicomte13]

Nothing in the bible horrifies me.

There is plenty that used to, because I read it casually, in English, and saw things that I think are horrifying, the chief example being God's commandment to the Israelites to go into Canaan and kill every man, woman, child and domestic beast.

Obviously this is genocide, and even a xenocide - not only were the people to all be killed, right down to newborns, but also all of various species of domesticated animals, at least in those cities that God put under the ban.

How evil, I thought, and I disliked God as I read it. Worse than Hitler, I said, because Hitler was just a man commanding things in his madness, but God purports to be God, and look what He's doing!

Of course, I looked at it that way when I really didn't believe that this WAS an actual story about God, when I thought God that the Bible was anthropomorphizing nature, and making excuses for the Jews who wrote it, to allow them to do whatever in that land.

After some divine intervention in my life I came away with a different point of view.

Did God command a genocide and a xenocide? Of course. But so what?
Seriously, so what?
God kills EVERYBODY and EVERYTHING, does he not?
He made me, and you, and he is going to kill me, and you.
Some he kills by heart attacks, some by cancer. Some he kills with viruses, some with famine, and some through murder.

Of course God is behind every death, for the hairs on your head are numbered, and not a sparrow falls without it being the will of the father.

The fact is that we each take as many breaths as God gives us - not one less, and not one more.

So, God is the UNIVERSAL xenocide - everybody who ever lived was killed by God. The Israelites who went into Canaan, were supposed to kill every Canaanite who stayed. They were supposed to occupy that land by wiping out all of its inhabitants. And then, in turn, every Israelite who participated in the conquest - every man, woman, child and every animal owned by any of them - was ALSO killed by God in time.

So, the fact that the Canaanites were all sentenced to death was indeed a genocide ordered by God, but so what? YOU and I are ALSO under a sentence of death by God, and God will kill both of us. God did not have to require the bloody, agonizing death of Jesus to atone for sin. He did not have to require the deaths of lambs and oxen, their blood, burnt offerings, etc, to atone for sin before Jesus. God did not have to kill Adam and Eve, or Flood the world, or destroy Sodom and Gemorrah. He could have dispensed with the suffering and given the forgiveness without the bloody rituals He could have provided powerful positive inducements to keep people wanting to stay in line, but he didn't.

In fact, the Canaanites believed that he had. The Canaanite religion was particularly "positive inducement" based. It's religious rites were orgies. The whole population went to the temples to have wild sex, and kill human victims, and they believed they were worshipping God in doing so. THAT is why the Canaanitic rites and religions were so very pernicious, as compared to, say, Greek paganism or the Egyptian pantheon or even the Babylonian hero-worship. Worshipping men or anthropomorphizations of forces of nature is one thing. But taking the very basest and crudest of human desires: sexual slavery and public torture, and turning those into the most sacred rites of the religion absolutely PACKED the Canaanite temples. They sure loved their religion! And everybody who came in contact with it was easily seduced. Take the wildest aspects of Bankok. Now make THAT the holy rites of your religion, starting from youth. Very seductive. The worship of YHWH could not stand against that. And it didn't. The Israelites didn't obey God, didn't wipe out the Canaanites, and soon enough you've got Solomon, "wisest man in the world", with 1000 concubines and sinking into worshiping God the Canaanite way, through unbridled sexual lust as often, and with as many, and in as many ways, as one can imagine.

The same lusts conquer today also - the religion of YHWH isn't competitive in modern sensuality-driven San Francisco either, and that's WITHOUT the lurid tortures.

And the truth is that that COULD actually BE the way that God wants to be worshipped. The Canaanites thought so, and they were very prosperous in a prosperous land. The San Franciscans think so, and they've got Apple and wealth piling up galore surrounded by beautiful people. God's personality COULD be just exactly that.

But Scripture says it isn't. Are YOU appalled by the idea of starting to sexually use children, and burning some of them alive on altars? Of course you are. What would you want to see done were a Temple to be set up in Missouri that did that on its compound? You would want to see the police charge in there and break it up, and you would want to see the killers - and everybody participating in those rituals would be a killer, an accessory to murder at least, wouldn't he? And if those people in Missouri resisted the police with weapons, you would want the police to open fire and kill them, wouldn't you? You would. A human sacrifice/child rape compound in America would provoke you to want to use deadly force against all of those debauched, debased miscreants doing that.

