WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SIN?

[paul123]

Sin list........ The Word of God
http://www.wogim.org/sinlist.htm


Livingstone Fellowship Peter Hammond


WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SIN?

“This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and no not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the Blood of Jesus Christ, His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His Word is not in us.” 1 John 1:5-10

Whatever Became of Sin?
In 1973, psychiatrist Carl Menninger, wrote a landmark book Whatever Became of Sin? He noted that even the word sin seems to have disappeared out of common vocabulary. He asked: “Why? Doesn’t anyone sin anymore? Doesn’t anyone believe in sin?
”
God Hates Sin
The Bible makes clear that God hates sin. “These six things the Lord hates. Yes, seven are an abomination to Him: A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift in running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren.” Proverbs 6:16-19

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
The Great Evangelical Awakening was sparked by Jonathan Edwards’ sermon: “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” For the most of church history. preachers have thundered from the pulpits against the seven deadly sins of lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, anger, envy and pride. Today, few people would be able to even identify the seven deadly sins.

Modern Therapeutic Sermons
Today it may be more likely that one might hear a sermon on “God in the Hands of Angry Sinners”, than “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God!” The old Doctrines of Sin, Redemption and Repentance are out of fashion and the modern therapeutic language of self-esteem, self-actualization and self-love are in.

Can God Do For Me?
The emphasis in the average church is no longer: What Does God Require of Me? Today it is more common to see the emphasis on What Can God Do For Me?

Redefining Sin
The word ‘sin’ is rarely used in any serious context today. For many, the very concept of sin has become a topic for jokes. Vocabulary and ethics have changed dramatically.
Drunkenness is now described as “chemical dependency.”
Gossip is frequently referred to as “sharing.”
Pride has become “a superiority complex”, or “an inflated ego.”
Corporate executives no longer steal, they commit “fraud.”
People are no longer said to be living in sin, but “living together.”
Fornication has become “free love.”
They are no longer adulterers; they are having an “affair.”
Perverts are described as preferring “an alternative lifestyle.”

The Bible declares: “Fools mock at sin.” Proverbs 14:9 and “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” Proverbs 14:34

Newspeak
What God calls sin, man now often call “sickness”. What the Bible describes as evil, has now been redefined as “error”. What God calls an abomination, men today are more likely to call “an alternative lifestyle!”

“Against Me, Myself and I, Have I Offended”Sins against God are now seen as “moral failures, or “mistakes” that keep us from realising our own individual potential and expectations.”

The Goodness of Man
The historic Christian doctrines of original sin and actual sin which look at our nature, who we are and our actions, what we do, have been replaced with the concept of the goodness of man and “we are victims of circumstances.”

“It’s Not My Fault!”
One of the most frustrating aspects of undertaking evangelism, these days, is that most people seem to have no idea of sin. They do know how to sin well enough, but they have no idea of what actually constitutes sin. The very concept of personal responsibility is even in question.

Revolution
The two World Wars left many questioning the worth of traditional values. The communist revolutions rejected private ownership of property. The sexual revolution rejected the Biblical principle of marriage itself.

What is Sin?
The Bible defines sin as “lawlessness” (1 John 3:4).

Violating God’s Commandments
Every one of God’s Ten Commandments are under relentless and systematic attack in the secular humanist media. Much of Hollywood, most of the public universities and much of the news media attack our Creator God, exalt idolatry, promote political idols, rock idols, film idols and even have T.V. programmes called Idols. Blasphemy is promoted as entertainment. Sabbath desecration is considered an essential part of any week. The undermining of the authority of parents is incessant. The sanctity of life is undermined by the promotion of abortion and euthanasia. A culture of death is celebrated in many blood-splattered horror, ‘slasher’ films. The sanctity of love and marriage is undermined on every side. The sanctity of private property is eroded and undermined. There is a relentless war against truth itself, and the sanctity of conscience is undermined at every turn. With every one of the Ten Commandments under such ceaseless attack, it is no wonder that the very concept of sin is being questioned.

Celebrating Sin
Contemporary culture is celebrating what was once condemned. Pride is now lifted up as “self-esteem.” Envy is the engine of tabloid culture. Lust is an advertising strategy. Anger is the acceptable expression of those who have been aggrieved.

Mass Marketing Selfishness
Many pastors feel that they are competing in a “buyers market” and that they cannot afford to alienate potential parishioners. At church conferences organised by seeker-friendly churches, pastors are warned that people do not want to hear that they should cultivate humility, self-discipline and virtue. Or that they need to listen to their conscience and repent of their sins. As a result, a religious culture is promoted that defines God in purely selfish terms. Churches are no longer to be focused on God and what He requires, but on man and what will increase his self-esteem. People will embrace any religious faith, just so long as it makes no real moral demands. Churches are encouraged to accept people for exactly who they are, without making any moral demands on them. Churches must console, but not judge. The style of praise and worship now seems to be more to please man, rather than to please God with meaningless, mindless repetition of choruses that focus on our feelings rather, than His power and glory. The pleasure of worship has been replaced with the worship of pleasure.

Tickling Ears with What They Are Itching to Hear
The Apostle Paul warned that such a time would come: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound Doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.” 2 Timothy 4:3-4

UnBiblical Testimonies
I recently heard a number of testimonies where individuals claimed that God spoke to them and told them: “I love you just the way you are. You don’t need to change a thing!” That is clearly not the God of the Bible. Friends don’t let friends drive drunk. It is not loving to encourage people to continue on a self-destructive path.

Self Deception
Frequently we see the truth that we are our own worst enemies. It is self-deception to assume that the Creator of the universe, the Eternal Judge, our Holy God, has no higher standards than we have, and does not call us to Repent, to renew our minds, and to be transformed in every part of our attitudes and actions.

Idolatry and Blasphemy
Worse than self deception it is actually idolatrous and blasphemous. People who claim that God spoke to them and told them they don’t need to change, are guilty of having created a false God, an idol. Such a God does not exist. It is blasphemous to claim that God has spoken to us when we are plainly listening either to our own feelings, or to a world in rebellion to God and then presenting that culture as “God spoke to me”!

“It’s All About Me!”
Many churches seem to have become therapeutic, pragmatic and utilitarian, even narcissistic. “It’s all about me!” and the Gospel has been left out. In the early 1980’s there was a prominent news report in the Sunday Times concerning the Miss South Africa of that time. She said that she was a “born-again Christian” and she liked her church because “they don’t teach any Doctrine” and they did not condemn her for living with her boyfriend!

Mercy
“He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.” Proverbs 28:13

God’s Law Remains in Force
“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till Heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the Law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these Commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees, you will, by no means, enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” Matthew 5:17-20

“I’m A Good Person!”
The Bible emphasises the depravity of man. We are sinful and personally responsible for our actions and attitudes. However, modern, antinomian and egalitarian society emphasises the goodness of man. Frequently when one is witnessing on the streets one hears: “I’m a good person!”, yet when you question them closer, the same people who are adamant that they are “very good people” admit to lying, stealing, blasphemy, lust and even hatred in their hearts!

Desensitised To Sin
To a large extent, this can be attributed to the entertainment industry which has popularised and justified lust, pride and greed in so many attractive heroes and heroines that many have come to accept what they would have previously condemned.

Feel Good Religion
Compounding the problem, most religious messages pass over the uncomfortable realities of sin and focus on “feel good” themes. As a result, conviction of sin is rare. Religious leaders, who excuse sin, deny its existence and tickle the ears of their hearers by telling them what they want to hear, instead of what the Bible proclaims, are actually doing their people a grave disservice.

The Heart of the Gospel
The holiness of God, the Law of God, the sinfulness of man, the sacrifice of Christ and the need for Repentance and Faith are central to the Gospel.

