"the fear of the LORD -

He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.

They will swoop down on the slopes of Philistia to the west;
Together they will plunder the people to the east.
with a scorching wind he will sweep his hand over the Euphrates River"

Indeed.

[QUOTE=Splendour;19501327]If you don't have enough imagination to hold the devil accountable then don't bother directing post towards me any more. We just have to agree to disagree.
QUOTE]

I think this explains the theist position very well.

But he'll slay them lovingly, ldo.

Typical atheist cherrypicking to make God's power look bad. You forgot the reuniting of Ephraim and Judah part.

Rugged individualism doesn't work in real world politics.

Ask yourself where the Holocaust Jews would be if God hadn't put Hitler down with a few Allied armies.

Do you really want to go there?

Think about where it leads you.

Jebus, couldn't God have implemented a more timely, effective, and humane way to stop the Holocaust than via a world war which caused millions of collateral casualties and immeasureable suffering?

Don't we need to evaluate all of God's words and deeds? Mao and Hitler no doubt did some good things. But we evaluate them on the sum total of their lives.

I'm not making claims about God that I've made up. I'm using the Bible.

A simple question: what was the justification for the killing of the Egyptians' firstborn? And why is the killing of innocent children something to be celebrated? The Last Supper was a seder, so Jesus himself, as a Jew, celebrated it.

"I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator."

"What we have to fight for is the necessary security for the existence and increase of our race and people, the subsistence of its children and the maintenance of our racial stock unmixed, the freedom and independence of the Fatherland; so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Creator."


- Mein Kampf

In before, he wasn't a real Christian he was just using Christianity as a political tool.

But then i guess you could ask why was Christianity such a good tool to use against the Jews.

You are an atheist in part because you can't comprehend the bible.

Ephraim is the United Kingdom.

The United Kingdom helped Judah (the modern day Jews) by beating the Turks and issuing the Balfour Declaration. If not for Ephraim bye bye modern state of Israel.

God said it 800 years before Christ in Isaiah.

See the Fate Section:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribe_of_Ephraim

This may be my last attempt to educate atheists on the OT. Very few atheists show the the desire to understand from God's point of view or see him in a positive light and I haven't seen one in this forum accept correction yet.

I understand the history of the British Mandate in Palestine and have studied extensively the Zionist movement and its relationship to the British.

What that has to do, however, with what I am asking about the tenth plague, is a mystery to me.

If you can show me where I am wrong, I will gladly accept correction. But I am not saying anything myself; I am simply quoting the Bible wherein God says he killed the Egyptian children because he was taunted and wanted to teach Pharaoh a lesson.

Well, he had the example of God killing the "blackguard" race (Spendour's words) in the Bible. And, according, to Spendour, who are we to challenge His actions? He knows better.

Hitler thought the same way.

Considering we have an infinitesimal understanding of the knowledge and intent behind God's actions, the answer is no.

Than why would you have any confidence whatsoever in your understanding of God's nature?

Then why would we worship him? Maybe he should be reviled. How would we know which if we only have an infinitesimal understanding and knowledge of his intentions?

And what possible intention could justify the mass killing of innocent children?

I'm done with the thread. I already told you I didn't feel like doing an OT exegesis on that passage when I know beforehand you will reject it.

Plus you cherrypick the OT and ignore parts you don't understand.

I gave you the best advice I could which is to seek out a true scholar. I already know atheist posters on here don't use bible tools like commentaries and don't know how to identify a bible expert.

Because I do have an understanding of God's word to me in the Bible.

You should at least be grateful to God for creating you and the intellect you are using in an absurdly ill-equipped attempt to evaluate Him.

What you mean by "justify" in objective terms, i.e. nothing like "the consensus holds that..." or "I like ice cream!" etc?

Well I see we have reached the all too familiar, but inevitable, appeal to God's unintelligible nature.

What good is it to understand God's word, if you don't understand the intent of those words? Are you just a mindless robot blindly following written instructions, the purpose of which you don't comprehend?

You are simply engaging in convoluted machinations to rationalize your dogma. When God's desires are consistent with your dogma, you don't have trouble understanding Him. However when God demands or performs something illogical and/or evil, and which contradicts your concept of God, you just dismiss it by claiming we can't even begin to understand.

Does it ever occur to you, even if only for a nanosecond, that the reason none of this makes the slightest bit of sense is because the Bible is a collection of made-up stories, similar to the made-up stories found in every other culture?

Of course we are back to that again, because the discussion unfortunately made it so. One would think by this time that no one would still be argumentative on subjects that require an understanding of God's nature to resolve, but go figure.

