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Author | Topic: Tribute Thread For the Recently Raptured Faith | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Phat Member Posts: 18332 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
I would waffle in this case and learn more towards GDRS position. God may have inspired the Bible but not every writer was so pristine as to be free from the cultural bias of their era. It would be as if an inspired scribe were writing of the Amerikites in today's modern climate and wrote that God commanded us to pursue the 9-11 terrorists to the ends of the earth and killing them all. With our modern drone attacks we managed to attempt to do just that, and if you had asked any observant Christian in America they most certainly would justify it as Gods vengeance against the enemy.
Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 437 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
Nonsense. You can have words without characters. Do you think the U.S. Constitution or the Declaration of Independence or the Magna Carta is "empty" just because they're not being recited by Long John Silver?
Without characters to reflect the words, words are empty. Phat writes:
That would be Gladiator.
In the movie Braveheart, the following quote is uttered: Brothers! What we do in life echoes in eternity.. Phat writes:
Again, nonsense. The words would be just as inspiring written down, with no fictional character to verbalize them. Consider Thomas Paine's Common Sense, which did a lot to inspire the American Revolution. Often the words borrowed by the leader are as important as the leader himself.
The words themselves mean nothing without the encouragement and example modeled by a strong leader. Phat writes:
Nonsense. The early Church (see Ananias and Sapphira) did exactly that.
Nobody is simply going to sell all they have and follow an idea... Phat writes: ...unless they are idealistic and somewhat naive.quote: And our geese will blot out the sun.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1470 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I can't be wrong about this because God cannot commit sin and what is being called genocide is in fact justice. We don't call the death penalty homicide, nor should we call it genocide.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1470 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
All that just illustrates the unfortunate fact that American Christians are biblically illiterate, which was demonstrated amply enough by the general inability of Christian leaders to recognize that 9/11 was God's judgment on the nation.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Faith writes:
So you are going to limit God by saying that He can’t do anything wrong. Presumably then you are saying that because He is God then whatever He does is right. However, if we are to understand the Bible as you do we can see that God is capable of committing genocide Himself as in Sodom and Gomorra, but even worse He is getting humans to do His dirty work for Him in other cases without regard to how that will affect their hearts and minds. You are essentially saying that ultimately there really is no right and wrong.
God always acts righteously and justly. He cannot commit "genocide" because that is defined as a crime and God cannot commit a crime. He cannot do anything wrong, sinful, unrighteous or criminal. He has no such "right" as you are claiming. Therefore when He has a people killed it is the death penalty for THEIR crimes, sins, idolatries and so on. In the cases so often referred to the peoples had been given hundreds of years to repent, and it was only when their iniquities had reached "the fullness of time" that God sent judgment against them. We cannot possibly understand this from our modern vantage point, but we are certainly in the wrong if we impose our understanding on God's judgments and judge Him when we are to be judged by Him.Faith writes:
Obviously when you say that the Bible is God breathed your reasoning is circular. Yes I believe that God breathes life into and speaks to us through the Scriptures but that does not make them inerrant in the way that you understand them. When we read stories of God committing or commanding genocide or public stoning, we can read them and understand how severely we humans can distort things by assigning evil to God thus relieving them of the responsibility for the evil and even justifying it. That is what God has to say to us in those ancient stories. I have no problem at all deciding that because I know the Bible is "God-breathed" so that I know what it says is the truth. As for the WTC attack I believe nothing happens without God so that too is His judgment, though this one was more like God's bringing the enemies of His people, the Assyrians and Babylonians against Israel and Judah, something they initiated but served God's purposes anyway, in the case of the WTCD a judgment which nobody heeded of course, except a very few preachers I happened to hear at the time. All the rest were saying God doesn't do such things.Well they have no knowledge of God's judgments then. 9/11 should have been followed by a great movement of repentance toward God to restore the nation to His favor, but instead we did what ancient Israel also did when under judgment: God destroyed the trees so they replanted the trees; God knocked down buildings so they rebuilt the buildings. I think that is in Isaiah 10 though I'd have to look it up. You go even further and justify the actions of the 9/11 terrorists and agreeing that they were simply acting as agents of God. That is so unbelievably far from what Jesus lived and taught, and this is what happens when Christians make a false idol out of the Bible instead of actually following Jesus. Your understanding of God becomes no different than the god of the 9/11 terrorists. Yes God was involved that day. He was active in the hearts of those who risked their lives rescuing people and in the hearts of those that reached out to the families of the victims. He suffered with those who lost their lives and their families.
