God is not jelous OF but FOR. As a husband is FOR his wife if she was to give her affections/attentions to another man. This is not a childish jelousy it is not uncontrolled and given the nature of the relationship he describes and aims to have with his people, it is appropriate. He is not saying "waaah i want your attention" He is saying "i pulled you out of bondage, i betrothed you to myself, that I might show you kindness and compassion, I will not tolerate you giving your affections to anyone before me" Why? Because at the center of our being is an addictive need for a sustaining relationship, if we dont have it with God, and first give our affections instead to work, drugs, alchohal, people, it is emotionally, physically and mentally bad for us" His vengence is also not uncontrolled, it is actually reserved. Reserved specifically for those first and foremost who lure his bride, his child, his people away from him and lead them back into bondage.

Ill take a weak crack at this with my informal education... As far as the hebrew writers would have been concerned whos eastern veiw of time itself is completely different than our greek minds the "Day" is not describing the duration of time where the sun came up and the moon went down, which we would think of as a 24 hour day which leads us to believe 6 literal days of creation and then a rest on the seventh day. Some proof of this comes when we realize that the sun and moon didnt even come into existance in the creation account until the 4th "day". Genesis: 16-19 God made two great lights.....to rule over day and night.......the fourth day. So the "day" and "night" "light" and "dark" used prior to this verse dont specify any length governed by the sun and moon at all, but instead is speaking about the content of those days. Its not your typical evangelical explanation, and my research isnt extensive but is at least fair. Again, if the term "day" and "night" were used in the descriptive process prior to the creation of the sun and moon, then there is nothing that implies God did it in 6 literal 24 hour days.

It is crazy absolutley absurd to think God would need sacrafice of animals, but if you move further into the Old Testament God says (paraphrasing) that He doesnt desire sacrafice, that he is not a human who would eat meat, and if he was the whole world is his so he wouldnt have to ask for it. What does this demonstrate? A lot, far too much to discuss here but; The sacraficial system was set up after God brought the Israelites out of hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt. He chose a people to reveal his nature to (That they then might be priests/representitives to the whole world) who were already steeped in a certain kind of Historical religious tradition who themselves had unatural practices as a result. It involved the worship of god's and bizzarre sacraficial systems which were invented by humans. The sacraficial system was not invented by God, it was simply used to illustrate himself to a people who already viewed the process of interacting with "god" in a certain way. So what God does is take their willy nilly sacraficial system of this random thing to that random god and demonstrates how Complex he is by how complex of a system he requires them to sacrifice by. The laws and regulations he lays out for how people are to sacrafice to HIM are as much more complicated, detailed, and complex compared to their existing system, as He is to their existing Gods. The point is to establish a few points of relationship and frames of reference that He can initiate the revelation of his nature to his people. He over time, as the people shift from a band of slaves to an actual culture expresses how he doesnt want the sacraficial system, and completely abolishes it finally in Jesus Christ.

These are not rules for US to live by, they are rules for an obstinant, stubborn, unlearned, tribe of slaves who have really zero foundation of morality, a people who existed in a time and in a place, in a certain condition, and needed certain rules to live by. You dont adopt a 16 year old kid out of the foster system and then start by teaching him what fork to eat his salad with. You set some ground rules that are HEALTHIER for him to live by and move from there. If hes been slanging crack out on the corner til 3 am dont expect to have any success training him to be a healthy person if your rules are "lights out and in bed by 9" You as a good parent, meet them where they are at. Thats what God did. The bible uses words liike "adoption" to describe out relationship with him. Knowing that slavery was a way of life for them, it makes no sense to say "dont have slaves" if they havent any concept that slavery is not a way of life. Instead he starts by setting up rules that work with them where they are at. The bulk of the bible isnt "God snaps his fingers and BOOOM this happens" and people who think thats who God is are missing the good stuff. God is the inventor of relationship, the perfector of it, any relationship, any growth, in a tree, in a child, takes careful nurturing over real actual time. Change doesnt just happen it is built in to time, and in light of that truth, this rule makes sense. God doesnt condone slavery, or the mistreatment of women, he works in us and in reality to abolish these things to refine the evil out of us that makes that happen, but its a process.

See above, i would only give a simliar response. I admit that i dont like this, and think "why couldnt you just say dont sell your daughters" but I have to recognize that as i cant understand the brutality of the dark ages, i cant understand the people that he was dealing with in this historical setting, and trust that this isnt absurd.