Rejecting Reality
A sick man cannot prove that he has no fever by breaking the thermometer! Similarly, rejecting the Law of God and ignoring so much of what the Bible says on the subject of sin will not solve the problem. A Biblical picture of sin is leprosy. Leprosy destroys the nervous system and disfigures the body. It is ugly and loathsome. The Bible is clear “The wages of sin is death…” Romans 6:23

Separated From God
“Behold the Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perversity.” Isaiah 59:1-3

Sin Withers the Soul
Christ taught us that He is the vine and we are the branches. He that abides in Christ will bring forth much fruit. But those who do not abide in Him will wither, dry up and die, and be cast into the fire (John 15:5-6).

Sin Hardens the Heart
“Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, … therefore I was angry with that generation…” Hebrews 3:7-10

Sin Darkens the Mind
“Because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Romans 1:21

Sin is Serious
If sin is not serious, then why did Jesus Christ have to come to this earth and suffer such a horrendous death on the Cross of Calvary? The Doctrine of sin may not be a popular message, but it is vitally important. It is worth noticing that the middle letter of sin is “I”. The middle letter of lie is also “I”, as is the middle letter of pride. Selfishness is at the heart of our problem. We are our own worst enemy.

Missing the Mark
The Bible defines sin as missing the mark. Violating the Law of God. Augustine defined sin as every work, word or wish contrary to the Law of God. Sin is not only the bad things we do, but the good things we fail to do. “Therefore, to Him who knows to do good and does not do it, to Him it is sin.” James 4:17

Pollution
The environmental destruction caused by three months of crude oil gushing out of the depths of the sea shocked and horrified millions worldwide. This is a picture of the disruption, degradation, and destruction caused by sin gushing out from the hearts of rebellious men and women. “Out of the heart the mouth speaks.” It’s not what you say you are it’s what you say that reveals what you are. What do you talk about? What do you text about? The reality of sin should cause us to turn to God and kneel at the Cross of Calvary. We dare not live in denial and tolerate sin.

A Warning
Over a century ago General William Booth, of the Salvation Army, warned that a time may come when churches will preach a Saviour without a Cross, Salvation without Repentance, Heaven without Hell and Christianity without Holiness. Plainly that time has come.

Repent
On the Day of Pentecost, the Apostle Peter proclaimed: “Repent, and let every one of you be baptised in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins: and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:38

A Call to Action
The Ten Commandments are not only a list of prohibitions. Each of the Ten Commandments includes an implicit call to action: To worship God alone. To resist idolatry. To speak respectfully of God and His Word. To work six days and to rest on the Lord’s Day. To honour our father and our mother. To respect life. To protect the sanctity of marriage. To respect private ownership of property. To be people of integrity. To maintain a clear conscience before God and man. Praying the Lord’s Prayer demands action: “Your Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven…” Matthew 6:10. Jesus taught: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’, shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the Will of My father in Heaven.” Matthew 7:21

Respect God, People and Property
The Ten Commandment teaches us to respect God, respect people and respect property. We are commanded to: “Be doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” James 1:22

Judgement Awaits
God will judge each one of us. He will punish the wicked and He will reward the faithful. An eternal hell awaits the unrepentant. A glorious Heaven is promised to all who truly repent of their sins, trust Christ alone for Salvation and follow the Word of God in obedience.

“Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” Luke 11:28

Change
The heart of the Gospel is a changed life in Christ. But each one of us must make a choice. God will change your life and your eternal destiny. You must choose to trust and obey Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ began His public ministry with these words: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” Matthew 4:17. Our Lord’s last recorded words to the churches in Asia was to “Repent” (Revelation 2 and 3).

The Lamb of God
The first time Jesus Christ came to this earth as a Saviour, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. All who turn in Repentance away from sin and trust in Christ, following Him in obedience are saved.

The Lion of Judah
But our Lord Jesus Christ will come again… this time as a Judge: The lion of the Tribe of Judah, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. All who have not repented and obeyed His Law will be condemned and eternally punished in hell. Either you surrender to Christ as your Saviour now, or you will face Him as your Judge. Is Jesus Christ your Lord and Saviour? Or your Judge?

Where Will You Spend Eternity?
“God commands all men everywhere to repent.” Acts 17:30

Dr. Peter Hammond
Livingstone Fellowship
PO Box 74 Newlands 7725
Cape Town South Africa
Tel: 021-689-4480
Fax: 021-685-5884
E-mail: mission@frontline.org.za
Website: www.livingstonefellowship.co.za

[David M]

Hello Paul123
Thanks for posting this article. It is useful to have all aspects of sin as spoken of in the Bible put together in this way.

I do not know how well it works in other languages, but since English is an accepted "universal" language the message will understood in almost every nation of the world.

"I" is definitely at the center. We definitely deceive ourselves and this was the problem with Eve at the beginning. She deceived herself. The serpent could have been real and could have spoken if that is what we want to believe, but I prefer to believe that the serpent was a personification for the opposing thoughts going on in the mind of Eve. I believe the questions she was being asked and the answers to the questions were all going on inside her head without any outside influence. Her experience and understanding of "good and evil" was limited, and all she had to do was obey the command; "do not". Instead, she reasoned within herself that it was "good" to eat the forbidden fruit and she would not die, but would become wise like God having the knowledge of "good and evil".

God having the knowledge of "good and evil" knew what man was capable of doing. God knew the "good" that man could do, and also the "evil" that he was capable of. The fact that pre-flood and for a period afterwards until the time of Moses, there was no written law. It is not surprising that the people did that which was right in their own eyes. The sons of God who represented the righteous, were swallowed up by the daughter of men (the unrighteous) and the world descended into totally depravity and so God saved the last righteous man, Noah by which to renew the population of the earth.

Eventually, the law was given for God's chosen race to follow. This should have made them a better people and for a time it did, but the Hebrews were only humans and fell short of what God expected from them. We cannot criticize then for like them, we all have sinned and therefore we are all under the same condemnation of sin. It is this realization that should make us repentant, contrite and humble. The fact is that it is in human nature to rebel and do "our own thing" (right in our own eyes). This is something that people do not want to accept. The other fact is that they have no excuse and cannot say they have not been told. The universal language and the fact that the Bible has been translated into nearly every language in the world, this fact has been brought to nearly everyone's attention at sometime in their lives. Only where there is a genuine no knowledge of the law is sin not imputed. In those cases, God is the judge and who are we to say that those people will not gain an automatic entrance into God's kingdom, or else die without knowledge of a future kingdom.

The fact that we have heard what the law states, means we have no excuse for not keeping the law. To exclude oneself from the God's law is to exclude oneself from the providential care that God can give and to exclude oneself from the promises of God to those who are faithful and believe in Him.

We have to put our own house in order first, and having done so , we cannot be selfish and in practicing the first and second great commandment must warn others to do the same so that they can share in the promises of God. To deny God is to separate one's self from God. To reject God on the basis of what humans think is moral, is wrong. We have to look at the morality of humans from God's perspective and not from our own fallible human perspective. Unless we recognize that we are inferior to God and cannot think like God and cannot see into the future like God and God knows what the consequences of our actions can lead to, then without that recognition we can never be humble and human pride will block our ability to be humble. The fact that we are imperfect and that we have sinned ought to make us humble. Jesus demonstrated perfect humility at all times, even though he cannot be accused of sin.

