Confession of a former christian

My adaption of your words? Child, when I read million, I read million. If, you mean by million, anything other than million, you could, for example, use the word fairy to denote one, then ten fairy could mean 45, and 100 could mean "IamAdam".

You don't simply choose not to.There are many reasons for you not throwing it out the window and few (if any) for throwing it out the window. Hence there can be no talk of balance in the choice presented as to what to do with your computer. Your choice is skewed by the many reasons you have for not throwing your computer out the windowI'll leave out responding to aspects of your post (the most of it) that rely on the notion of a freewill skewed against particular choices. Or which simply assert a free will can be created that can choose evil but never will.- Huh?- As before. Providing choice doesn't mean you want all options that can be chosen. If you can't have what you want without the potential of having what you don't want then you have to put up with that. Even if you're God.(now that we're agree omnipotence isn't a magic wand.)- Not in terms of choosing evil he hasn't. The definition of evil being used is any action/thought that is against Gods will. God cannot do evil because God cannot act against his own will. Obviously. A balanced choice is one that lies at the other end of the spectrum to your example of the computer going out the window. That was an example of a skewed choice Theirs wasn't a moral choice. It was a consequential one. Death (whatever they understood by that) on the one hand vs. being like God (whatever they understood by that) on the other. No morality need be involved in making consequential decisions. They only got the consequences of their choice > death being separation from God.- She didn't need to eat of the tree to understand a prohibition.
"Don't do that or else" is a consequential prohibition - not a moral one. I've never been impressed with the argument given that Eve didn't understand what 'die' meant. We might suppose she understood something of the word - given she understood something of other words.Your use of the word 'but' is illustrative. Your reason for using that word is to counter, to query, to object, to question. She uses that word too.

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2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "

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Oops, is that the time..Later..{AbE} Consequential choice requires that you have some idea of the consequences on both (or more) sides. She understood 'English' so we can presume she had some concept as to consequences of death - if not full understanding.- Culpable in consequential sense. They were promised consequences and they got them. In that sense I mean. I can't say I agree. If a choice can be skewed towards option A by means of attractive reasons for option A and a choice can be skewed towards option B by way of attractive reasons for option B then it is clearly possible to find a balance in the middle where the skewing is neutralised. And the will is left to decide for itself. Weighing the consequences isn't in itself choosing. And when weighed, the consequences leaning this way or that tend to determine the decision. This is different than a balanced (thus truly free) choice. The reason you stayed up late arose out of the consequences of finishing your reply outweighing the consequences of not going to bed. Perhaps getting it off your chest then outweighed the desire to sleep.- I hope your not cursed with occasions where you get a blank reply screen when, after failed attempt to post, you press the back button..I hate that.- I would agree such instances are rare - I wouldn't even hazard a guess at a situation where one arises.But I wouldn't agree it's necessarily a guess. I think there is a mechanism whereby you can shift yourself to one option in the face of an actual balanced set of options. One way to do that would be to alter your take on one of the options.Assuming Eve was faced with balance: prohibition on one side, desire for gaining wisdom on the other. Through an act of her will she could presume that God didn't mean what he said. Just a little presumption and the prohibition diminishes and the balance shifts.Something like that in any case. Something within the persons will acting to shift the balance. Making the decision anything but a guess. Rather, it's a conscious act of will for an option Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

The OT is the most volumous scripture with pristine grammar, numerals embedded in the alphabets.It spurned two other religions, and all nation's judiciary institutions are based on its laws - to the extent not a single law comes from any other place. So work out just with those two factors how many millions of stats and specs have evolved from this source. That there were no alphabetical books around till many centuries later - means almost all nations were influenced from this document alone. Its not a small incidental factor, but a pivotal one for humanity.

This is the most ridiculously absurd thing I've read since...well, since you insisted that the surface of a sphere has a center.You utter imbecile - do you really think that the entire legal code of every nation comes from the Old Testament?! I suppose the election of teh President and Congress comes from the OT, right? Or legislation regarding the internet?Idiot.

