I like the idea of faith. But are we not to think about things? God told us he is just and merciful but he killed a ton of people because they were "evil." Including little children. How could they have been evil? Not only did he do it before the flood, but he did it again to the firstborn of the Egyptians.

The worst tyrants in history told us to trust them--to have faith--because they knew better than we did, we couldn't understand everything they did.

Interesting discussion, being agnostic coming from a catholic and evangelical upbringing i would guess that i believed what i was told to believe, i did know of some other creation tales, but they werent handed out as truth, so for me they were as true as the three little pigs or cinderella.

I would think it is the same as my kid growing up influenced to be a Celtics or Lakers fans because his first example of a sports fan is his father, or the kid may have hate issues (racism, homophobia) because that is the upbringin he saw and knows.

Most children arent brought up to question most ideas and thoughts that are given to them, in fact it may be fatal for them to question about not touching the hot pan, or not swimming in the lake at night, is in our genes to take everything we are taught from our parents as truth for our own well being, the bad part is that we cant tell apart which ideas are true or false as kids, santa claus comes to mind.

I'll summarize:

Q: "What do you make of all other creation stories?"

A1: Before asking this you have to study the Bible
(I gather the other creation stories apparently do not require this)

A2: God told us.
(All the other people who claimed God(s) told them, were delusional or lying)

A3: God is the only who can create life.
(But what about the other gods who were the only ones who could create life?)

A4: You can't judge God.
(But why can you judge those other Gods?)

A5: Nothing predates the bible.
(I hope you don't have access to guns)


In short we have a series of very funny dodges, because noone wants to admit the obvious; "Those other stories are void, because I want them to be."

my irony meter just exploded.

Its probably the most pertinent question itt. Most people receptive to the Word of God have the indispensable quality of meekness.

It's shame that meek is so often confused for elasticity.

What do you mean?

Billy Graham has one of the best explanations of the importance of meekness given in his book The Secret of Happiness. I used to not pay any attention to Graham til one day I saw an old re-run of him on t.v. Then I read his book on the new birth. He's quite a good expositor on spiritual truth. He does it so clearly without a lot of the semantic weighting flaws (word choice problems) most people suffer from that makes the communication of ideas so difficult.

i honestly have no idea what that means.

by the way i would not describe jesus as meek. would you?

The modern definition/connotation of the word isn't the biblical one.

See the difference: http://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/...sr/CT/BS/k/249

What do you mean by "receptive to the Word of God"?

As in, willing to believe it without proof and willing to ignore all the internal inconsistencies in the Bible?

God gives proof but what we consider proof varies by individual. See my miracles thread I posted last week.

I never see any substantial inconsistencies. And every time I research one provided on here it is resolved to my satisfaction.

he does?where, when and how?

Check out some of these books:

Geisler/Zukeran's The Apologetic of Jesus
Strobel's The Case for Christ
Hamer's The God Gene
Gary Habermas' Skeptics Argument for the Resurrection on both his site and in 9 parts (9 iirc) on Youtube
Read the bible's Book of John then this book by Harrold G. Norris:
http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts.../ssjg/SSJG.HTM
Simon Greenleaf's The Testimony of the Evangelists:
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/proj...greenleaf.html

There are many more I just don't know all of them or I can't remember some titles.

OK, I'm trying here ...

Exodus 23
from http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0223.htm
(ie, the original Hebrew version, translated into English by Torah scholars ... so no "mis-translation" nitpicking please)

Exactly where did the Israelites offer peace to the luckless Canaanites, etc?

Sounds more like the first documented case of ethnic cleansing to me ... but of course who are we to question the motives of such a just and wise god who has the divine right (divinely given by himself, of course) to commit genocide in his name?

this is perhaps the most ******ed thing Pletho has ever said. And that's saying a lot.

On another note ...

God (ie, the Hebrew / Christian one; let's go with Yahweh below to avoid confusion) refers in these verses to "their gods" (Exodus 23:24).

As any good Torah scholar will tell you, the presence or absence of words in scripture is very significant. If Yahweh meant to say "their false gods", then He would have done so.

So the fact that he didn't clearly implies that He did not consider them false, but rather that they were competing gods to Him.

So basically Exodus 23 describes a turf war, with the Israelites being Yahweh's foot soldiers in the conquest of his little patch (altho you have to wonder why this was necessary ... if He's such a powerful god, why not just smite the other gods himself?)

From other threads here, it would seem that the Christians here don't quite see it this way, ie their view is that there is and was only ever one god ... despite the reality that their own god concedes otherwise?

Deuteronomy 20:10: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...0&version=NKJV

And all the nations were aware God was with Israel but they chose to make war anyway. See Balaam/Balak.

In another passage of the Pentateuch it says God timed the march into the Promised Land to coincide with an apex of evil on the part of the native peoples.

I don't know why you even choose to focus on specific acts of "genocide". Death is really a matter of timing. Death was already sentenced on everyone at The Fall.

Also the OT is the story of the earthly kingdom of Israel. Christians are now under a heavenly kingdom. We are citizens of heaven. They are 2 different worlds.

http://www.biblicalresearchreports.c...dtestament.php

A defense of genocide. We're all gonna die anyway. What difference does it make if it comes peacefully in old age or if an airplane slams into a skyscraper?

One of the main themes of the bible is to submit your will to God so he can teach you to walk upright not to do whatever you want to do in rebellion to him walking around like some hunched over ape.

God has the power. No one can take the power away from him. And that puts him in a class by himself whether or not he's even good.

All these instances of so-called "genocide" that atheists like to examine is like "pissing into the wind". And the interpretations you make are based clearly on a lack of biblical knowledge. How come you never pick up on the background situations in the Old Testament? How come you never know any of the surrounding details? "God is a tyrant, God is genocidal"....blah blah...blah.....

God already owns the world and everything in it...get it? The bible describes that he owns us the way a potter owns a pot.....

God's already called death on everyone and you want to complain when he calls time early on a race of blackguards? Its not like he didn't put the whole Middle East on notice. All the surrounding nations knew when the Exodus occurred. They knew about the Egyptians and the other miracles. They chose to ignore them. Rahab said to Joshua's spies that they knew God was with the Israelites.

God has always held the power of life and death. I don't even think "genocide" is a word applicable to him.

Try explaining why when these nations in the Promised Land clearly saw God with the Israelites why they shouldn't have welcomed them instead of making war. They could have made the Israelites their priests.

God always intended Israel to be a light to the nations. They were the proto type for the "royal priesthood" the NT talks about.

Doesn't a rational man throw down his weapons when God arrives in the neighborhood?

God tells everything from a foreknowledge perspective in the conquest of the Promised Land. He knows they know God is with Israel and yet they are going to rebel anyways.

Genocide is genocide regardless of whatever rationale you cough up in its defense.

Splendourism.

You're a committed atheist. You're not someone who wants to know you have totally misunderstood the nature of God.

There's too much evil in the world for God to allow us a freeroll every day of our lives. He has to transform us before he can trust us.

Splendourism - n. 1. Unsubstantiated claim followed by blanket statement and/or stereotype.

Well your posts speak louder than words.

I just explained God's position in the OT and you still want him to be in the wrong.

Now move to your fallback position: God doesn't exist...so it doesn't matter if I don't know the nature of God....

Am I supposed to dignify false accusations towards what I have written with an answer?