I see God as a righteous judge and no punishment for evil is not being a righteous judge the same as not being merciful is not being a righteous judge and hereby we have to see the balance that God makes. If we recognize our own sin, then we are guilty and the only way not to receive the eternal punishment for sin is to appeal to God's mercy. For God to be merciful towards us means that God does not judge us as reprobates. We would not call ourselves reprobates if we have some belief in God and try to live according to His laws that are beneficial for mankind and are not imposed for the sake of making us obedient to an arbitrary set of laws. Reprobates by the definition of the word have excluded themselves from any of God's mercy. The iniquity of the reprobate parents is visited upon the children even if innocent. Innocent means unknowing, and unknowing means no sin is imputed to them, so for the children that died, then all we can do is leave the future of those children in the hands of God and it is not for us to say whether those children will get a second opportunity or not. Since the children died in ignorance, the children died not knowing any different. God has the power to create life and He has the prerogative to take life. Taking the lives of children was only done as a consequence of reprobate nations and these were exceptional cases. I have been asking for someone to show me where God punished/killed people who did not sin first.

Whilst we cannot shirk away from the mass killings that God performed on reprobate societies, the love of God is greater. The wrath of God while severe, is only temporary and does not continue indefinitely. The love of God on the other hand will go on for ever. The love of God we can experience for ever when in the kingdom of God to come. Compared to the love of God that will continue for ever, it make the severity of God pale into insignificance. God is love and is many things and that is why we must get the punishment of God on reprobate societies into proper proportion and understand why it was necessary at the time and the benefits for God's people for doing so.

This teaching is coming from God's own word. I am accused of following the teaching of the church when in fact, I oppose much of the false teaching of the churches. I say it is false, because I will reason from the Bible and show that what the a lot of the churches teaches is not what the Bible teaches, I am not doing anything more than the Bereans (Acts 17:11) were commended for by comparing what the Bible says with what the churches teach. Even then, there can be differences of interpretation, but then it is better to reason from scripture than base our reasoning on the words of men which are not founded on scripture.

We have to believe; this is the way God intends it to be. We do not have to have been physically present to see these things before we can believe. When Jesus said to the disbelieving Thomas "touch me", he also went on to say (John 20:29); Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. This is why we have these things on record in such a way that we have the proof, the evidence preserved by God in the form of His word. The word of God is designed to separate out the doubters from the believers ( those with the "spiritual eyes" to see the spiritual message). Eventually, faith will be turned to sight. The evidence of God and God's creation is all around us and yet there is cause for many to deny it and look for a scientific understanding, because that is all there is without the knowledge of God). Faith and belief in God and His Son and contriteness is what God requires of us and in so doing in our lives, the believer in God will love mercy, do justly, and to walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8) and be brought to God's kingdom to come on this earth.


David

[Richard Amiel McGough]

Sin list........ The Word of God
http://www.wogim.org/sinlist.htm

That list of sins contains 667 items. I wonder why they didn't stop at the symbolic 666?

[Richard Amiel McGough]

"I" is definitely at the center. We definitely deceive ourselves and this was the problem with Eve at the beginning. She deceived herself. The serpent could have been real and could have spoken if that is what we want to believe, but I prefer to believe that the serpent was a personification for the opposing thoughts going on in the mind of Eve. I believe the questions she was being asked and the answers to the questions were all going on inside her head without any outside influence. Her experience and understanding of "good and evil" was limited, and all she had to do was obey the command; "do not". Instead, she reasoned within herself that it was "good" to eat the forbidden fruit and she would not die, but would become wise like God having the knowledge of "good and evil".

"I prefer to believe" ... that's what it really comes down to, doesn't it? Is each person forced to believe what they "prefer" to believe because the Bible is too ambiguous for anyone to actually prove what it really teaches?



God having the knowledge of "good and evil" knew what man was capable of doing. God knew the "good" that man could do, and also the "evil" that he was capable of. The fact that pre-flood and for a period afterwards until the time of Moses, there was no written law. It is not surprising that the people did that which was right in their own eyes. The sons of God who represented the righteous, were swallowed up by the daughter of men (the unrighteous) and the world descended into totally depravity and so God saved the last righteous man, Noah by which to renew the population of the earth.

Is there anyone who does not "do what is right in their own eyes"? Every person must determine the meaning of the Bible for themselves. And look at the confusion that gives rise to. Ten thousand denominations, each claiming to have God's inerrant and infallible truth when in fact all they have are interpretations based on fallible human logic.

And what good did the flood accomplish? The first thing the "last righteous man" did after the flood was to get drunk and curse his own descendants! And shortly after that, God had to rain down fire and brimstone on Noah's descendants in Sodom and Gomorrah. The flood solved nothing. It only shows that the biblegod is strangely enamored with VIOLENCE, VIOLENCE, and more VIOLENCE as a solution to his problems. That seems very strange and "ungodlike" to me.



Eventually, the law was given for God's chosen race to follow. This should have made them a better people and for a time it did, but the Hebrews were only humans and fell short of what God expected from them. We cannot criticize then for like them, we all have sinned and therefore we are all under the same condemnation of sin. It is this realization that should make us repentant, contrite and humble. The fact is that it is in human nature to rebel and do "our own thing" (right in our own eyes). This is something that people do not want to accept. The other fact is that they have no excuse and cannot say they have not been told. The universal language and the fact that the Bible has been translated into nearly every language in the world, this fact has been brought to nearly everyone's attention at sometime in their lives. Only where there is a genuine no knowledge of the law is sin not imputed. In those cases, God is the judge and who are we to say that those people will not gain an automatic entrance into God's kingdom, or else die without knowledge of a future kingdom.

Much of God's law and many of his commands were not righteous, so why would we expect them to guide his people into righteousness?

The Bible teaches very little "morality" at all, the exception being the NT emphasis on the Love and the Golden Rule. The Bible generally conflates the DICTATOR mentality of OBEDIENCE with "righteousness." The two concepts have nothing to do with each other. A person can be "obedient" without being moral at all. And true morality demands disobedience when the commands are not righteous. Perhaps the Bible is best interpreted as a test to see if a person has TRUE MORALITY ( = LOVE) or if they are willing to harm others in the name of "obedience" to "God's commands" (which are really religious/political commands, like those found in the Koran).



The fact that we have heard what the law states, means we have no excuse for not keeping the law. To exclude oneself from the God's law is to exclude oneself from the providential care that God can give and to exclude oneself from the promises of God to those who are faithful and believe in Him.

Many problems with that concept. What does the Law teach? It is a confused mess of old laws from the Israelite theocracy (which most Christians explicitly reject) coupled with a mish-mash of "moral codes" that are not necessarily good and others that are the essence of true morality (Love and the Golden Rule).

Christians have struggled to sort out this confusing mess for 2000 years. We have every "excuse" for not following the Law if 1) the law is not even properly defined in the Bible, and 2) the Law itself is immoral and unrighteous.



We have to put our own house in order first, and having done so , we cannot be selfish and in practicing the first and second great commandment must warn others to do the same so that they can share in the promises of God. To deny God is to separate one's self from God. To reject God on the basis of what humans think is moral, is wrong. We have to look at the morality of humans from God's perspective and not from our own fallible human perspective. Unless we recognize that we are inferior to God and cannot think like God and cannot see into the future like God and God knows what the consequences of our actions can lead to, then without that recognition we can never be humble and human pride will block our ability to be humble. The fact that we are imperfect and that we have sinned ought to make us humble. Jesus demonstrated perfect humility at all times, even though he cannot be accused of sin.

You talk as if we had authentic knowledge of God that we "reject." That is not true. Every word you write is based on words you received from fallible humans.

You say we must view things "from God's perspective and not from our own fallible human perspective." How exactly are we supposed to do that? Any perspective you hold is your own "fallible human perspective." If you think you can get a glimpse of "God's perspective" by reading the Bible, you are only doubling down on your own fallible human perspective because 1) you are basing it on a book you have received from fallible humans, and 2) you have only your own fallible interpretation of the book you received from other fallible humans. What is the solution to this problem? Is there any way for fallible humans to escape from their fallibility?



