Jesus and his sacrifice is Satan’s test of man’s morality.

Sometimes I agree with you about this or that, but I don't think there's anything in this post of yours that I agree with.No, all religions are not man-made. Biblical religion is God-made.Serving the creation is right, of course, but our service of God is to be primarily worshiping Him in spirit and in truth. He Himself is our "exceeding great reward" as He told Abraham.Your idea of the OT is so off-base it is hard to know where to start to answer you. Maybe I'll leave it for now.What you call "fundamentalism" is nothing other than obeying God's word as He wrote it. You with your works-righteousness have more in common with the Pharisees than fundamentalists do.You say the Bible was given to teach and change us but you obviously don't believe that since you only obey the parts that appeal to you.

Don't know what you mean about believing through prayer. Don't recognize that as related to why I believe the Bible is God's word.

That's a very nice article, surprising to see it published in such a secular organ as the NYTimes. I couldn't get away with saying such things though I believe them, I mean that our contemporary western attitude toward the poor and suffering originated with Christ even though it has now been taken over by humanistic and secular institutions, so it's nice to see someone get that truth into secular print.

Can hardly blame you for your reaction when three of us claim different views of scripture. I think it's pretty simple myself, just believe that the Bible is inspired by God and treat every bit of it as God's word. There will still be some passages that are difficult to understand but that's nothing compared to the problems you create by treating the Bible as any old man-made text. The problems come in when you pick and choose and both GDR and KB do that.There was a conference this year focused on Bible inerrancy and I was just listening to some of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsK8HCoFaUk
Departing from this basic understanding is what causes all the confusion. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I got thrown by your saying your views fall somewhere between mine and GDR's To my mind he's SO wrong to place yourself between him and me makes you pretty wrong yourself.I'm on a borrowed laptop away from my place for a week so I may have to come back to this when I'm home. Not the orthodox scholars. They agree even on those difficult passages.

I remember you from some time ago Aussie.Yes the idea that God commits murder is a big fat lie. He judges nations and we're to learn about His standards from the examples given. It's very fashionable now to accuse Him of murder. And of course you misrepresent the situation drastically as the fashionable viewpoint requires. Comparing Jehovah with Allah is about as evil as you can get. Enjoy your self-righteousness, that's about all I can say to people who hold this view.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You make the mistake of thinking they are "innocents." That's the whole point everybody is missing. God is punishing accumulated sins. In some cases there is a report about those sins so you don't have to just assume it, but I am writing from a vacation place and don't want to take the time to look stuff up. The OT is supposed to teach us about how judgment comes against us, for what reasons and so on, but if you call them "innocents" you miss the whole point. Allah murders innocents, Jehovah does not.

Murder is the unprovoked killing of innocents. God is judging nations when He has armies attack them, and the Flood was one gigantic judgment against the rampant sins on the earth.

"The wages of sin is death." When Adam and Eve disobeyed God they became subject to death. Same with all of us, we die when we sin, and our ultimate death is because of our sins.The death of one innocent capable of saving all us sinners is a great gracious wonderful gift that will restore those who trust in Him to sinless purity in a completely new creation in which neither human beings nor animals will suffer from our sin. To twist it into something evil is disgusting.

Loving your neighbor never meant to let sin go unpunished.If the Bible is God's word then its account of the Flood is the true one and the others are the embellished and imperfect memories of fallen humanity.There is enough reason given in scripture for the Flood, but I have heard the explanation Bob is giving. Just figure it's not the sort of thing to talk about at EvC where people have trouble with far less "weird" stuff.God is always good, including when He judges sin.

There is no one righteous but judgment is given at the right time, when sins have accumulated to a certain point, as scripture says about the nations God wiped out. Only God can decide whom to punish and when, except for the legal authorities who have the responsibility to judge clearcut crimes.As I recall what I said about the Civil War was that some regard it as judgment for slavery. I don't try to figure such things out to the last detail. I have no idea why Britain wasn't punished by a civil war but although they were certainly up to their ears in the slave trade they didn't have a whole section of their country run by slavery. Besides it could be said they were punished by losing their Empire. Who knows, GDR, I didn't say anything beyond a suggestion and all this is speculation, we can't possibly know what all goes into God's determination of such things.