Not mindless, no. Mindless would be to imagine one could second guess or reverse engineer the intent of the Creator of the universe independent of His revealed word.

Does it ever occur to you that an argument (express or implied) of the form: "since those accounts over there are made up, all accounts I think are similar are also made up" is a classic fallacy?

But that revealed word contains a number of vile atrocities committed by God. If you can't understand the intent of those passages, why do you think you can understand the intent of all the others?

That's not my argument, either expressed or implied. I don't accept the Bible as true because there is not a shred of evidence which independently supports it, as well because much of it in any case is comically absurd.

I mentioned other mythologies only because I assume you view them in a more objective and critical light, so when someone points out an absurdity in the Bible, it's perhaps less of a psychological barrier to come to a similar conclusion (namely that is it just a traditional story) for similar reasons (namely that the story is implausible).

You never answered my questions. But that's OK, you're under no obligation to do so.

Be well.

You're quite capable of googling Christnotes.org and checking out a commentary.

Hasn't he given us his words in the Bible in order for us to try to evaluate him? And if my intellect is absurdly ill-equipped for the task why should I be thankful for it?

I'm not putting my spin onto his words and actions, I'm accepting them at face value in exactly the way they are written in his book, the Bible.

It's the method of the tyrant to say that you're too childlike to understand the way things work, trust me, I know better.

I just looked up the commentary on Exodus 11. Here it is:

The death of all the first-born in Egypt at once: this plague had been the first threatened, but is last executed. See how slow God is to wrath. The plague is foretold, the time is fixed; all their first-born should sleep the sleep of death, not silently, but so as to rouse the families at midnight. The prince was not too high to be reached by it, nor the slaves at the mill too low to be noticed. While angels slew the Egyptians, not so much as a dog should bark at any of the children of Israel. It is an earnest of the difference there shall be in the great day, between God's people and his enemies. Did men know what a difference God puts, and will put to eternity, between those that serve him and those that serve him not, religion would not seem to them an indifferent thing; nor would they act in it with so much carelessness as they do. When Moses had thus delivered his message, he went out from Pharaoh in great anger at his obstinacy; though he was the meekest of the men of the earth. The Scripture has foretold the unbelief of many who hear the gospel, that it might not be a surprise or stumbling-block to us, Romans 10:16. Let us never think the worse of the gospel of Christ for the slights men put upon it. Pharaoh was hardened, yet he was compelled to abate his stern and haughty demands, till the Israelites got full freedom. In like manner the people of God will find that every struggle against their spiritual adversary, made in the might of Jesus Christ, every attempt to overcome him by the blood of the Lamb, and every desire to attain increasing likeness and love to that Lamb, will be rewarded by increasing freedom from the enemy of souls.

[end Commentary]

I read the God murdered the firstborns so that men in the future would be obedient to him. ("Did men know what a difference God puts, and will put to eternity, between those that serve him and those that serve him not, religion would not seem to them an indifferent thing; nor would they act in it with so much carelessness as they do.") And that he sees those who are not obedient as his enemies. (" It is an earnest of the difference there shall be in the great day, between God's people and his enemies.") And that God took his action in wrath. ("The death of all the first-born in Egypt at once: this plague had been the first threatened, but is last executed. See how slow God is to wrath.")

Is that from Matthew Henry's commentary? It looks like his style without googling it.

From Wiersbe's commentary on Exodus 7-8:

If men will not obey His words of warning, God must speak by His works of judgment. When God speaks, people either obey and submit their hearts or disobey and harden their hearts (Heb. 3:7-13). From the human point of view, Pharoah resisted God's will and thus hardened his own heart. From the divine point of view, God sent judgments and therefore caused his heart to harden. The same sun that melts the ice also hardens the clay.

The court magicians were able to imitate Aaron's miracle. Satan is a counterfeiter and that is one way he opposes God's work today (2 Tim 3:8-9). Some miracles are lying wonders (2 Thess. 2:9-10). Be sure you can tell the difference (1 John 2:18-27; 4:1-6).

The plagues were God's declaration of war against the false gods of Egypt (12:12). He proclaimed, "I am the LORD" (7:5). They were a declaration that God had put a difference between the Jews and the Egyptians (8:23).

How sad that Israel saw God's wonders in Egypt and yet did not trust Him (Ps. 106:6-7). They even wanted to return to Egypt after they had been delivered! Great experiences are no guarantee that one has grown spiritually. It all depends on what happens in your heart.

Excerpt from Warren W. Wiersbe's Quick Nelson Reference Chapter-by-Chapter Commentary