Why is it that you blame men when evil is evident in the bible? The bible is SELF CONTRADICTING! It is a book full of inconsistencies and downright hypocrisy!
awesome, now can you explain how the "self contradicting" bible means that you should blame God for the evil man does?
Also can you show where the bible's inconsistencies and hypocrisy is? Thanks, I'm anxious, this has been a good discussion, full of great questions.
Are you saying that one can choose at will what to keep and what to discard from the bible?
not at all, the entire bible is relevant, the question is what is the purpose of the teaching....take the OT law for example. According to the Jews, that law should still be good, in fact, there are some Jews that still practice animal sacrifice. The Christian however is a NT believer, in other things animal sacrifice is no longer necessary. This is because of Jesus the Christ. What the law meant under the new "covenant" (church word for death and resurrection of Christ) was a discussion had in the early church as well, one that good old Paul got to deal with. As long as blood is required for man to find restoration for sin, we need one of three things 1. animal blood, 2. man's blood, and/or 3. Jesus blood. In the NT Jesus blood suffices. Therefore, the NT believer, is said to me no longer under the law but under grace. Let's see, a simple way to say that.....the law still tells us what is right and wrong but the blood is no longer required because Jesus blood was pure enough to cover it all.
Or what to follow and what to disregard?
Because of the above, the NT believer would try to follow the law but not be subject to the curse (eternal death) of that same law. It really is quite simple and beautiful.
In this understanding, the OT is equally relevant today because it tells us what and how to be righteous.
So far you are explaining what so and so means in the bible as if you alone know the meaning behind what is written.
Listen, because I found answers in God, through the Word (bible) I believe, I have found it to be one truth right after another. One of the commands of the bible is to be prepared to give account, or answer as it were. I take that command as seriously as I take the other commands, like the 10 commandments, grace, love, etc. In fact, I have had people tell me that no one lives what they believe more than I do. Now I don't know if that is true or not, what I do know is this, when I am told to know enough about the bible to give an answer to the hard questions you are asking, I plan to do just that. I don't know anymore about the bible and God than anyone else out there can know with a little study. In fact, many of the passages your provided didn't take hardly any effort to see that it was not God you were disgusted with but man. If I speak with authority it is nothing more than the authority God has given us each in His word. If that upsets you, I guess you have one more accusation to levy against God.
Consider this, if I spend years studying a given topic, let's say, snowmobiles, I am somewhat of an expert on snowmobiles. I may run across something I don't know, but chances are after years and years of study, I'm gonna know most of what you could possibly think to ask. The same is true here, I have been studying for years and years now, I should have answers to the questions you ask.
No matter how you try to justify the evil inherent in the bible and try to blame anything and anyone except God for it; you will not be able to hide the basic message the bible is trying to convey:
we'll talk about the basic message in a moment but first, the inherent evil in the bible.
We took a look at every passage you presented that supposedly showed God to be evil, suddenly your argument changes to the bible being evil not God. I can live with that, hey you may not even have realized you changed your stand, no worries. But here is the point. If I write a historical account of some atrocity, let's say the holocaust, the book isn't evil, nor am I for telling the story of what happened. The evil rests squarely on the men/man/women that preformed the evil acts. The same is true for the bible. The OT is primarily a history of the Jewish people you get some geneologies and some early stuff in Gen. Throw in a few songs, and you pretty much cover it all, but mostly it is a historical account of the early days of the Jews. So basically, we are looking at a history book. Now history books are full of evils that man does to other man, but we never once attribute those evils to the author of the history book, why then would we do so with God. The vast majority of the passages you presented to prove your case, we clearly stated as evils of man against man. From rape and murder to spoils of war, you showed a history book full of the evils of early Jews. Only a couple of the passages were even related to God's command and they were all issues of God's vengence upon the oppressors. So you still need to explain how this is a book of God's evils and why you would attribute man's evils to God. Is it just because you don't like God that you feel the need to attribute man's evils to HIm? or is there another reason? The bible is pretty dog gone clear on almost every passage you presented that the evil in the passage was not God's but man's, so why does that put the blame on God? I don't understand the logic of it, your gonna have to help me to grasp what premise leads you to the logic that man's evils are God's to own.
Fear, Retribution, Submission, eternal damnation, Obedience, RACISM, Incest, murder, etc. Lot was spared from the genocide of Sodom and Gomorrah and was not punished when he committed incest with his own daughters. So God kills everyone in two cities (including babies) for being sinfull and spares Lot after he committed one of the same sin that he had burned two cities for?
Wow.....so where all these things are condemned, you only see hypocracy? How does that work, again I fail to see the logic.
God accepts that we will sin, and in God's eyes, sin is sin, in other words, all sin results in death, only man attaches that level or degree of sin that we are so familiar with. the problem with Sodom and Gomorrah is way beyond one sin.