So you understand God's commandment to kill all of the Canaanites better than you think.

"But the children..."

Well, consider, would you marry a harlot? Do prostitutes, women or men who have spent years in sexual commerce, make good and faithful spouses? Do they? Answer the question, don't dodge it. Would YOU marry a street harlot? No? Why not? Perhaps s/he could be "changed", yes? Not likely.

Now consider a Canaanite child. We already know that God knows that wickedness arises in the human heart from our youth. God reflected on that in Genesis after the Flood. But in most places in the world babies and very young children are not casually pressed into sex. In Canaan, though, sex was the RELIGION. It was the norm, from earliest youth, from before memory. Does this horrify you? So, what happens if you simply incorporate the children, all of whom have been having sex with adults since the crib, into your society.

Now consider the Canaanites' animals. Consider how God gives a law for bestiality, and actually harps on it a few times. It's sort of icky stuff. Animals so used were to be killed. NOW consider the Canaanites, for whom to give a BLESSING was to engage in sex. Consider how the Canaanites "blessed" their animals. Consider that the Canaanite religion believed that all of these "fertility" practices brought fertility, that they pleased the gods, and that when the rain fell to water the crops, that was because the lurid rites in the Canaanite temples excited Ba'al, causing him to "shed his seed" on the earth. Yep, the Canaanites sexualized rain.

Do you think that mere Christianity or worship of YHWH is going to be able to compete with that? Sacrificing a lamb and burning some meat on an altar, versus a sex act every time the urge arises? And this ingrained from infancy? Sodom was a Canaanite city. Recall that God didn't find even TEN righteous there - EVERYBODY in town turned out to rape the angels. And why WOULDN'T they? They'd all been raped and raping each other since the crib, and taught that THIS was GOOD, this was pleasing to god.

How do you fight THAT? If you're God, you know that you can't. The evil is too deep set in the flesh. You have to get those spirits OUT of the flesh - by killing them - and if you want people who worship you the way you WANT to be worshipped to not go over to that, they have to completely wipe it out. Leave any of it in the land, and the addiction is too strong.

Well, the Israelites didn't completely wipe out the Canaanites, and soon enough they were practicing many of the evils, led to it by the Canaanites themselves, for whom it was not even evil.

So, am I horrified that God decided that an entire race of completely debauched people, who believed from childhood that sex acts of whatever kinds were prayers that pleased God, needed to be driven completely from the land? No.

And note well: God didn't command the slaughter of the Canaanites. He demanded the slaughter of any of them who STAYED. Israel had boundaries set by God. The Canaanites could always flee. The Israelites were not to go and pursue them over those boundaries. But if they stayed and fought, their whole life system was so debauched and debased, and so attractive and irresistible to weak men, that God knew that his own religion could not compete with it. If the Canaanites stayed, then the Israelites would prefer the pornographic sensuality of Canaanite practice over the stricter and more limited practice that he himself wanted for mankind. So he decided that the Canaanites who stayed needed to die. And of course he was absolutely right, once you understand what was at stake.

Had God not done that, had the Israelites simply moved in and lived among the Canaanites, then very soon the Israelites would be behaving just like them (which is what happened over time anyway, though with greater guilt). And of course sooner or later they and the Canaanites too would all die anyway, because God kills everybody sooner or later.

The most horrifying things that God does in the Bible are only horrifying if you think that death is the end.
If you remember that it is not, and take a God's eye view of it, you realize that what is alive is the spirit. It's alive in the flesh, and it's alive when God harvests it from the flesh. And you will realize that from a God's eye view, God's infliction of death is nothing more than pulling the husk off an ear of corn. The husk is just a husk. The good part is what is inside.

 

[Wgw]

How do you know the bible is inerrant, inspired, and authoritative? But let's say the bible is inerrant, inspired, and authoritative. How do you know when your interpretation is inerrant, inspired, and authoritative?

Because my bishop tells me so. Sola episcopa!

 

[graceandpeace]

Nothing in the bible horrifies me.

There is plenty that used to, because I read it casually, in English, and saw things that I think are horrifying, the chief example being God's commandment to the Israelites to go into Canaan and kill every man, woman, child and domestic beast.

