Logical fallicies in the bible

Hello, I'm new to this forum, and I'm itching to get my two cents worth in. Drbill, In relation to your wonderful spout about god creating evil, smiting,using the sword,etc., I am in complete agreement! I believe who we are dealing with here is YHWH (Ancient Hebrew has no vowels). If you read Exodus 19 you may see what I mean. This chapter has the storm/volcano god YHWH fuming about killing his people if they don't obey his rules and stay off the mountain. In another place YHWH oblterates 20,000 people with fire from the mountain because they went up it and made a golden calf to worship. Well, I would be obliterated too if I climbed up Mt. Saint Helens just before it blew up( the golden calf is irrelevant)![This message has been edited by Prozacman, 09-04-2003][This message has been edited by Prozacman, 09-04-2003]

I believe you are right Doctbill, but don't forget, there a lot of other verses where god threatens his people with a hideous, morbid, terrifying death!

Yes, I am aware that YHWH is given for GOD. I think that everywhere we find a reference to "the LORD", we are also identifying YHWH, but there are references to "the Lord" with lower case letters, and I don't know if he is the same as "the LORD".I as well as you would like some clarification on this. I do know that when the author(s) of Genesis, Exodus, etc. use the word "God", as in, "In the beginning when God created..."(NRSV), the Hebrew word for God is "Elohim" which is a plural word form meaning "the Gods". However, see the notes to page 3 of Gen.1(NRSV), where the "us", and "our" of "Let us make mankind in our image", is interpreted as a heavenly court of divine beings. I was taught that the words us and our refer to the trinitarian godhead, but now I think these words are a clue to how seperate gods were worshipped and how thier attributes were combined over time into the single god YHWH, although I can't prove this at the moment. I believe more research is in order, and I would appreciate any input on the matter.

Holy Cow! (no, I'm not a Hindu) Thanks Drbill for setting me straight about the reply button. Well, accidents happen. Waiting patiently for your input to my last post. PM

No, we don't have a choice about heaven or hell Why not? If one's daddy who one had never met, because he left when one was a baby, came up and pointed a gun at one's head, and said, "I'm your daddy, come home with me or I'll shoot you", would anyone except Bruce Lee have a choice??[This message has been edited by Prozacman, 09-12-2003]

Actually, I meant this to be a reply to Phil. As I was tought back in that fundamentalist church I ran screaming from, "Saving faith"-the faith that gets us thru the Pearly Gates, is the faith in what Jesus did for us to pay for our debt of sin that we inherited from the Original-Sin of Adam and Eve. According to that doctrine(Original-Sin), Adam & Eve stained all humanity from then on in the sight of God when they listened to the serpent and not to God's warning(Genesis 2:15). God wouldn't allow rebellious humans in his presence(heaven) anymore, therefore he came to earth as a man(Jesus,the trinity,etc.) and died in our place. All we have to do is believe that and we're on our way to heaven, and if we believe that, our lives will be changed("born-again"), and our works will show it; or according to some other christians, our works will become acceptable to God. Anyway, I don't believe in Adam & Eve or "Original-Sin", or faith vs. works anymore. Why not?? Because, in my opinion, it was St. Augustine of Hippo in the 4th century A.D. who came up with the idea of original-sin and Adam & Eve's part in it in the first place; not St. Paul, or any other writers of the N.T. Secondly, it is my opinion that Adam&Eve are poetic/allegorical representations of humankind, and were not two real people. They were mythological constructs on the same level with Heracles and other greek heros'. Thirdly, Humans(the Genus Homo) have been around for at least a million years( but that's another topic anyway), and Genesis was compiled as late as the 2nd century B.C.(footnotes to Genesis; New Oxford Annotated Bible, NRSV). Therefor, as time marches on, I increasingly believe that the whole subject of faith vs. works, and how to get thru the Pearly Gates is meaningless. PM[This message has been edited by Prozacman, 09-13-2003][This message has been edited by Prozacman, 09-13-2003][This message has been edited by Prozacman, 09-13-2003][This message has been edited by Prozacman, 09-13-2003]

Yaro, I believe you are correct I was a little under the weather yesterday, so I got my ideas mixed around