Look at it this way, as a parent, are you perfect? do you do everything right? Is there a difference between a parent who punishes an innocent child and a parent who abuses their child repeatedly? Is there a difference between a parent who gives a child a time out for bad behavior and a parent that locks their child in a closet without food and water for days on end? That is pretty much so the difference here, Sodom and Gomorrah were evil, they were like the abusive parent, Lot was like the parent who made a mistake. So tell me this, would you take both parents to court and sentence both to the same fate? Would both the parent who made a mistake and the conistant abusive parent answer for the same crime? or would you sentence one to prison and not the other?
If you know in advance the outcome of your actions: Will you go ahead and do them? God knew Lucifer will rebel and end up being the devil when he created him as an ARCHANGEL of all things! Yet he decided to go ahead anyway. And what was Lucifer's crime? The same crime Prometheus was punished for; giving to manking something usefull. Prometheus gave the secret of fire to man and Lucifer gave the fruit of KNOWLEDGE! Wow! God wanted man to remain ignorant yet it is claimed he gave him FREE WILL! This is tantamount to torture! Having free will and not having access to knowledge is worse than death.
Wow, three different issues here, let's see if we can seperate them and make some sense out of all this.
1. in advance of the outcome. I know we talked about this, but it deserves to be repeated. the biblical description of God's all knowing power is that time flows, He is. So, He knows your past because He was there. He knows your present because He is there, the same is true of the future, He knows the future not because He is a mind reader or fortune teller but because He is there. Now I realize this is a hard concept for many in fact, I suspect that is why so many see God as a fotune teller, but the biblical understanding simply doesn't match up. What matches up is an understanding that God knows what will happen because He is there. That basically means that we have total control of the future, not God, and no right to blame God for what we decide.
2. Lucifers sin was trying to be like God. It is the same sin btw that he tried to convince Adam and Eve of, it's the sin of pride. So let's look at this for just a moment, the bible teaches Love, a love that is marked by the humility of putting others above one's self. The opposite of Love then would be pride. So if Lucifer's sin, if Adam and Eve were convinced by, the sin of pride, then the sin of pride/the gift of love must be an aweful big deal to God huh!? Throughout the bible we see a repeating of the same story...love over pride.
In addition, you must be a bit careful here, and I wouldn't be prepared to answer if I didn't warn you, the bible doesn't say that Lucifer was the one who deceived Adam and Eve. That is the traditional understand and does have some merit, however, the text says serpent, not Lucifer or the devil or Satan, etc. So before making false accusations, be careful what you say about who deceived.
3. The serpent did not make Adam and Eve eat the fruit, it was a willing, willful defiance of the rules. Today, many people have an issue with personal responsibility, we see it all over the place. Law suits, laws, religious beliefs, social events, everyone is quick to blame someone else, just as you are doing here. Lucifer/the serpent, did not force nor eat the fruit for Adam or Eve, Adam and Eve were each responsible for their own defiance. This Idea is also consistent throughout scripture where we are told that our salvation is our own, we cannot believe for someone else, not even a parent, child, or spouse. We each make our own decisions. That is why what you do with what I am saying is totally and completely yours. I would love to be able to show you what I know to be truth, but it isn't mine to show you, even if I could, you would not believe, because you don't want to. That is your business, but when we fail to take responsibility for ourselves, we fail to be the people that a healthy society needs to thrive. We fail to be the people we can be, and we fail to be righteous to name but a few. Don't blame Lucifer or the serpent for what Adam and Eve, you and I do. Just like we can't blame God for what man does, we can't blame another for what we do. No one forced, made, or otherwise coerced Adam and Eve, all the serpent did was to lie to them about becoming like God, because we know from the story, that they did indeed die, on two different levels.
To sum it all up: The Bible is a book on Bronze age superstitions and has almost no value as an historicall record nor of any scientific value.
Now you can press the REPORT button!
Have a very nice day! (this is said in all honesty)
why would I even think of pressing the report button for an honest response from you? that doesn't make sense!
As to what the Bible is, I think you should look up some of the historical accounts and compare them with other records, they are surprisingly accurate. Again I would suggest the book A Case for Christ, as a starting point, it shows where to look for evidence, what questions to ask to determine whether or not the evidence is flawed, etc. It really is an interesting book and presented some questions I haven't even thought of. I'm anxious to read it. Point is this, if you want to know truth, you must look for truth, what do you have to loose by studying the historical accuracy of the bible against other records we have of the time. Archeology can be fun.
I even saw a documentary on the firy furnace once, and the archeology and science that went into identifying whether or not this account was possible. Really fascinating stuff, whether you believe or not it's history, it's ancient people, how can it not be interesting? Even if you walk away still believing it's just the superstitions of a Bronze age people, it's interesting stuff. Brings up all kinds of questions, like why did they believe what they did? What did they find to be evil when they believed in slavery, and some of the marriage issues they believed it? If they believed these things, why would they disobey God in the first place? and a million more questions open up when we actually look at and study the beliefs and history of these ancient people. Have fun with your study if you choose to do one, and please keep me posted on what you find, I may have missed some stuff, in fact, I'm sure I have.
I think you're onto something there.