Obviously this is genocide, and even a xenocide - not only were the people to all be killed, right down to newborns, but also all of various species of domesticated animals, at least in those cities that God put under the ban.

How evil, I thought, and I disliked God as I read it. Worse than Hitler, I said, because Hitler was just a man commanding things in his madness, but God purports to be God, and look what He's doing!

Of course, I looked at it that way when I really didn't believe that this WAS an actual story about God, when I thought God that the Bible was anthropomorphizing nature, and making excuses for the Jews who wrote it, to allow them to do whatever in that land.

After some divine intervention in my life I came away with a different point of view.

Did God command a genocide and a xenocide? Of course. But so what?
Seriously, so what?
God kills EVERYBODY and EVERYTHING, does he not?
He made me, and you, and he is going to kill me, and you.
Some he kills by heart attacks, some by cancer. Some he kills with viruses, some with famine, and some through murder.

Of course God is behind every death, for the hairs on your head are numbered, and not a sparrow falls without it being the will of the father.

The fact is that we each take as many breaths as God gives us - not one less, and not one more.

So, God is the UNIVERSAL xenocide - everybody who ever lived was killed by God. The Israelites who went into Canaan, were supposed to kill every Canaanite who stayed. They were supposed to occupy that land by wiping out all of its inhabitants. And then, in turn, every Israelite who participated in the conquest - every man, woman, child and every animal owned by any of them - was ALSO killed by God in time.

So, the fact that the Canaanites were all sentenced to death was indeed a genocide ordered by God, but so what? YOU and I are ALSO under a sentence of death by God, and God will kill both of us. God did not have to require the bloody, agonizing death of Jesus to atone for sin. He did not have to require the deaths of lambs and oxen, their blood, burnt offerings, etc, to atone for sin before Jesus. God did not have to kill Adam and Eve, or Flood the world, or destroy Sodom and Gemorrah. He could have dispensed with the suffering and given the forgiveness without the bloody rituals He could have provided powerful positive inducements to keep people wanting to stay in line, but he didn't.

In fact, the Canaanites believed that he had. The Canaanite religion was particularly "positive inducement" based. It's religious rites were orgies. The whole population went to the temples to have wild sex, and kill human victims, and they believed they were worshipping God in doing so. THAT is why the Canaanitic rites and religions were so very pernicious, as compared to, say, Greek paganism or the Egyptian pantheon or even the Babylonian hero-worship. Worshipping men or anthropomorphizations of forces of nature is one thing. But taking the very basest and crudest of human desires: sexual slavery and public torture, and turning those into the most sacred rites of the religion absolutely PACKED the Canaanite temples. They sure loved their religion! And everybody who came in contact with it was easily seduced. Take the wildest aspects of Bankok. Now make THAT the holy rites of your religion, starting from youth. Very seductive. The worship of YHWH could not stand against that. And it didn't. The Israelites didn't obey God, didn't wipe out the Canaanites, and soon enough you've got Solomon, "wisest man in the world", with 1000 concubines and sinking into worshiping God the Canaanite way, through unbridled sexual lust as often, and with as many, and in as many ways, as one can imagine.

The same lusts conquer today also - the religion of YHWH isn't competitive in modern sensuality-driven San Francisco either, and that's WITHOUT the lurid tortures.

And the truth is that that COULD actually BE the way that God wants to be worshipped. The Canaanites thought so, and they were very prosperous in a prosperous land. The San Franciscans think so, and they've got Apple and wealth piling up galore surrounded by beautiful people. God's personality COULD be just exactly that.

But Scripture says it isn't. Are YOU appalled by the idea of starting to sexually use children, and burning some of them alive on altars? Of course you are. What would you want to see done were a Temple to be set up in Missouri that did that on its compound? You would want to see the police charge in there and break it up, and you would want to see the killers - and everybody participating in those rituals would be a killer, an accessory to murder at least, wouldn't he? And if those people in Missouri resisted the police with weapons, you would want the police to open fire and kill them, wouldn't you? You would. A human sacrifice/child rape compound in America would provoke you to want to use deadly force against all of those debauched, debased miscreants doing that.

So you understand God's commandment to kill all of the Canaanites better than you think.

"But the children..."

