Why was Cain's sacrifice unacceptable?

arachnophilia

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who knows why god does stuff? the god of genesis is all too human, unfair, and jealous. it can cause some problems when we try to fit the more modern interpretations of god onto this text.

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Which, I think, makes more sense than an ever unchanging god.Before there was a universe and Adam and Eve, god was alone. In other words, god had nothing to interact with or observe.In the 30's, officials were shocked to discover a 7 year old locked in a family barn. She was the result of a very conservative christian's daughter's out of wedlock pregnancy. The family, mainly the father, thought that the child was a curse and so locked her in the barn and only allowed the mother, his daughter, to give the child food. Even though the child was 7 years old, she had the mentality of a 6 months old. Years of extreme neglect and a total lack of human interaction, or rather interaction with anything at all, had completely dwarfed this child's natural development.This, unfortunately, was not an isolated case. In the US alone, there have been many examples of such child abuse and all of them resulted in the victims' total lack of mental development.I have a friend whose family adopted a child from Korea. When they were packing in the hotel getting ready to fly back to the US with the newly adopted child, the accidently locked the suitcase with the child's finger trapped in the suitcase. His finger broke. The thing was he didn't cry or even made a noise. Again, years of neglect had resulted in an inability to react to such a pain as a broken finger.My point is before the universe was created, god had nothing to interact with. This would explain greatly the apparent immaturity in god's actions throughout the old testament. In other words, Adam and Eve were children, and looking at the great scheme of things god was also a child still figuring out how to react to certain things.Would a fully matured being with an infinitely vast sense of morality order the raping and killing of men, women, children, and animal of an entire race? Would a fully matured father figure with an infinitely vast sense of morality and understanding demand his children to pay respect to him regularly, constantly reminding them that he raised them therefore they are in his debt?

Guys, while theology isn't really my thing, I would love to get a reply from a more theology oriented person on what I said in message 5. Just want to know if it made sense at all or if it was totally out of wack.

arachnophilia

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it's probably more likely that man's opinions of god have changed over time, rather than god himself actually growing.

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While much of what is written in the old testament are up for debate, there are still certain portions where it cannot mean any other way than what is literally there.For example, the account of the Israelites' extermination war on the Cannanites. Like the city of Jerico, many Cannanite cities fell victim to the Israelites' god-sanctioned extermination campaign.Nowadays, can we even imagine god appearing and telling us to wage a holy war on, say, China, especially if when we get there we are suppose to kill all the men, children, and cattles, rape and kill all the women, and burn the whole country down to the ground? The very idea of it is inconceivable to us today, yet it apparently was a good thing back in biblical times.Another example is the 10th plague in Egypt. Can we even comprehend the concept that god would kill completely innocent children just because they are children of people living in, say, Cuba?If god doesn't change but our perception of him/her/it has, then shouldn't it be the case that he/she/it should still be burning bushes and telling us to go burn down Iran, North Korea, or whatever country that's in our way?I'm just having trouble both accepting your statement and try to incorporate the old testament into the picture.

So, when something in the bible is interpreted as bad by our standards it must have been a forgery done by men in power at the time, and when something in the bible is interpreted as good by our standards it must have been inspired by god?What if slavery is generally acceptable again in a hundred years?

jaywill

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It may be difficult for us to imagine a society so evil that to save the human race from its enfluence God had to terminate everyone in the city.

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Indeed. I'm sure those infants who could barely walk were already out raping and sodomizing each other.I'm sorry, I'm just having trouble swallowing your reasonings.

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Incidently, WHERE in the Bible is rape commanded by God against the Canaanites?

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Numbers 31:7-18
Zechariah 14:1-2

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Furthermore it should be noted that there is one entire Old Testament book dedicated to teaching the reluctance of God to judge a sinful kingdom. That is the book of Jonah. So it is not as if God did not dedicate ample space in His word to disclose to us that He would prefer not to have to judge severely.

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So, do you believe or not believe that your parents' sins should be reflected on you?

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no, i was just pointing out that the case is very good that deuteronomy is a forgery, due to other reasons.

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Deut isn't the only book that speaks of horrible acts sanctioned by god.

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to say that god wrote ANY of the bible is a stretch. it's just that the case is very, very good that this particular book was not even written anywhere close to the time said genocides would have been happening.

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This statment isn't a very supporting statement for the assumed uniqueness of the christian beliefs among world religions, you know.