Faith writes:
I agree that God is a god of justice. But God is also a god of mercy and forgiveness. I think that the person who understood that best was CS Lewis. I know I have quoted this here previously but it is worth quoting again. From the book The Great Divorce: Instead of repenting and owning their sin Israel ignored their sin, felt sorry for themselves and rebuilt what God had destroyed. And God says that He will judge them even more because of that. And that's what America has done as well. This was all written about in the book "The Harbinger" by Jonathan Cahn who saw the connection between our destroyed trees and buildings and Israel's in that passage, some pretty uncanny connections as a matter of fact, a direct pointing to the teaching about defying God's judgments and bringing more as a result. We never learn. As long as people hate God for His judgments we'll just go on reaping judgments. Too many have a sappy view of Jesus as having nothing to do with judgment. If you read Isaiah 61, which He quoted in the synagogue about His mission as Messiah, you might note that He read only the part about His coming as a savior and a comforter, and stopped at the point where it goes on to say "the day of vengeance of our God." That's His mission too, but on His second coming. He came once to save us, but He'll come a second time to judge the world. Same Jesus, same God of the Old Testament, the one you hate.quote:My Christian belief is that God is just, merciful and loving, and that ultimately there will be perfect justice. I was raised in a middle class Canadian home where I was loved and cared for by moral and ethical parents. So many grow up in homes where they are not valued and in an atmosphere that is neither loving, moral nor ethical. One reason that I feel at peace with God’s judgment is that I am confident that God’s plan will see an understanding of our experiences in this life so that the individual that emerged from a negative environment will be treated mercifully and with compassion for those circumstances. I don’t have all the answers that you seem to believe that you have. I am content that even though I have opinions of the ultimate future of this world I am content to leave it to God. As a Christian I do trust that ultimately there will be perfect justice for all, and that justice will involve mercy, forgiveness and above all love.
Faith writes:
I guess I’m just happy that it is God judging me and not you. Incidentally I don’t reject salvation. My point is that salvation should not be the focus of our Christianity. Salvation is God’s business and our business is to fulfill the task that we have been given which is to be grateful for the gift of life, to humbly love mercy and kindness, to act justly, and above all to reflect God’s love into His creation, Honestly, GDR, I really don't know if you are a Christian. Sometimes I accept that you are and other times I think you reject too much of the truth to be a Christian. And you even reject salvation, the gospel itself, actually talk about it as an unworthy human manipulation -- the thought makes me shudder.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1470 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
So you are going to limit God by saying that He can’t do anything wrong. Limit God? By understanding that He is absolute Perfection? What on earth has happened to bring such a nonsensical idea about? I can't fathom this weirdness. Why would you even WANT an imperfect God? I ADORE His perfections, His perfect beauty, His perfect understanding, His perfect moral law, His perfect judgments, His perfect righteousness, His perfect power, His perfect knowledge . I'm aghast at such an idea as an imperfect God.
Presumably then you are saying that because He is God then whatever He does is right. Absolutely, unequivocally, unquestionably, right. That is why we can use the Bible as our standard for judging absolutely everything and don't have to second guess anything or wonder which part is true etc etc etc. I'm so flabbergasted by this idea there may be nothing else to say about the rest of what you wrote, but I'll come back and see.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: wikipedia expressly lists capital punishment as an example of homicide. Indeed the general definition the killing of one person by another clearly does include executions. When we have, not an orderly execution, but a military force exterminating men, women and children the idea that we should not call it genocide seems even further fetched.
