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Talking Snakes and Donkeys? Really?

TuxAme

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You're a deist, so you believe that there is some kind of intelligent (and I can only assume all-powerful) being. With that in mind, is it beyond the realm of possibility that this all knowing, all powerful being (who made these creatures, mind you) could convey a message through a donkey?
 
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Occams Barber

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With that in mind, is it beyond the realm of possibility that this all knowing, all powerful being (who made these creatures, mind you) could convey a message through a donkey?

Didn't someone make a few movies about this in the 1950s?
OB
 
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mmksparbud

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Talking Snakes and Donkeys? Really?
Absurd in the extreme. But, hey the Bible says so...........

And why not? They are alive and well and still speaking today--they just go by another name---politicians. And sometimes, we elect them President.
 
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Nihilist Virus

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Absurd in the extreme. But, hey the Bible says so...........

Hi. If I recall correctly you used to be a Christian. If so, was there ever a time when you defended the idea of a talking donkey to atheists while privately agreeing it is absurd?
 
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Tom 1

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The point of the story being what, exactly? Kill all Midianites?

Nope, more like pay attention to what you are doing so that someone doesn’t have to shove what you already know in your face.
 
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Nihilist Virus

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Nope, more like pay attention to what you are doing so that someone doesn’t have to shove what you already know in your face.

I think Numbers could've gotten that message across without introducing talking donkeys, genocide, and human sacrifice.
 
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Source? Is it the scout team that Moses sent? Recall that the text itself says they gave a false report. How trustworthy were they?

Further, if scouts of another nation saw Jephthah sacrifice his daughter, would they be in the right to just assume that this was normal Jewish practice and not a perversion of the religion?




Source...?


I thought we were all born into sin and no one was innocent...?


So Hitler was doing a good thing as well...?


Sorry but this is a stupid question. The Bible plainly states that Jehovah hated Moloch. That wouldn't make Moloch real.


Frankly, this post was a hard read. But not because I was challenged.
 
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? Your posts, #8 &#11?

Well if you bother to read how Balaam meets his demise you'll see that he is killed in a war and that the Midianites are taken captive and slaughtered, although the virgins are kept alive as rape hostages. A portion of them were sacrificed to Jehovah. This is chapter 31. If Balaam's story is a message, what's the message?
 
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Tom 1

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Ah, yes, well getting back to the OP the talking donkey story has one or more meanings. For the wider question of what you call Balaam’s story, what I think you were referring to in posts 8&11, and here, you can find out more about the historical and cultural context etc, if you want to understand it that is. If you don’t, then why comment?
 
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So there's a cultural context in which rape, genocide, and human sacrifice is ok?
 
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Erik Nelson

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Revelation describes a "pure" Vision, from God in heaven, to John the apostle on Patmos island, earth. John was "carried away in the spirit" to breathtaking heavenly realms, based on no concrete terrestrial "prompts".

If God can communicate Visions to people, so powerful that their minds are completely overwhelmed...

then God could communicate to people "more gently", such that they were still aware of their physical earthly surroundings, onto which the Vision would be "overlain" vaguely like a fighter pilot's HUD

so...

the combination of (say) a donkey on earth, and a Vision from the Divine realm, could cause one to confusedly perceive that the Voice of God was coming from the donkey
 
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