The earliest legal code found in existence is the Code of Ur-Nammu from around 2100 BC. We could just as easily say that all legal codes are based on that one. In fact, it is quite advanced for it's time, instituting monetary penalties for certain crimes, rather than the "eye for an eye" penalties used later.Also, Every major civilization had a set of laws, the Aztecs had one, and had no contact whatsoever with the Bible. All codes of law are similar because there are some crimes that are endemic to the human condition: murder, robbery, and rape being the top three. The fact that the Bible has prohibitions of that is nothing special. The laws that are special in the Bible, namely not to eat shellfish or not to have any god higher than their God are not found reflected in most modern law books, seemingly refuting your point...yet again.

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The OT is not a candy-coated document, but the world's most honest and historically vindicated writings in existence. Its first quality is truth and factual: those kind of genocides were commonplace. The miracles sited therein [a topic on its own], must be regarded with its millions of factual stats and specs throughout its verses, and given at a juncture of humanity when advanced alphebtical books never existed for a 1000 years after. Grammar itself was introduced here. The reprt of the ancient egptian's diets, and the travel distance from Goshen to Median - is authetically vindicated; the 1000s of names in generations, is also scientifically accurate. the author is not saying these are not true or accurate, but that he does not like what is said, a view made from this generation.

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....millions of factual stats and specs throughout its verses.... Never forget. Walls have ears. They may spawn you as they spurn you.Who is nation?

Ur-Nammu, and many of its laws, were most plausably brought to Canaan by Abraham. I agree precedent rules, and that those laws were advanced for its space-time. The OT was a late comer on the scene, and its laws are not the first, but the oldest and active, and the most comprehensive set of laws today or at any time before. This in no way means there was no wisdom or rightious ones before or outside the OT: the pyramids predate Abraham 1200 years, and so does the law of circumsizion, used as a then authentic means of executing a contract or vow. There were also seven valid laws in Noah's time, which even predate all others, and some of these not included any place else aside from the OT.Murder, stealing, adultry - even incest, predated the OT. Here, the OT acts as the document which affirms a correct law and excludes incorrect laws - a greater feat than imagined. One can copy MC2 - but how many can edit and correct it? The OT is also the only one which is historically based with specifics of identifiable dates, names and places, and the first alphabetical books - a document with multiple pages and a continueing narrative.The stand out feature here is, the world's institutions, including the US Constitution, were derived from the OT exclusively. The reason is that this was continuously active, and did not contain incorrect laws or head bashing deities battling for supremecy. The OT is the first document which forbade human sacrifice, and the factor which made monotheism prevail polytheism.With the aztecs, till their latest and recent times [less than 2500 years], they were steeped in human sacrfices on a mass scale and in horrific modes: 100s of 1000s of children's burnt and staked skeletals have been discovered, so this nation was still barbaric 500 years after King David reigned. The wrong laws says more than the correct laws.

Nation, IMHO, refers to a belief system, ethnicity or a race of peoples, and is not limited by state borders.

That is not what I was laughing at.[nation's] and [nations'] do not mean the same thing. Got it?And now we are seven.

These Ur-derived laws, considering their ancient period, mark humanity's earliest grapples with right and wrong. An interesting factor here is, none of these, or even other subsequent law codes, included any animal rights laws, while there are some 20 animal rights laws in the OT, even stemming from Noah's time, including:NOT TO CONSUME A LIVE ANIMAL'S PARTS; TO FEED ONE'S ANIMAL BEFORE THEMSELVES; NOT TO MUZZLE AN ANIMAL; NOT TO LEAVE A HOLE IN THE GROUND OF AN ANIMAL'S VICINITY [SAFE CONDITIONS]; NOT TO OVERLOAD AN ANIMAL; NOT TO TAKE THE MOTHER WITH THE OFFSPRING; NOT TO MIX A MOTHER'S MEAT WITH HER OFFSPRING'S MILK; TO APPREHEND ONE BEING CRUEL TO AN ANIMAL [EVEN IF IT IS ONE'S ENEMY]; ETC.I think these laws say a lot of a law book's intents and sensibilities. The 613 OT laws also contain environmental laws [not to destroy a food bearing tree, even during a war], which point to an elevated outlook for humanity. All animal rights laws, in their entirety, come from the OT - I appreciate this and it makes me thing in a deeper level.