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caffeine Member (Idle past 1050 days) Posts: 1800 From: Prague, Czech Republic Joined: |
We don't call the death penalty homicide To put on my nitpick hat, yes we do. Homicide is someone killing someone else. From Farlex's free legal dictionary discussion of homicides that are not criminal:
quote:
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Percy writes:
Fair enough. I don't know enough about Faith to actually pass judgement on her so I am assuming what I said about her. Certainly I find it distressing that she so distorts Christ'a message but at the same time she is able to justify OT atrocities without seeing them as being justified in her own life. I'm trying to figure out why you would say this, which implies that you have a deep capacity to see love in everyone:GDR writes: Faith, I'm not questioning the fact that you are a loving wonderful person, and a wonderful Christian. When just a message ago you said this: Nonsense. I know numerous non-Christians who are more Christ-like than a lot of Christians I know.Which implies much more objectivity. As for the last statement it seems to me that we are capable of somewhat objectively judging whether or not an individual has a more loving nature than some other individual. He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1470 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
All I'm trying to do is get the standard idea about this recognized. You want to change definitions and fool around with words in such a way as to obscure my simple point that God cannot be wrong or unjust. I'm not insisting that you agree with me, but I am insisting that you stop confusing things so that my opinion can't even be correctly stated.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1470 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I'm not talking about some kind of prissy pedantic legal definition, I'm talking about how ordinary people talk about these things. Yikes, why can't a simple point get recognized around here?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: The standard idea is that it is genocide.
quote: No. I am just objecting to your attempts to change definitions and fool about with words. I am not at this point arguing about whether the genocide was justified or not.
quote: There is no confusion in pointing out that - according to the Bible - God ordered genocide. That is what it says.
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caffeine Member (Idle past 1050 days) Posts: 1800 From: Prague, Czech Republic Joined: |
I'm not talking about some kind of prissy pedantic legal definition, I'm talking about how ordinary people talk about these things. Yikes, why can't a simple point get recognized around here? But I think in this case it's more than just a prissy and pedantic definition. Homicide is only really a legal term; and it refers to killing people. Then there are all kinds of different types of homicide depending on whether it's justified and whether it's intentional. Genocide is killing a whole people, rather than just individuals. You seem to be invoking some kind of concept of justifiable genocide; but it's clearly still genocide. We are obviously having difficulty with conceiving what could justify genocide; and the Bible passages quoted don't shed much light on this.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1
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Faith writes: Absolutely I believe in a perfect God whose nature is perfectly embodied by Jesus. Genocide and public stoning are completely contrary to what Jesus taught so we know that they are wrong. You however are prepared to accept and call right the idea that God both committed and commanded these atrocities. In other words it is you that worships an imperfect God and I would in turn ask you why you would want to do that.
Limit God? By understanding that He is absolute Perfection? What on earth has happened to bring such a nonsensical idea about? I can't fathom this weirdness. Why would you even WANT an imperfect God? I ADORE His perfections, His perfect beauty, His perfect understanding, His perfect moral law, His perfect judgments, His perfect righteousness, His perfect power, His perfect knowledge . I'm aghast at such an idea as an imperfect God. Faith writes: You say you use the Bible as a standard. You actually don't. You have to twist the basic meaning of the Bible so badly that the message that God actually has for us becomes unrecognizable. As I've said before, it becomes Biblleianity instead of Christianity. Absolutely, unequivocally, unquestionably, right. That is why we can use the Bible as our standard for judging absolutely everything and don't have to second guess anything or wonder which part is true etc etc etc.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3
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We do not say that genocide is wiping out a human population - but only if it is wrong.
We say that genocide is wiping out a human population - and that is wrong. That is why trying to avoid the use of the word genocide is nothing more than spin.
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