I see God as a righteous judge and no punishment for evil is not being a righteous judge the same as not being merciful is not being a righteous judge and hereby we have to see the balance that God makes. If we recognize our own sin, then we are guilty and the only way not to receive the eternal punishment for sin is to appeal to God's mercy. For God to be merciful towards us means that God does not judge us as reprobates. We would not call ourselves reprobates if we have some belief in God and try to live according to His laws that are beneficial for mankind and are not imposed for the sake of making us obedient to an arbitrary set of laws. Reprobates by the definition of the word have excluded themselves from any of God's mercy. The iniquity of the reprobate parents is visited upon the children even if innocent. Innocent means unknowing, and unknowing means no sin is imputed to them, so for the children that died, then all we can do is leave the future of those children in the hands of God and it is not for us to say whether those children will get a second opportunity or not. Since the children died in ignorance, the children died not knowing any different. God has the power to create life and He has the prerogative to take life. Taking the lives of children was only done as a consequence of reprobate nations and these were exceptional cases. I have been asking for someone to show me where God punished/killed people who did not sin first.

I see absolutely NOTHING in the Bible that would make me think the biblegod is a "righteous judge." On the contrary, the Bible describes God as entirely unrighteous. He creates fallible people and then judges them for being fallible! WOW! What could be more unrighteous than that? And his interactions with Israel appear entirely irrational to me. He inflicted a three year famine on the whole nation, causing untold suffering to his own people, without even telling them why. Then when David finally got around to asking him, he explained it was because of the sins of the previous king Saul. And the solution? Kill seven sons of Saul! But that directly contradicts the teaching that the sons should not be punished for the sins of the fathers. And this is just one example. The Bible consistently presents God as irrational, unjust, and immoral.



Whilst we cannot shirk away from the mass killings that God performed on reprobate societies, the love of God is greater. The wrath of God while severe, is only temporary and does not continue indefinitely. The love of God on the other hand will go on for ever. The love of God we can experience for ever when in the kingdom of God to come. Compared to the love of God that will continue for ever, it make the severity of God pale into insignificance. God is love and is many things and that is why we must get the punishment of God on reprobate societies into proper proportion and understand why it was necessary at the time and the benefits for God's people for doing so.

If we can't TRUST GOD to fulfill any of his promises concerning our welfare in this life, why should we believe his promises for the life hereafter?



This teaching is coming from God's own word. I am accused of following the teaching of the church when in fact, I oppose much of the false teaching of the churches. I say it is false, because I will reason from the Bible and show that what the a lot of the churches teaches is not what the Bible teaches, I am not doing anything more than the Bereans (Acts 17:11) were commended for by comparing what the Bible says with what the churches teach. Even then, there can be differences of interpretation, but then it is better to reason from scripture than base our reasoning on the words of men which are not founded on scripture.

And how do you know that you are interpreting it correctly? The folks in those churches were every bit as sincere as any other Christian. Yet they came to different conclusions. And when I compare you logic with theirs, I sadly must report that it seems quite inferior. Why then do you believer your own conclusions which you know are based on your own fallible human logic applied to the Scriptures? What makes you logic superior to that of everyone else?



We have to believe; this is the way God intends it to be. We do not have to have been physically present to see these things before we can believe. When Jesus said to the disbelieving Thomas "touch me", he also went on to say (John 20:29); Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. This is why we have these things on record in such a way that we have the proof, the evidence preserved by God in the form of His word. The word of God is designed to separate out the doubters from the believers ( those with the "spiritual eyes" to see the spiritual message). Eventually, faith will be turned to sight. The evidence of God and God's creation is all around us and yet there is cause for many to deny it and look for a scientific understanding, because that is all there is without the knowledge of God). Faith and belief in God and His Son and contriteness is what God requires of us and in so doing in our lives, the believer in God will love mercy, do justly, and to walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8) and be brought to God's kingdom to come on this earth.

David
I don't see any justification for your assertions. How can the Bible be "proof" of anything if no one can prove which interpretation is correct?

It is strange that you contrast the Bible with Science since science is nothing if not PROVABLE. Is it not the exact opposite of the Bible? Has not the success of science proven that it, unlike the ten thousand contrary interpretations of the Bible, is provable?

I think this whole line of questions is very valuable and important. Thanks for your contributions.

Great chatting,

Richard

[David M]

"I prefer to believe" ... that's what it really comes down to, doesn't it? Is each person forced to believe what they "prefer" to believe because the Bible is too ambiguous for anyone to actually prove what it really teaches?
The lesson is the same, but how I am to understand the serpent, I have a choice. The test of Adam and Eve is presented in a simple way. I would have thought that with logic and facts and reality, you would have gone for an explanation that does not involve symbolic serpents, but instead would accept that the serpent is a personification for the thought processes going on in the mind of Eve. I was suggesting we start our exposition of the Bible after the fall of Adam and Eve. These sorts of ideas we can bring to the table as we search for all possible meanings. All the different interpretations you keep on about we can look at and decide which to rule out and which ones to keep. Finally, we might settle on an agreed understanding. Having to answer your challenges to my comments at this stage is delaying getting down to the task.



Is there anyone who does not "do what is right in their own eyes"? Every person must determine the meaning of the Bible for themselves. And look at the confusion that gives rise to. Ten thousand denominations, each claiming to have God's inerrant and infallible truth when in fact all they have are interpretations based on fallible human logic.
Not everyone. Not those who listen to instruction. You are doing what is right in your eyes and not observing the commandments of God. A person can come to their own understanding by their own study or they can take the studies of others and opt to decide from those studies what to believe. The principle should be not to accept anything coming out of the lips of men without checking it against what the Bible says. I do not think it is as confusing as you make out once you take the plain and simple meaning we are to understand.


And what good did the flood accomplish? The first thing the "last righteous man" did after the flood was to get drunk and curse his own descendants! And shortly after that, God had to rain down fire and brimstone on Noah's descendants in Sodom and Gomorrah. The flood solved nothing. It only shows that the biblegod is strangely enamored with VIOLENCE, VIOLENCE, and more VIOLENCE as a solution to his problems. That seems very strange and "ungodlike" to me.
Why not concentrate on the wickedness of man instead of blaming God? You keep saying the same things to me and I do not want to keep replying to the same thing. All I think you are doing is forcing your opinion into these posts for visitors to this forum to read. There is nothing "ungodlike" or inconsistent to me. Jesus has given us the warning; as it was in the days of Noah, so it shall be in the coming of the Son of Man God will judge the earth in the future. Probably, there will be more people killed in the day of God's vengeance than there were in the Great Flood. Hence "a time like there has never been and never will be again". The Flood was not a permanent solution to a problem that is inherent in man. God will destroy reprobates as and when is suits His purpose; is the world learning anything from this? evidently not.



Much of God's law and many of his commands were not righteous, so why would we expect them to guide his people into righteousness?
You cannot superimpose man's nature on God. We are discussing man's righteousness. God is judge, God is the ONE who determines whether man is righteous. God makes the judgement you cannot make and are unable and unqualified to make since you cannot claim to be righteous. God has set the benchmark that is His Son Jesus. Jesus represents perfect righteousness. How do you compare yourself with the righteousness of Jesus?



The Bible teaches very little "morality" at all, the exception being the NT emphasis on the Love and the Golden Rule. The Bible generally conflates the DICTATOR mentality of OBEDIENCE with "righteousness." The two concepts have nothing to do with each other. A person can be "obedient" without being moral at all. And true morality demands disobedience when the commands are not righteous. Perhaps the Bible is best interpreted as a test to see if a person has TRUE MORALITY ( = LOVE) or if they are willing to harm others in the name of "obedience" to "God's commands" (which are really religious/political commands, like those found in the Koran).