And what that means is to spread the truth about who God is and ultimately bring salvation to the whole world. That's what the blessing is. I don't know what attempting to control God means, but the Jews still make it all about them, about the land of Israel and wisdom they feel called to spread to the world, which of course doesn't include Jesus the Messiah whom they deny. This is just weird. Christians are those who believe what God said, that makes us special. God is certainly God of all, there is only one God, and everybody should believe what He said. But only those who do believe Him are His in the special sense of being saved. This is extremely weird. All this is what is known as "Open Theism?" Another human distortion of God's will obviously. Salvation is the gift God gives to all who believe, but it doesn't stop there, "all about us" of all the nutty ideas, our job is to take that message to as many as we can so that they may believe too. Another really silly idea. The Creation stopped being good in the sense it was when created, when our first parents disobeyed God and brought themselves and the entire Creation under His curse. While we are certainly to be good stewards of the creation, our mission is to spread the good news of the gospel of salvation through the death of Christ, which pays for the sins that would otherwise have to be paid for by us in an eternity of Hell. Sure sounds like good news to me, whereas "serving the Creation" just sounds like some sort of sanctimonious stickysweet nonsense. You slander the "early Jews" I think. There was a lot more to their understanding than you give them credit for, at least some of them anyway; and it's true that they never got the message of the OT.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It would help if you would identify the chapter and verse so I can see what the context is, because I can't find the reference you have in mind. However, I find various mentions of the slaughters of the Canaanites that God commanded which I assume is what you are talking about. Here's one.The author of this article gives God's reasons for the elimination of all the Canaanites: Israel failed to drive them all out and eventually succumbed to the same evil practices --idolatry, child sacrifice, male cult prostitution.The author is bothered by the command to slaughter women and children and goes on to consider how perhaps the text doesn't really mean to say that. But the fact seems to be that if any are left living the Israelites will be corrupted by their evil practices. Women left alive could certainly pass on those practices, just as Solomon's many wives led him into idolatry. And what would the widowed women do? Marry Israelites? That would give them even more opportunity to corrupt them. But how could babies pass on those practices? I don't know. But what's the option then? Israel adopts the babies and brings them up as Israelites or what? And what age would you stop at? Remember the Canaanites offered their children in sacrifice to their gods! At what age would their children remember enough of the practices to keep them alive so that ultimately they would corrupt others? Are you OK with slaughtering six year olds?Are you at all concerned about a nation that practices child sacrifice and male prostitution as part of its idolatrous religion or do you think there is no such thing as evil that can corrupt others or what?God commands total annihilation in some cases for such reasons, to bring corruption to an end. It never completely works, even the Flood didn't bring corruption to an end although it certainly did away with most of humanity whom He judged guilty of violence and evil imaginations that had corrupted all peoples. The evil inclinations are at least sharply reduced for a while, however.God is trying to teach us something about good and evil but it sounds like many here would be happy to see evil proliferate. Perhaps it's more like just not believing in evil though.I don't judge God, He knows what He's doing and it's always for the good. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Get your mother on here, we'll tell you what for.I've already answered you adequately a number of times.Yes I approve of whatever God does because it's right. And again, it is not murder, it is justice. The Canaanite sins accumulated for over four hundred years before God punished them. Calling justice murder is a horrendous exchange of good for evil that is done all the time these days.The idea that I should have to defend the sacrifice of Christ is offensive in the extreme.He gave Himself for us, laid down His own life, and accomplished the salvation of millions and you want me to defend this as if it were a miscarriage of justice?Do you know the Bible at all? Do you understand the relation of death to sin?

The cross represents the altar of sacrifice. God ordained those countless animal sacrifices in the OT as a picture of the costliness of redeeming us from sin, yes a sky-high price payable only by the Son of God. The animal sacrifices couldn't save, only the sacrifice of a sinless man could accomplish that, and there are no sinless men except Jesus. God couldn't just choose to forgive, "the wages of sin is death" and the cost must be paid. It's ridiculous to think the unique sacrifice of Christ is ever made an example to our children, or understood as an example to them by anyone. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.