First dont think "curseth" means telling your mother or father to go F*(& themselves, to curse would be as awful of a thing as to bless would be a good thing.

Second Forming a foundation out of which morality can grow comes with a cost. Dont think that you yourself dont profit from the moral evolution that is directly a result of God entering into our history. The moral fabric of any society is directly correlated with the teachings of a parent to a child, and the childs obedience. This society must have been more awful than we can imagine, for an unimaginable rule like this to have been necessary.

THe thing that is lost is that we sit here high and mighty on our logical thrones and are able to disect this and hate on that due to the fact that somewhere along the way morality was set in motion. We would not have the freedom to think, or the time to do it if the disfunction that existed 1000's of years ago wasnt curbed, we would be hiding in a cave or pile of rubble from someone who prob wants to eat us. We can see by simple observation that things dont go from bad to good on there own, everything decays. The landscape then was one of moral destitution, Im thankful that God had the kind of purfying affection needed back then for me to experience any liberty today.

I know no one likes circular arrguments, but the answer to your question comes from the bible; Romans 12:19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.

He didnt comman us to destroy them, vengence is reserved for Him, the all knowing God the only one who would know how to distribute any type of retribution, he is the one who initiates the destruction.


8.lol....damn you Harry Potter
"*Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

yes

How can one take this book seriously?[/QUOTE]

I would disagree about the compassion and kindness. Bible is full of instances where GOD murders people for unjustified reasons. He also asks a group oh his believers to go and wipe of masses of others because they worship someone else. Do you find it justified to go and wipe out all the Hindus because they don't accept GOD, who he himself did a bad job proving himself to exist to them? I don't believe in Yahweh because there simply is not enough proof of his existence, so do you find it justified for GOD to kill me because I don't believe in him? He doesn't want people to believe in other gods for who's existence we have as much evidence as for him yet he wants us to blindly choose him. Double standard, believe blindly in me but not in other gods.. And if you made a bad choice will be wiped out... that's a correct attitude by an almighty being?



Even if the word was used in different content, this still does not explain issues with the order he supposedly created the universe. First earth and then the moon and sun and stars? This does not fit the theory of big bang and formation of solar systems... there are plenty of other issues in Genesis as presented in this great series..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSDXgT2QAf0

yet Leviticus is filled with instructions on what to offer and how to do it... contradictory message, yes , bible is full of those... it seems as every generation who changed ways of looking and doing things decided to write their own ideas on what GOD supposedly wants... this book is so man made it is not even funny...


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As described in the bible do you think that Israelites in those times would be considered a moral society?... I bet you will say no, if we compare them to todays standards. So you are telling me that it is fine for GOD if one immoral society takes people into slavery so that they can teach them their immoral laws?

So if raping your child was the way of life for them also , then it would also make no sense to say " don't rape your child" since , what's the point, they have no concept that raping your child is not a away of life.. lol


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So please explain what "curseth" means then.. give me the example and then tell me that this action is justified by punishing the child with death...

The constantly changing morality has nothing to do with the bible, or what GOD said in it... are you claiming that we would all be cannibals if GOD wouldn't have given us a bible?



ehhhh.. yes he did command many times in the old testament to go and kill a group of people including their children. His message is always contradictory... sometimes he needs human help to wipe out thousands of people , sometimes he says don't kill yet he goes and wipes out millions on his own.... The truth is, that if this book described a human almost all people would say he is a ruthless murderer, but people somehow excuse all the bad things GOD does and claim "he works in mysterious ways"...

The whole bible reads like the ramblings of ignorant and superstitious people. To choose it as a religious book, you have to believe in witchcraft, demons, magic, faith healing, zombies, ghosts and other fanciful notions. I simply cannot make that leap.

There is nothing particularly unique about Christianity. It borrows many elements and archetypes from other religions that came before it. It will change or disappear along with Greek and Norse mythology and probably be replaced by something else. There's a person performing "miracles" right now in India according to his followers, also ostensibly born of a virgin mother. If people even today can be duped into believing, imagine how easy it would have been to trick people ignorant of science 2000 years ago.

I'll attempt to answer your questions because I think they are important. I'm no expert on science or scripture and am a highschool dropout, but I make a habit of reading the bible cover to cover over and over because I love the personal liberation it brings me, and as a result my veiws arent simply other peoples views but my own from actually reading the Word I beleive is Gods. That could either be commended or condemened, but I find that few Christians I know actually have spent enough time personally engaging the Lord and as a result just answer rhetoric.