Many problems with that concept. What does the Law teach? It is a confused mess of old laws from the Israelite theocracy (which most Christians explicitly reject) coupled with a mish-mash of "moral codes" that are not necessarily good and others that are the essence of true morality (Love and the Golden Rule).
The ten commandments summed up by the two great commandment is all that is needed. Obedience is something some people are willing to do whoever is there master. The fact that you have a hangup about obedience is your problem. God is not forcing obedience on anyone. God requires obedience and that is something a person after God's own heart will love to do. King David wrote (Psalm 119:174); I have longed for thy salvation, O LORD; and thy law is my delight. We know how David failed and was sincerely repentant and was known as the 'friend of God'. What was it about David that earned him that title considering he was guilty of major sin on two accounts?


Christians have struggled to sort out this confusing mess for 2000 years. We have every "excuse" for not following the Law if 1) the law is not even properly defined in the Bible, and 2) the Law itself is immoral and unrighteous.
So what if Christians have struggled, it is a matter of personal conscience. Why do you want the law defined in the Bible when you do not want to live by rules? You have said that we should live by the moral code of loving other a self. You plainly stated that this is a rule we should live by and then you back-tracked a little to say that you did not mean it to be a rule per se. You have not been consistent on this point and you have proven by what you have written that it is impossible for man to not have rules t live by. If these rules are written in people's hearts to the extent they do not have to be written down and enforced, it still does not get round the point that people should be living up to a standard. That standard was shown in the person (man) of Jesus. Jesus did not object to being obedient to his Heavenly Father. It is God's will we live in peace and harmony and that is only done when the rules are applied in our daily lives. When the rules are complied with automatically, they are as we call them now; "second nature". That is when we no longer need rules to be written down and referred to.



You talk as if we had authentic knowledge of God that we "reject." That is not true. Every word you write is based on words you received from fallible humans.
The words received are not from fallible humans, but are the inspired word of God. If you want to believe otherwise that is your prerogative, but it is wrong of you to promote God as a liar. Moses was instructed to write things down plainly so that the people would understand and have not excuse. You are finding your own excuses for not accepting God's word.


You say we must view things "from God's perspective and not from our own fallible human perspective." How exactly are we supposed to do that? Any perspective you hold is your own "fallible human perspective." If you think you can get a glimpse of "God's perspective" by reading the Bible, you are only doubling down on your own fallible human perspective because 1) you are basing it on a book you have received from fallible humans, and 2) you have only your own fallible interpretation of the book you received from other fallible humans. What is the solution to this problem? Is there any way for fallible humans to escape from their fallibility?
I disagree that the Bible is base on the words of fallible men, it is pointless repeating that phrase as if to win your argument. God gives us insight into his mind. God is judging reprobates in the way that you will not. God asked Job; where were you when I laid the foundation of the world? God has given us simple answers to what is extremely complex processes that the human mind cannot grasp. These are the things that belong to God and which man will never search out because the human mind is limited. Kaku does not accept this and thinks that by 2100 humans will have the power of gods. God has given us wisdom in the Bible that has not come from men. I do wonder what wisdom from God you have gained from your ten years study of the Bible. I feel that you have studied the Bible and failed to gain wisdom. The wisdom of God is foolishness with men.An example of this is in 1 Corinthians 1:23; But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.




I see absolutely NOTHING in the Bible that would make me think the biblegod is a "righteous judge." On the contrary, the Bible describes God as entirely unrighteous. He creates fallible people and then judges them for being fallible! WOW! What could be more unrighteous than that? And his interactions with Israel appear entirely irrational to me. He inflicted a three year famine on the whole nation, causing untold suffering to his own people, without even telling them why. Then when David finally got around to asking him, he explained it was because of the sins of the previous king Saul. And the solution? Kill seven sons of Saul! But that directly contradicts the teaching that the sons should not be punished for the sins of the fathers. And this is just one example. The Bible consistently presents God as irrational, unjust, and immoral.
You are repeating yourself and I have already rejected your statement for imposing the righteousness that God requires of men that you say must apply to God. Where do you get the opinion from that the Bible "describes God as entirely unrighteous? God is not described as such. For example; Psalm 116:5 says; Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful. Only man is referred to as unjust. I have not found one verse describing God as unjust so please show me where you get this from.




If we can't TRUST GOD to fulfill any of his promises concerning our welfare in this life, why should we believe his promises for the life hereafter?
If you cannot trust God to fulfill His promises, why should God fulfill them for you? You are your own enemy.



And how do you know that you are interpreting it correctly? The folks in those churches were every bit as sincere as any other Christian. Yet they came to different conclusions. And when I compare you logic with theirs, I sadly must report that it seems quite inferior. Why then do you believer your own conclusions which you know are based on your own fallible human logic applied to the Scriptures? What makes you logic superior to that of everyone else?
I might not be interpreting perfectly, but in some things, based on what many verses corroborate, I think I have a better understanding. I give my reasons and alternative explanation and it is for you and others to decide and compare with what the Bible says. I accept that you understand some verses differently and so doing your comparison will lead you to the same conclusion. I think you have become fixed in your own interpretations such as Jude 6 and the explanation of the word "angels". I have not seen a full exposition of Jude 6 from you that leads you to the conclusion you make. You do not want to accept that "angels" are referring to human messengers. There is no reason to assume that Jude is speaking of God's Angels in the context that the angels Jude is talking about had to be in the wilderness after God had delivered the Hebrews out of Egypt. Had the translators used the word priest or minister instead of angel, I doubt you would have made the link to an Angel of God. Just as you falsely accuse God of being unrighteous, you also accuse God for not having control over His Angels. I do not have to twist words in order to come to the conclusion that God's Angels do His will. This is what Jesus believed when he said God's will is done in Heaven. You are taking your stand against God claiming this is what the Bible (God's word) says. God is not accusing himself of unrighteousness nor having created Angels to sin. It is your own propaganda that is being spouted and is not what I understand the Bible to say.



I don't see any justification for your assertions. How can the Bible be "proof" of anything if no one can prove which interpretation is correct?
I think Jude 6 amply demonstrates the point. To refuse to accept that "angels" is not a reference to God's Angelss in Heaven is to avoid the obvious. Of course there is no proof without asking Jude directly and find out from his own mouth who he was referring to, but the context of Jude 5 in which the word "angels" refers should be proof enough. The evidence is stronger for than it is against, and yet I cannot stop you basing your belief on the weaker evidence.


It is strange that you contrast the Bible with Science since science is nothing if not PROVABLE. Is it not the exact opposite of the Bible? Has not the success of science proven that it, unlike the ten thousand contrary interpretations of the Bible, is provable?
If I am contrasting the Bible with science it is because of my human thinking to try and make a point. I do not in general contrast the Bible with science, for as you know, I agreed with you that the Bible is not a science book and it does not attempt to give scientific explanations. The observations made in the Bible are often to do with how things appear to us on earth. For example, we know the earth moves round the sun and the earth revolves. From the perspective of earth the sun appears to move around the earth.


I think this whole line of questions is very valuable and important. Thanks for your contributions.
I was not expecting to answer so many questions in this thread. I wanted to leave these things to a proper exposition of the Bible dealing with certain subjects. I do not want to deal with lots of different subjects that distract us from the task. This exercise has shown that unless we adopt the right approach we will not get very far. I am sensing that we might be so polarized that to make an exposition of different subjects in the Bible will be impossible. Still we must give it ago and hopefully if we apply some rules and confine ourselves to the subject, we might succeed.