Well, consider, would you marry a harlot? Do prostitutes, women or men who have spent years in sexual commerce, make good and faithful spouses? Do they? Answer the question, don't dodge it. Would YOU marry a street harlot? No? Why not? Perhaps s/he could be "changed", yes? Not likely.

Now consider a Canaanite child. We already know that God knows that wickedness arises in the human heart from our youth. God reflected on that in Genesis after the Flood. But in most places in the world babies and very young children are not casually pressed into sex. In Canaan, though, sex was the RELIGION. It was the norm, from earliest youth, from before memory. Does this horrify you? So, what happens if you simply incorporate the children, all of whom have been having sex with adults since the crib, into your society.

Now consider the Canaanites' animals. Consider how God gives a law for bestiality, and actually harps on it a few times. It's sort of icky stuff. Animals so used were to be killed. NOW consider the Canaanites, for whom to give a BLESSING was to engage in sex. Consider how the Canaanites "blessed" their animals. Consider that the Canaanite religion believed that all of these "fertility" practices brought fertility, that they pleased the gods, and that when the rain fell to water the crops, that was because the lurid rites in the Canaanite temples excited Ba'al, causing him to "shed his seed" on the earth. Yep, the Canaanites sexualized rain.

Do you think that mere Christianity or worship of YHWH is going to be able to compete with that? Sacrificing a lamb and burning some meat on an altar, versus a sex act every time the urge arises? And this ingrained from infancy? Sodom was a Canaanite city. Recall that God didn't find even TEN righteous there - EVERYBODY in town turned out to rape the angels. And why WOULDN'T they? They'd all been raped and raping each other since the crib, and taught that THIS was GOOD, this was pleasing to god.

How do you fight THAT? If you're God, you know that you can't. The evil is too deep set in the flesh. You have to get those spirits OUT of the flesh - by killing them - and if you want people who worship you the way you WANT to be worshipped to not go over to that, they have to completely wipe it out. Leave any of it in the land, and the addiction is too strong.

Well, the Israelites didn't completely wipe out the Canaanites, and soon enough they were practicing many of the evils, led to it by the Canaanites themselves, for whom it was not even evil.

So, am I horrified that God decided that an entire race of completely debauched people, who believed from childhood that sex acts of whatever kinds were prayers that pleased God, needed to be driven completely from the land? No.

And note well: God didn't command the slaughter of the Canaanites. He demanded the slaughter of any of them who STAYED. Israel had boundaries set by God. The Canaanites could always flee. The Israelites were not to go and pursue them over those boundaries. But if they stayed and fought, their whole life system was so debauched and debased, and so attractive and irresistible to weak men, that God knew that his own religion could not compete with it. If the Canaanites stayed, then the Israelites would prefer the pornographic sensuality of Canaanite practice over the stricter and more limited practice that he himself wanted for mankind. So he decided that the Canaanites who stayed needed to die. And of course he was absolutely right, once you understand what was at stake.

Had God not done that, had the Israelites simply moved in and lived among the Canaanites, then very soon the Israelites would be behaving just like them (which is what happened over time anyway, though with greater guilt). And of course sooner or later they and the Canaanites too would all die anyway, because God kills everybody sooner or later.

The most horrifying things that God does in the Bible are only horrifying if you think that death is the end.
If you remember that it is not, and take a God's eye view of it, you realize that what is alive is the spirit. It's alive in the flesh, and it's alive when God harvests it from the flesh. And you will realize that from a God's eye view, God's infliction of death is nothing more than pulling the husk off an ear of corn. The husk is just a husk. The good part is what is inside.

The assertion that God is the author of death is anti-Christian.

 

[Wgw]

The assertion that God is the author of death is anti-Christian.

I agree with the view of several Orthodox fathers, that death was provided as a mercy to prevent people from suffering in a state of sin indefinitely. This does not mean death is good, or desirable, or holy, or better than life. Death is better however than a thousand years of morbid sin.

What is better yet is resurrection and eternal life. Which we get. So the trick is to avoid falling into despair.

 

[Vicomte13]

The assertion that God is the author of death is anti-Christian.

The assertion that God is not the creator of all things, including physical death, and the source of death, and the judge who decides when a man will die, and when he will not die, is flatly contrary to the truth, both as a matter of revelation, and as a matter of logic.

If a Christian doctrine stands against the truth, that Christian doctrine is an error and needs to be thrown out.

