No Gospel without Law, no Mercy without Wrath

[qs=iano]Dumping the bits of the Bible one doesn't like is like a child who accepts the parent who lets it eat all the choclate it wants, when it wants... Richard Dawkins pointed out (correctly) in his book "The Blind Watchmaker" that an argument from incredulity is not an argument. Like I find it incredulous that folk think that abiogenesis is how life came to be. But in arguing against it I would point out that there isn't a shred of evidence for it - not that I find it incredible.(To forestall the potential for "there isn't a shred of evidence for God" I would point out that God is supernatural thus direct evidence won't necessarily be found in the natural (although one could infer God from it). The natural is not the correct place to look)

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"But the unspiritual man simply cannot accept the matters which the Spirit deals with - they just don't make sense to him" 1 Corinthians 2:14

And that is where you are wrong. There is evidence for rejecting many parts of the Bible. There is absolutely overwhelming evidence for rejecting the conquest of Canaan as described in the Bible, just as one example.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Whoa, not at all. Now you're misunderstanding me. although, to be fair, I screwed up in my previous post and said Phalanx when I meant Rahvin (sorry both)I was refering to Rahvin's post #46 where he says and Faith's post #47 My comments are not a well calculated attack on a "fundy". I simply think that Rahvin is correct, you don't have to take the Bible as word for word literally true. And, to me, it seemed like you agreed in post #62.For the record, I completely agree with you on the whole moral / diety / ceremonial law issue. I think the categories are fairly self evident and easily sorted.If what you are saying in #62 (or this whole thread for that matter) is that Moral laws are literally true, but the diety/ceremonial laws are more laws of Man than God's law and therefore should be taken with a grain (pillar?) of salt, then I think I'm up to speed with the rest of the thread.This message has been edited by Nuggin, 08-29-2005 10:54 AM

edit - deleted off thread. Trying to stay on topic. This message has been edited by Nuggin, 08-29-2005 10:59 AM

If someone were to write a book which wasn't literally true and which described allegorically, a God who required that we jump through a series of 20 particular hoops, would it act as a basic guide to lead us to God? Rahvins logic means that one would have to find God first in order to know whether the Bible or the 20 Hoop book was describing the correct God and how to be lead to him/her - which makes the book as a guide a little bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.(incidently, the key message of the Bible is we are all born sinners and destined for hell. We are all in desparate need of salvation. And God is the one who provides it). Him being forgiving, being merciful and being loving are reasons why he provides a means of salvation - but as far as we are concerned the reasons matter less. Its the fact he provides it which matters most. And second, that his offer is accepted).

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"But the unspiritual man simply cannot accept the matters which the Spirit deals with - they just don't make sense to him" 1 Corinthians 2:14

I disagree. I think the key message of the Bible is that we know good from evil, that we have a responsibility to do good, that everyone is forgiven. Salvation is assured unless someone really fails to try to do what's right.There is no wrath of GOD.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Salvation by works in other words? What you do determines your eternal destination? Earn your salvation (by not losing it)?So what did Christ die on the cross for if by being good we could have achieved it ourselves?Just curious...

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Romans 10:9-10: " if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved....."

Good analogy to the loving parent, Iano, but these days loving parents who actually punish their children are often suspected of abuse, which is something like what people are accusing God of too.

This leads us to this obvious question:Do literalists think that other religions are false / wrong?If Rahvin is correct, then many (most) other religion are equally valid. That there are many paths to salvation, that intent is important but structure is not.If structure is what's important, that we're essentially saying that other religions are useless, or worse, have a negative effect on one's salvation.I can't buy that. If a person authentically believes in their religion and practices it to the best of their belief, how can we say, "That person there is wrong and this person here is right"?

I'm just making a simple point. People who believe SOME parts of it but reject others have to face the fact that they are making an indefensible subjective decision as they have no more support for what they believe (the resurrection of Jesus, the very existence of Jesus or any of the other "nice" parts of the Bible) than the parts they reject have. The kind of evidence that might be in question is really irrelevant to the point. Sure you can say that those who believe ALL of it are in the same position, but it makes more sense to believe the whole thing because it presents itself as the word of God as a whole, than just a part you pick out because you happen to like it, it seems to me. And in any case, this is Off Topic

He died due to the intolerance of the religious right of his era.How little have things changed.

Only if they don't have a problem with using an invalid analogy.
Parents use negative reinforcement so the child associates that behavior with pain; and as humans try to avoid pain, anything that causes pain is likewise avoided. Killing the child, while effective at stopping all future instances of bad behavior, doesn't teach them to avoid those behaviors.
Now, killing one of your children for bad behavior would give you an effective tool for training the rest; but as normal parents don't do this, God doing this wouldn't be analogous to parenting. A mother only has so many tools at her disposal, and once the child turns 18, she no longer has access to some of the more effective ones. And the massive positive reinforcement of heroin use plus the massive negative reinforcement of withdrawal is a hard system to trump. It takes the tools that are available to a rehab clinic to really have any shot; and as a mother doesn't have access to these tools, and if the tools available to her aren't sufficient to get her child to check into rehab, giving up is justified.
Now, if the mother was given all the tools available to an omnipotent being, it seems to me that that would change a few things. Curing the addiction, and thus negating the motivation to steal, would be a snap.

To attempt to tie this back into THE TOPIC, as a matter of fact it DOES appear to be that people reject the parts about God's wrath only because they don't like them. They say things like it offends them and they just can't believe a good God would do such things. It has nothing to do with credibility and everything to do with their own feelings and subjective opinions about what kind of God a "good" God is.

This is a SIDE ISSUE, and OFF TOPIC, and I'm sorry I ever said it, and please let's move on from it, but you've completely misread it. The point was FOCUSED ON THE GROUNDS FOR BELIEF, not the grounds for rejection. That is, there is no BETTER evidence for the resurrection than for the conquest of Canaan.This message has been edited by Faith, 08-29-2005 02:27 PM

If we all "forgiven" jar, what are we forgiven FOR and what does being forgiven spare us if not the wrath of God??The Bible is full of references to God's wrath and you haven't one iota of a rational reason for rejecting them except your own personal dislike. And the topic I keep trying to keep afloat here is that God's wrath explains why Jesus came, which doesn't make a lot of sense without it.