All the best

David

[msi4mahesh]

Really nice article. thankful to you for sharing it and explaining it wonderfully. whatsoever Sin is defined in many ways in various religions. but the real question is the origin of sin. to understand that we need to look in to Good and Evil in human condition. please read this article below which explains it. please leave a comment.

http://www.worldtransformation.com/what-is-sin/

[David M]

Really nice article. thankful to you for sharing it and explaining it wonderfully. whatsoever Sin is defined in many ways in various religions. but the real question is the origin of sin. to understand that we need to look in to Good and Evil in human condition. please read this article below which explains it. please leave a comment.

http://www.worldtransformation.com/what-is-sin/

Hello msi4mahesh

Welcome to the forum. I visited the website to find the book promoted to watch the following video.

http://www.worldtransformation.com/?play=part01s07
Of course, evolutionists and science has to look for an evolutionary explanation. I do not think the speaker's analogy is appropriate, yet I do understand that he has to make a link with the animals from which humans are supposed to have evolved.

Humans to my knowledge do not have instinct built in like the animals. In the case of Adam Stork (a bird), the stork migrates thousands of miles by inbuilt instinct in order to survive. The speaker does not say what would have happened had Adam Stork followed his conscious mind and rebelled against his instinctive mind. In my opinion Adam Stork would have died if he had stopped on the island and not continued to the breeding ground or the land in which it was necessary to go in order to survive. Rebelling against the stork's instinctive mind could have led to the stork's extinction.

Man is not born sinful. Please explain to me why it was that Jesus could lead a sinless life? Jesus has been the only man (person) to have done so. Jesus has proved that it is not impossible for a man or a woman to lead a sinless life. If Jesus can do this, why are you and I unable to so?

If you can imagine having the same upbringing as Jesus and being told from a very early age that you had a mission in life (as Jesus knew by the age of 12 that he MUST be about his Father's business), how do you think you would have conducted your life?

Sin did not originate in Jesus though he was a man with the same nature as any other person (male and female). The Bible tells us Jesus was tempted in all points like we are and yet he did not sin and we do. So how do you explain why Jesus was sinless if it is an evolutionary process that a sinful nature would be beneficial? Jesus did have the nature whereby he could have sinned, but he was able to overcome that nature.

Evolution can only give an elementary explanation without being able to explain (at present) the mechanisms of the brain and the evolutionary process that make us sin. The concept of sin is an anathema to evolution as whatever is beneficial to evolution is regarded as a good advance. What the speaker proves to my mind is that rebelling to instinct is not good for survival. Hence, I have a found a contradiction based on evolution.

The difference separating humans from the animal kingdom is as the speaker said, the ability for humans to reason. This makes humans "the heroes of life" as the speaker says.
It is not surprising that the pinnacle of all life (man) will have traits and similarities to all the other animal life which as we know today, has its roots in the DNA molecule from the simplest cell to the most complex of all animal forms. The main difference is in the information stored in the DNA molecule from which it divides and replicates and develops into the various organs and different types of cells.

If you would like to answer any of the questions I have raised, I look forward to your reply.


David

[Greatest I am]

Paul

Quite the list.

"BAPTIZED BEFORE BELIEVING ON JESUS"

I pulled this out for the fun of it.

Are you suggesting that all those babies that were baptised before the age of reason sinned or is it the parents that forced that on them that are guilty of sin?

Further, many of the sins you quoted have a death penalty attached for sins that are less than murder.

Scriptures say that justice is close to an eye for an eye or basically that the penalty should fit the crime.

So what's up with all those death penalties for minor infractions?

Your God says to love the sinner and hate the sin but he sure seems quick to kill the sinner which is an act of hate. Right?
Or is killing someone an act of love?

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Hello msi4mahesh

Welcome to the forum. I visited the website to find the book promoted to watch the following video.

http://www.worldtransformation.com/?play=part01s07
Of course, evolutionists and science has to look for an evolutionary explanation. I do not think the speaker's analogy is appropriate, yet I do understand that he has to make a link with the animals from which humans are supposed to have evolved.

Humans to my knowledge do not have instinct built in like the animals. In the case of Adam Stork (a bird), the stork migrates thousands of miles by inbuilt instinct in order to survive. The speaker does not say what would have happened had Adam Stork followed his conscious mind and rebelled against his instinctive mind. In my opinion Adam Stork would have died if he had stopped on the island and not continued to the breeding ground or the land in which it was necessary to go in order to survive. Rebelling against the stork's instinctive mind could have led to the stork's extinction.

I agree that his analogy is poor but your assertion that the stork following his his new mind would be wrong is assumption or opinion and is baseless. It is also quite wrong it you apply it to A & E. If they had remained blind and in ignorant bliss, none of us would be here and man would have no history. Note that they were even too stupid to reproduce as God had commanded in Gen 1 till after they had eaten of the tree of knowledge way over in Gen 3.

As to your thinking that man has no instincts, what do you see at work in this baby if not instincts that tell it that cooperation is a better survival strategy than competing?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBW5vdhr_PA



Man is not born sinful. Please explain to me why it was that Jesus could lead a sinless life? Jesus has been the only man (person) to have done so. Jesus has proved that it is not impossible for a man or a woman to lead a sinless life. If Jesus can do this, why are you and I unable to so?

Scriptures are clear that Jesus had to learn and gained perfection by his disobedience. He himself also says --- do not call me good, only the father is good. Seems that you have forgotten much of your bible.


If you can imagine having the same upbringing as Jesus and being told from a very early age that you had a mission in life (as Jesus knew by the age of 12 that he MUST be about his Father's business), how do you think you would have conducted your life?

Sin did not originate in Jesus though he was a man with the same nature as any other person (male and female). The Bible tells us Jesus was tempted in all points like we are and yet he did not sin and we do. So how do you explain why Jesus was sinless if it is an evolutionary process that a sinful nature would be beneficial? Jesus did have the nature whereby he could have sinned, but he was able to overcome that nature.

That depends on your perspective. Is it good and not a sin for Jesus and God to conspire to teach man that human sacrifice and punishing the innocent instead of the guilty is a good policy?

From your perspective of profiting from murder that may be good but for moral people, it is quite evil to profit from God having his son murdered.


Evolution can only give an elementary explanation without being able to explain (at present) the mechanisms of the brain and the evolutionary process that make us sin. The concept of sin is an anathema to evolution as whatever is beneficial to evolution is regarded as a good advance. What the speaker proves to my mind is that rebelling to instinct is not good for survival. Hence, I have a found a contradiction based on evolution.

The difference separating humans from the animal kingdom is as the speaker said, the ability for humans to reason. This makes humans "the heroes of life" as the speaker says.
It is not surprising that the pinnacle of all life (man) will have traits and similarities to all the other animal life which as we know today, has its roots in the DNA molecule from the simplest cell to the most complex of all animal forms. The main difference is in the information stored in the DNA molecule from which it divides and replicates and develops into the various organs and different types of cells.

If you would like to answer any of the questions I have raised, I look forward to your reply.


David

I disagree that evolution can only give an elementary explanation. So do theistic evolutionists.

Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by whipping out their favorite "free will!", or “ it’s all man’s fault”.

That is "God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy."

But this simply avoids God's culpability as the author of Human Nature. Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall, and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.

If all sin by nature then, the sin nature is dominant. If not, we would have at least some who would not sin.


Having said the above for the God that I do not believe in, I am a Gnostic Christian naturalist, let me tell you that evil is all human generated. Evil is our responsibility.

Much has been written to explain what I see as a natural part of evolution.

Consider.
First, let us eliminate what some see as evil. Natural disasters. These are unthinking occurrences and are neither good nor evil. There is no intent to do evil even as victims are created.