It is true that the word "death" means two different things, the death of the body - which is what I was talking about - and the death of the spirit, which is something else entirely, and not something that God commanded anybody to do, as it's beyond our power. God commanded the Israelites to wipe out the Canaanites, every man, woman, child, and all of their domestic animals. That's in the Bible, and clear and explicit. He also commanded the Israelites to burn to death the daughter of any priest who was convicted of sexual immorality. God commands death throughout the Old Testament. In the New Testament, God sends his son to a very horrible death. Jesus did not just APPEAR to die. He died. And it was God who commanded it - time, place and manner - and God the Father who took Jesus' last breath, and who took his spirit. He COULD have prevented that. In fact, he COULD have made it all completely unnecessary. God COULD have just forgiven Adam and Eve, but he DIDN'T. And that's part of the point. God is not an abstract force. He is a person, with a mind, and a will, and opinions. And he is jealous of those opinions. And he doesn't simply ignore people who defy him - he hurts them, he punishes them, in this life and in the next.

God is not a force that can be manipulated, like magic. He is not BOUND by our rules. He's not even bound by his own - God changes his mind sometimes in the Bible. God sets reminders for himself so that in his wrath he doesn't obliterate everything. The rainbow, for example. Jesus was an emotional man. And he is the image of his father, the supreme intelligence who is a PERSON, and who has emotions, including both love and anger, and jealousy, which is a form of resentment.

God is creator of death as well as life. He sends evil as well as good. People have made up theologies that say No, no no, to make them feel better I guess, as if they can control God by changing the terms. But God is a mighty, intelligent, emotional person, a spirit, and he has a mighty, intelligent, emotional son...Father and Son have OPINIONS, they have expressed them, they love those who follow them and love them, and they hate those who defy them. And they punish those who defy them. The whole Bible is full of that, beginning to end.

People make up stories about God that contradict what God said about himself, and what God actually DID.

God kills everybody, including Christians. If the grain of wheat does not "die" - does not lose its physical form, it cannot germinate into the plant. That is what "dying" is. The body dies - because God kills it - always - without exception. God sends rain, and death, on both the evil and the good.

But physical death is not Death - that's spiritual death, and that's not what I was talking about.

 

[katerinah1947]

At the time Jesus made the statement regarding the sin against the Holy Spirit, he was followed by great multitudes. They had heard about the great things he did and wanted to be close to him. Some of religious leaders of that day, enemies of Jesus were watching him heal the sick and cast out demons. They said "It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons." They could not deny that a miracle had occurred, but they could belittle it. They wanted to keep the people from following Jesus.

That is when Jesus said "Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, in this age or in the age to come." Matthew 12:31

So what is the unforgivable sin? According to the context, it is accrediting to a demon the power by which Jesus performed his wonderful works. It is saying that Jesus possessed an evil spirit rather than the Holy Spirit.

A person would have had to be present and witness the miracles of Jesus, and say that he was performing his works by the power of a demon instead of the Holy Spirit. That is one thing you don't have to worry about, because it is impossible for anyone living today.

Hi,

Well said.

MerriestHouse, @MerriestHouse , It was a pleasure reading this.

LOVE,

 

[graceandpeace]

I agree with the view of several Orthodox fathers, that death was provided as a mercy to prevent people from suffering in a state of sin indefinitely. This does not mean death is good, or desirable, or holy, or better than life. Death is better however than a thousand years of morbid sin.

What is better yet is resurrection and eternal life. Which we get. So the trick is to avoid falling into despair.

The assertion that God is not the creator of all things, including physical death, and the source of death, and the judge who decides when a man will die, and when he will not die, is flatly contrary to the truth, both as a matter of revelation, and as a matter of logic.

If a Christian doctrine stands against the truth, that Christian doctrine is an error and needs to be thrown out.