The first thing I'd like to mention is that as Ive read the story of God over and over Im impressed by how internally the Bible is really thematically consistant, and doctrinally consistant. It may not fit your world view but it is consistant with itself. I may not be the best person to prove that statement, but I find it to be more and more true and welcome the chance to defend that stance. It needs to be noted that this isnt simply a "users manual" it is the narrative story of God, mankind, and His attempt to establish a relationship with them when there was none. This is a story cover to cover, to be understood not just in the context of two passages next to each other, or two passages 700 pages away, it is a difficult but consistant narrative meant to be understood as a whole. I am just now beginning to see how consistant it is, and this is after 100's of hours reading through it.

I doubt that you understand the nature of worship involved among the groups of people wiped out? Their worship included sexual practices which included rape, and the sacraficing of people and children to name a few. The "worship" of god's historically is not the peaceful sweet one you are imagining it was. This story unfolds in real human history and God is faced with real issues of human depravity. The story of the Bible is of God revealing to Isreal who He really is, abolishing all the depraved ideas of who he is, and the practices engaged in by people who have a twisted notion of who God is. God is not simply wiping out a people, he is wiping out faulty horrific belief systems that are detramental to humanity as a whole and if not corrected lead to morbid horrific consequences for you and I. His intense hatred of other religious practices and his command not to have any idols or love any Gods before Him is not because he is jelous for attention, it is because he is unwilling to allow us to suffer the consequences of worshipping Gods we, specifically the ancients invented ourselves. Its not a matter of him stopping hippies from having bongo circles. No one is suggesting now nor do I believe you can find it in scripture, that in the current culture which has evolved from the ancient, that we are to murder Hindus because they dont belive, I think the Bible demonstrates very well that at a certain point in History, as the landscape changed, that Gods focus on correcting hideous practices changed as it became less necessary, and He entered the world as Jesus to demonstrate his nature, and how man should live. Civilization was in no means in order, and breif observavtion will show there was and still is some severe darkness on the face of the earth, but the setting was such that Jesus could enter the story with the stage set for some serious advancements in morality and peace among men to be achieved and that it is to be achieved through the message of peace with the God who manipulated history in a way that man could fathom peace.

Its beyond the scope of my abilities to dive into science. My point was to demonstrate that if the Bible doesnt necessarily indicate creation happened in 144 hours, which of course is going to be a point of tension between science and scripture, then is the creation account really narratively absurd?

Id like to further add to what I said that the phrase "in the day of the Lord" Occurs 20 something times in the OT and that it isnt indicating a 24 hour period of time, but instead is indicating a time when God would be acting on the earth in some capacity. Add to that a verse like 2 peter 3:8 "a day is as a thousand years a thousand years as a day" (my translation) and we are no longer dealing with an account that is just an acid trip, but one that is consistant with how "Days" are portrayed throughout all of scripture

ill direct you to the rest of what I wrote which explains why it is filled with instructions

You fail to see that GOD has told Israelites to do the same as written in the bible... don't make me have to copy and paste quotes..

So you are saying that the easiest and best way for GOD to wipe out all faulty belief systems is to tell his followers to go to the nearest town and kill all, including children? or in instance of flood , do it by himself?

It does not fit in with the timeline of the events that we know happened as described by science. So can it be right as described in the bible? not really, you can watch the videos i linked in the reply if you want to get to know all problems with the genesis.

seems like you did not really answer any of my questions...

no I'm saying slavery was a way of the world, that's historical. "slavery" existed and man created it, in fact willingly sold themselves into it. Change is built into time, God liberates a people from the bonds of an opressive slavery and then establishes the first semblance of order for the developing culture that will bare His name. It takes generations to eradicate certain harmful practices from humanity, I'm saying that God establishing a precident on how to treat slaves was in order to begin that eradication.

I'm doing multiple things right now. Also you should know that I am not intending on providing satisfying answers to you, I am interested in providing answers that demonstrate there is a far more consistant strain of order and logic in the Bible than you would flippantly claim.

yes please copy and paste biblical quotes where God has commanded that people engage in bizzare and harmful sexual rituals, where he calls for people to offer up others and children to himself as a sacrafice.

You won't be able to. You can copy and paste countless scriptures where God has through force opposed and removed those who would teach those practices, which he does for the good of all mankind, but you can't post anything like you are suggesting.