Evil then is only human to human.
As evolving creatures, all we ever do, and ever can do, is compete or cooperate.
Cooperation we would see as good as there are no victims created. Competition would be seen as evil as it creates a victim. We all are either cooperating, doing good, or competing, doing evil at all times.

Without us doing some of both, we would likely go extinct.

This, to me, explains why there is evil in the world quite well.

Be you a believer in nature, evolution or God, we should all see that what Christians see as something to blame, evil, we should see that what we have, competition, deserves a huge thanks for being available to us.

There is no conflict between nature and God on this issue. This is how things are and should be. We all must do what some will think is evil as we compete and create losers to this competition.

Regards
DL

[Richard Amiel McGough]

Good afternoon David,

Sorry for the slow response. Been busy busy busy ...




"I prefer to believe" ... that's what it really comes down to, doesn't it? Is each person forced to believe what they "prefer" to believe because the Bible is too ambiguous for anyone to actually prove what it really teaches?
The lesson is the same, but how I am to understand the serpent, I have a choice. The test of Adam and Eve is presented in a simple way. I would have thought that with logic and facts and reality, you would have gone for an explanation that does not involve symbolic serpents, but instead would accept that the serpent is a personification for the thought processes going on in the mind of Eve. I was suggesting we start our exposition of the Bible after the fall of Adam and Eve. These sorts of ideas we can bring to the table as we search for all possible meanings. All the different interpretations you keep on about we can look at and decide which to rule out and which ones to keep. Finally, we might settle on an agreed understanding. Having to answer your challenges to my comments at this stage is delaying getting down to the task.

I don't think the lesson is the same in any way at all. There is a world of difference between believing that the serpent was a personal being called "Satan" as opposed to your interpretation.

What "logic, and facts, and reality" are you saying should have encouraged me to adopt your interpretation? As you know, the Bible is replete with references to Satan as a personal being. There are no "logic, and facts and reality" that would make me think the writers of the Bible thought otherwise. On the contrary, all the "logic and facts and reality" demonstrate beyond all doubt that the folks writing the Bible believed quite contrary to your assertions.

Of course, this doesn't mean that your interpretations are not possible. They just aren't likely in my estimation.




Is there anyone who does not "do what is right in their own eyes"? Every person must determine the meaning of the Bible for themselves. And look at the confusion that gives rise to. Ten thousand denominations, each claiming to have God's inerrant and infallible truth when in fact all they have are interpretations based on fallible human logic.
Not everyone. Not those who listen to instruction. You are doing what is right in your eyes and not observing the commandments of God. A person can come to their own understanding by their own study or they can take the studies of others and opt to decide from those studies what to believe. The principle should be not to accept anything coming out of the lips of men without checking it against what the Bible says. I do not think it is as confusing as you make out once you take the plain and simple meaning we are to understand.

First, each person must choose which "instruction" is correct according to "their own eyes." Sorry, but there's no way out of this one. It is one of the most fundamental facts of reality. Each person can do nothing but what they think is right in their own eyes. If you think that following your interpretation of what the Bible says, then you are doing what is right in your own eyes.

Second, you have no access to "God's inerrant and infallible truth" since all you have is a book written in ancient languages that you don't understand and you must interpret the translations with your fallible human logic. Sorry again, but there is no way out of this one either. Your doctrine of the "inerrant and infallible truth" in the Bible is therefore vacuous because no one has any access to it.

Third, it appears you agree with all that I've said when you admit that people have no choice but to "decide from those studies what to believe." Your conclusions are all filtered according to your fundamentally fallible human mind. You have no way to avoid this truth. It is the most fundamental fact of reality. Anyone who does not understand this is delude because they confuse their own fallible conclusions with the "inerrant and infallible truth."

Your assertion that "The principle should be not to accept anything coming out of the lips of men without checking it against what the Bible says" is logically incoherent because the Bible itself - especially the translations you depend upon - came from fallible men.




And what good did the flood accomplish? The first thing the "last righteous man" did after the flood was to get drunk and curse his own descendants! And shortly after that, God had to rain down fire and brimstone on Noah's descendants in Sodom and Gomorrah. The flood solved nothing. It only shows that the biblegod is strangely enamored with VIOLENCE, VIOLENCE, and more VIOLENCE as a solution to his problems. That seems very strange and "ungodlike" to me.
Why not concentrate on the wickedness of man instead of blaming God? You keep saying the same things to me and I do not want to keep replying to the same thing. All I think you are doing is forcing your opinion into these posts for visitors to this forum to read. There is nothing "ungodlike" or inconsistent to me. Jesus has given us the warning; as it was in the days of Noah, so it shall be in the coming of the Son of Man God will judge the earth in the future. Probably, there will be more people killed in the day of God's vengeance than there were in the Great Flood. Hence "a time like there has never been and never will be again". The Flood was not a permanent solution to a problem that is inherent in man. God will destroy reprobates as and when is suits His purpose; is the world learning anything from this? evidently not.

Why do you keep repeating the same question that I've answer dozens of times? I am not focusing on the "wickedness of man." Look at what I wrote. It was GOD who is so strangely enamored with VIOLENCE, VIOLENCE, and more VIOLENCE as a solution to his problems. Did you not read my words? The behavior of the biblegod who is totally enamored with VIOLENCE that seems entirely "ungodlike" to me. Do you understand this point? Can you see why I would think his behavior is "ungodlike"?




Much of God's law and many of his commands were not righteous, so why would we expect them to guide his people into righteousness?
You cannot superimpose man's nature on God. We are discussing man's righteousness. God is judge, God is the ONE who determines whether man is righteous. God makes the judgement you cannot make and are unable and unqualified to make since you cannot claim to be righteous. God has set the benchmark that is His Son Jesus. Jesus represents perfect righteousness. How do you compare yourself with the righteousness of Jesus?

I am not superimposing anything on "God." I am judging the meaning of words in a book written by humans using human language. If I cannot judge anything to be righteous or unrighteous, then that word has no meaning.




The Bible teaches very little "morality" at all, the exception being the NT emphasis on the Love and the Golden Rule. The Bible generally conflates the DICTATOR mentality of OBEDIENCE with "righteousness." The two concepts have nothing to do with each other. A person can be "obedient" without being moral at all. And true morality demands disobedience when the commands are not righteous. Perhaps the Bible is best interpreted as a test to see if a person has TRUE MORALITY ( = LOVE) or if they are willing to harm others in the name of "obedience" to "God's commands" (which are really religious/political commands, like those found in the Koran).

Many problems with that concept. What does the Law teach? It is a confused mess of old laws from the Israelite theocracy (which most Christians explicitly reject) coupled with a mish-mash of "moral codes" that are not necessarily good and others that are the essence of true morality (Love and the Golden Rule).
The ten commandments summed up by the two great commandment is all that is needed. Obedience is something some people are willing to do whoever is there master. The fact that you have a hangup about obedience is your problem. God is not forcing obedience on anyone. God requires obedience and that is something a person after God's own heart will love to do. King David wrote (Psalm 119:174); I have longed for thy salvation, O LORD; and thy law is my delight. We know how David failed and was sincerely repentant and was known as the 'friend of God'. What was it about David that earned him that title considering he was guilty of major sin on two accounts?

I do not have a "hangup" about obedience. I just recognize that it has nothing to do with authentic morality. The teaching of Obedience as "morality" enabled Hitler to get his Christian army to follow his orders and slaughter 6 million Jews (along with a little help from the anti-Semitic passages of the NT, of course). If the German Christians had been taught true morality, they never would have obeyed his evil commands, which just happen to be morally identical to the commands of the biblegod to wipe out every man, woman, and child of the Canaanites. This is a great irony - when Hitler commands genocide, it is recognized as a great evil but when the biblegod does the same thing, Christians make up excuses for why it wasn't really wrong at all.