It is true that the word "death" means two different things, the death of the body - which is what I was talking about - and the death of the spirit, which is something else entirely, and not something that God commanded anybody to do, as it's beyond our power. God commanded the Israelites to wipe out the Canaanites, every man, woman, child, and all of their domestic animals. That's in the Bible, and clear and explicit. He also commanded the Israelites to burn to death the daughter of any priest who was convicted of sexual immorality. God commands death throughout the Old Testament. In the New Testament, God sends his son to a very horrible death. Jesus did not just APPEAR to die. He died. And it was God who commanded it - time, place and manner - and God the Father who took Jesus' last breath, and who took his spirit. He COULD have prevented that. In fact, he COULD have made it all completely unnecessary. God COULD have just forgiven Adam and Eve, but he DIDN'T. And that's part of the point. God is not an abstract force. He is a person, with a mind, and a will, and opinions. And he is jealous of those opinions. And he doesn't simply ignore people who defy him - he hurts them, he punishes them, in this life and in the next.

God is not a force that can be manipulated, like magic. He is not BOUND by our rules. He's not even bound by his own - God changes his mind sometimes in the Bible. God sets reminders for himself so that in his wrath he doesn't obliterate everything. The rainbow, for example. Jesus was an emotional man. And he is the image of his father, the supreme intelligence who is a PERSON, and who has emotions, including both love and anger, and jealousy, which is a form of resentment.

God is creator of death as well as life. He sends evil as well as good. People have made up theologies that say No, no no, to make them feel better I guess, as if they can control God by changing the terms. But God is a mighty, intelligent, emotional person, a spirit, and he has a mighty, intelligent, emotional son...Father and Son have OPINIONS, they have expressed them, they love those who follow them and love them, and they hate those who defy them. And they punish those who defy them. The whole Bible is full of that, beginning to end.

People make up stories about God that contradict what God said about himself, and what God actually DID.

God kills everybody, including Christians. If the grain of wheat does not "die" - does not lose its physical form, it cannot germinate into the plant. That is what "dying" is. The body dies - because God kills it - always - without exception. God sends rain, and death, on both the evil and the good.

But physical death is not Death - that's spiritual death, and that's not what I was talking about.

Perhaps a more blunt statement statement would've been more clear: if we assert that God directly kills people, then we have a problem, since in Christian theology God is the One who defeats death.

Jesus is the One who shows us what God is actually like. No matter what Scripture we come upon, it should be considered in light of His life & teachings. Believing that God is actively killing people with disaster & disease goes against the example Jesus set of healing, mercy, & ultimately redemption.

I'm fine with death being something that has come about for whatever reason, or that death could be a merciful end at times, whether from physical or spiritual ailment. But believing that God is going around striking people with cancer or famine or the like? That's anti-Christian, IMO.

In any case, I will not respond again on this point, so as not to take the thread further off-topic.

 

[toLiJC]

Recently @Achilles6129 posed this question in Controversial Theology, and I thought it might be interesting to ask it of you.

all the inimical part of the law is horrifying and imperfect as to the perfect truth which is the perfectly good, that is why that part of the law has been replaced by a better one in the form of New Testament i.e. (more precisely) renewal of the covenant

Colossians 2:14-15 "Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances(i.e. annulling the satanic part of the ordinances in the God's covenant/testament) that was against us(i.e. that was prejudicial to the people), which was contrary to us(i.e. which was adverse to us), and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; And having spoiled principalities and powers(i.e. and having denounced the unrighteous spiritual/religious systems and powers), he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it."

Blessings

 

[Wgw]

Perhaps a more blunt statement statement would've been more clear: if we assert that God directly kills people, then we have a problem, since in Christian theology God is the One who defeats death.

Jesus is the One who shows us what God is actually like. No matter what Scripture we come upon, it should be considered in light of His life & teachings. Believing that God is actively killing people with disaster & disease goes against the example Jesus set of healing, mercy, & ultimately redemption.

I'm fine with death being something that has come about for whatever reason, or that death could be a merciful end at times, whether from physical or spiritual ailment. But believing that God is going around striking people with cancer or famine or the like? That's anti-Christian, IMO.

In any case, I will not respond again on this point, so as not to take the thread further off-topic.

I agree to the extent that I don't believe cancer, famine et al represent the desire of God; they are environmental conditions resulting from the contamination of sin. Which can manifest itself, for example, in persons, driven by greed, dumping toxic chemicals of a carcinogenic nature.

If corporate or indeed governmental negligence results in the spill of a carcinogen, and one contracts cancer and dies, I do not believe it is correct to blame it on God. The wages of sin are death, but the wages of one's particular sins are not neccessarily their particular death, as evinced by, for example, murder.