It's acceptable to mistate something or misundertand it, but to flippantly assert something as a truth, and claim you have documentation is lying.

First God doesn't just send people out to kill randomly. The Bible demonstrates clearly that those who he forcefully opposes are those who's intent or current action is to enslave His people who He already took out of bondage. His Bride, His Children. He is protecting a people He picked who's role in History is to then reveal Him, He who provides, who liberates, who rescues, to the rest of the world. God doesn't plot murder and send out His minions to exact it, He attempts to establish a culture bearing His real image, and those who by force of their own act against His people, He has vengence on. That isn't scripturally debatable. Maybe you don't "think" that's what is taking place in the Bible, but that simply shows you aren't familiar with the story.

Second, his plan to eradicate these harmful practices isn't to do it by force, but to introduce a deep fundamental sense of morality. If no one would oppress His people, who he intends to spread that morality through, He would not use force.

I haven't had time to watch videos and again I'm not qualified to talk science, but I'll watch them soon. It should be noted that the sciences where not of practical importance to the ancient Hebrew, that it is even a literal account is hardly likely for that reason. Our Greek minds are fascinated w scientific truth, but the Bible is an issue of ethics, a narrative truth. Example: The important questions in life aren't what are all the scientific reasons smoking kills you, it's should we smoke? That's a question of personal conviction that science doesn't provide an answer for. The bible isn't a text book it is the source of answers for the questions of the human condition. Every passage isn't intended to be a picture of History. Jesus spoke in parables, stories that symbolized deeper issues. No one says "Wait Jesus, that didn't really happen" the point is the narrative truth being explained. In that light it is acceptable for the creation account to explain the nature of the truth of our physical existence.

I'm not saying that's THE stance on creation, but that it does nothing to take away the credibility of the Word of God in scripture.

I'm not implying this at all. "thou shall not murder" "thou shall not comity adultery" etc etc. Those things obviously were occuring or God wouldn't have made a stance on them. The more pressing and more dispicable human practices, those that are most destructive are clearly single out as unacceptable.

I never said that if I was a way of life God just said "okay, guess you can do it".

And as far as your rape example, God clearly lays out the law on sexual immorality, again swiftly bringing to light the issues that would hurt people the most and dealing with those first.

I'll have to find an example where someone was actually put to death for it, I can't remember an instance off the top of my head. Although I'll admit of all the answers I gave, this was prob the closest to a cliche thoughtless Christian response as I made. Guilty.

interesting, because I see the most diplomatic, moral, creative, ethical, scientific production and adancment in those geographical areas where Christianity has it's deepest roots. I see much of the opposite in areas where the Gospel is unpreached. The corralation is a strong one my friend, I don't know what or where we would be today without the Bible and the work of Christ in history up through the present day, but I do think it would be a very dangerous scary world.

did God use people in acting out the retribution we've discussed, yes. Does he legislate it in any way or even suggest we are to act it out at our discretion. No absolutley not.

hows about listing a couple of those nations and compare them to countries where christianity is not deep rooted.

I never mentioned anything about nations or countries.

I sense you are looking to make a point, and since Im not opposed to being educated, nor claimed to be educated, simply share what is on your mind and we can converse from there forward.

so you are saying that if god would have included in the ten commandments a statement , you should not enslave others , that would be too hard for these people to understand ? come on he is allowing slavery, better yet , tells people how to do it, but won't tell them to eradicate slavery because it's immoral because he is afraid it's too hard to understand for them not to do so? ehhhh.. poor excuse..

"So the assembly sent 12,000 of their best warriors to Jabesh-gilead with orders to kill everyone there, including women and children. 11 “This is what you are to do,” they said. “Completely destroy[a] all the males and every woman who is not a virgin.” 12 Among the residents of Jabesh-gilead they found 400 young virgins who had never slept with a man, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan."Judges 21:10-24 NLT

They go and murder women and children.. isn't this what GOD supposedly wanted to eradicate yet he did the same thing? the bible is full of murder either done in the name of GOD or done by god.. don't tell me that humans were evil and GOD was eradicating evil this way.. poor excuse..

yeah.. you're basically making up your own version of a bible..

yes it does.. if you read a book that claims the truth yet it tells you that the world was pooped out from elephants ass and we know this is not true, why should I believe any other stuff in that book? especially the extraordinary claims it makes?