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Among the surviving laws are the following:

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1. If a man commits a murder, that man must be killed.
2. If a man commits a robbery, he will be killed.
3. If a man commits a kidnapping, he is to be imprisoned and pay 15 shekels of silver.
4. If a slave marries a slave, and that slave is set free, he does not leave the household.
5. If a slave marries a native (i.e. free) person, he/she is to hand the firstborn son over to his owner.
6. If a man violates the right of another and deflowers the virgin wife of a young man, they shall kill that male.
7. If the wife of a man followed after another man and he slept with her, they shall slay that woman, but that male shall be set free. (4 in some translations)
8. If a man proceeded by force, and deflowered the virgin slavewoman of another man, that man must pay five shekels of silver. (5)
9. If a man divorces his first-time wife, he shall pay her one mina of silver. (6)
10. If it is a (former) widow whom he divorces, he shall pay her half a mina of silver. (7)
11. If the man had slept with the widow without there having been any marriage contract, he need not pay any silver. (8)
13. If a man is accused of sorcery he must undergo ordeal by water; if he is proven innocent, his accuser must pay 3 shekels. (10)
14. If a man accused the wife of a man of adultery, and the river ordeal proved her innocent, then the man who had accused her must pay one-third of a mina of silver. (11)
15. If a prospective son-in-law enters the house of his prospective father-in-law, but his father-in-law later gives his daughter to another man, the father-in-law shall return to the rejected son-in-law twofold the amount of bridal presents he had brought. (12)
17. If a slave escapes from the city limits, and someone returns him, the owner shall pay two shekels to the one who returned him. (14)
18. If a man knocks out the eye of another man, he shall weigh out a mina of silver. (15)
19. If a man has cut off another man’s foot, he is to pay ten shekels. (16)
20. If a man, in the course of a scuffle, smashed the limb of another man with a club, he shall pay one mina of silver. (17)
21. If someone severed the nose of another man with a copper knife, he must pay two-thirds of a mina of silver. (18)
22. If a man knocks out a tooth of another man, he shall pay two shekels of silver. (19)
24. [...] If he does not have a slave, he is to pay 10 shekels of silver. If he does not have silver, he is to give another thing that belongs to him. (21)
25. If a man’s slave-woman, comparing herself to her mistress, speaks insolently to her, her mouth shall be scoured with 1 quart of salt. (22)
28. If a man appeared as a witness, and was shown to be a perjurer, he must pay fifteen shekels of silver. (25)
29. If a man appears as a witness, but withdraws his oath, he must make payment, to the extent of the value in litigation of the case. (26)
30. If a man stealthily cultivates the field of another man and he raises a complaint, this is however to be rejected, and this man will lose his expenses. (27)
31. If a man flooded the field of a man with water, he shall measure out three kur of barley per iku of field. (28)
32. If a man had let an arable field to a(nother) man for cultivation, but he did not cultivate it, turning it into wasteland, he shall measure out three kur of barley per iku of field. (29)

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Sure, one does not need two 's' alphabets at the end.

Are you labouring under the impression that the sentence above means something in English?Actually, [nation's] is the singular possessive, and [nations'] is the plural possessive.Now, are we seven, Christopher Robin?

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Are you labouring under the impression that the sentence above means something in English?

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No, I'm not labouring and my breathing remains at a good steady pace. It means as follows:

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Actually, [nation's] is the singular possessive, and [nations'] is the plural possessive.

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Just call me "Alice", folks.

Alice.