As for David, that only shows that the biblegod was truly unrighteous. He did not enforce his law when David broke his commands. Therefore, he has no moral right to impose any penalties on anyone because that would make him a "respecter of persons." Imagine two people convicted of murder. The judge lets one go because he was a "friend of the judge" and the other he executes. Is that justice? Nope. Case closed.




Christians have struggled to sort out this confusing mess for 2000 years. We have every "excuse" for not following the Law if 1) the law is not even properly defined in the Bible, and 2) the Law itself is immoral and unrighteous.
So what if Christians have struggled, it is a matter of personal conscience. Why do you want the law defined in the Bible when you do not want to live by rules? You have said that we should live by the moral code of loving other a self. You plainly stated that this is a rule we should live by and then you back-tracked a little to say that you did not mean it to be a rule per se. You have not been consistent on this point and you have proven by what you have written that it is impossible for man to not have rules t live by. If these rules are written in people's hearts to the extent they do not have to be written down and enforced, it still does not get round the point that people should be living up to a standard. That standard was shown in the person (man) of Jesus. Jesus did not object to being obedient to his Heavenly Father. It is God's will we live in peace and harmony and that is only done when the rules are applied in our daily lives. When the rules are complied with automatically, they are as we call them now; "second nature". That is when we no longer need rules to be written down and referred to.

Your statement that "it is a matter of personal conscience" is exactly correct. That is the sum total of all morality. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with any "rules". I've explained this many times but you just seem to ignore it.

And I have never said that anyone should live by the "moral CODE of loving others as ourselves." Neither have I said that it is a "rule" we should live by. This shows how deeply your moral thinking has been corrupted by the Bible. I have explained over and over and over again that RULES and REGULATIONS and CODES that are listed in a set of ordinances have nothing to do with morality. I've explained this many times, but you've never shown any understanding. It's like your mind goes blank when I explain this point.

And now you are repeating the same error. I explained that the Golden Rule is not a "rule" in the sense of a regulation, code, or ordinance. You didn't understand, and now are repeating your misunderstanding by saying that I am "backtracking." That's not true. The "Golden Rule" is a principle that expresses the essence of morality. It's very simple. Any child can understand it. It simply tells a person that to know what is right or wrong, all you need to do is imagine BEING THE OTHER PERSON. That is not a "rule" like "pay 10% tithe" or "rest on the sabbath." How is it possible that you don't understand something as simple as this?

I have been totally consistent on this point. You simply don't understand the words I've written.

I have written nothing that proves "it is impossible for man to not have rules t live by." That's absurd. I haven't written a word that says anything like that. But your comment does expose another confusion on your part. It is true that societies need rules to function. But that has nothing to do with morality. For example, there is nothing immoral about driving 100 miles an hour, but society chooses speed limits to help protect from accidents.

The fact that Jesus was the model of obedience only shows how much of the Bible is confused about authentic morality. It is the teaching of OBEDIENCE as morality that enabled Hitler to raise his Christian army to destroy the Jews, and the Pope to raise his Christian army in the crusades. Watch this video to see how teaching OBEDIENCE leads directly to immorality:

MILGRAMS OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY EXPERIMENT (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcvSNg0HZwk)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcvSNg0HZwk

Religion is a social control institution.




You talk as if we had authentic knowledge of God that we "reject." That is not true. Every word you write is based on words you received from fallible humans.
The words received are not from fallible humans, but are the inspired word of God. If you want to believe otherwise that is your prerogative, but it is wrong of you to promote God as a liar. Moses was instructed to write things down plainly so that the people would understand and have not excuse. You are finding your own excuses for not accepting God's word.

Where did you get the idea that the Bible is the "inspired word of God"? You got it from other humans who gave you the book they got from other humans. My case stands.

And since the Bible contains demonstrable errors, you are the one who is claiming that God is a liar when you attribute those errors to him.

The doctrine that the Bible is the inerrant and infallible word of God is not taught in the Bible. The Bible doesn't even define which books belong in it, so you are relying 100% on fallible humans for your beliefs. I've explained this to you many times, but you just don't seem to understand.

It's rather ironic that Moses was supposed to "write things down plainly so that the people would understand and have not excuse" since no book on the planet is less clear than the Bible. Take yourself for example. You hold to views that are rejected by the large majority of serious, informed, highly educated Christians. So if you are right about your beliefs, then you have proven beyond all doubt that the Bible is anything but "plainly" written "so that the people would understand." You need to work on your awareness of irony. It saturates all your comments.




You say we must view things "from God's perspective and not from our own fallible human perspective." How exactly are we supposed to do that? Any perspective you hold is your own "fallible human perspective." If you think you can get a glimpse of "God's perspective" by reading the Bible, you are only doubling down on your own fallible human perspective because 1) you are basing it on a book you have received from fallible humans, and 2) you have only your own fallible interpretation of the book you received from other fallible humans. What is the solution to this problem? Is there any way for fallible humans to escape from their fallibility?
I disagree that the Bible is base on the words of fallible men, it is pointless repeating that phrase as if to win your argument. God gives us insight into his mind. God is judging reprobates in the way that you will not. God asked Job; where were you when I laid the foundation of the world? God has given us simple answers to what is extremely complex processes that the human mind cannot grasp. These are the things that belong to God and which man will never search out because the human mind is limited. Kaku does not accept this and thinks that by 2100 humans will have the power of gods. God has given us wisdom in the Bible that has not come from men. I do wonder what wisdom from God you have gained from your ten years study of the Bible. I feel that you have studied the Bible and failed to gain wisdom. The wisdom of God is foolishness with men.An example of this is in 1 Corinthians 1:23; But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

You complain that I am repeating the same point. There's a reason for that. You keep bringing it up! You constantlyl assert that the Bible is the "inerrant and infallible word of God". So if you want me to stop explaining why you are wrong, all you need to do is stop asserting a falsehood. You can believe it if you like, but for you to assert it as if it were a valid answer to anything in our discussion is absurd because you cannot support it with any logic or facts.




I see absolutely NOTHING in the Bible that would make me think the biblegod is a "righteous judge." On the contrary, the Bible describes God as entirely unrighteous. He creates fallible people and then judges them for being fallible! WOW! What could be more unrighteous than that? And his interactions with Israel appear entirely irrational to me. He inflicted a three year famine on the whole nation, causing untold suffering to his own people, without even telling them why. Then when David finally got around to asking him, he explained it was because of the sins of the previous king Saul. And the solution? Kill seven sons of Saul! But that directly contradicts the teaching that the sons should not be punished for the sins of the fathers. And this is just one example. The Bible consistently presents God as irrational, unjust, and immoral.
You are repeating yourself and I have already rejected your statement for imposing the righteousness that God requires of men that you say must apply to God. Where do you get the opinion from that the Bible "describes God as entirely unrighteous? God is not described as such. For example; Psalm 116:5 says; Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful. Only man is referred to as unjust. I have not found one verse describing God as unjust so please show me where you get this from.

The fact that the Bible contradicts itself does not make it true! In one place it says that God is righteous but in other places it shows that he is not.




If we can't TRUST GOD to fulfill any of his promises concerning our welfare in this life, why should we believe his promises for the life hereafter?
If you cannot trust God to fulfill His promises, why should God fulfill them for you? You are your own enemy.

You missed the point. The point is that NOBODY can trust God and everyone knows it! God cannot be TRUSTED to actually do anything for anyone in this life. That is the definition of UNTRUSTWORTHY. This shows how religion destroys the minds of believers. They say words with no meaning, like a psychotic in a mental hospital. No offense - but this is serious. There is one thing that everyone knows - God cannot be TRUSTED to do anything for anyone in this life. I'm not saying he hasn't done a miracle here or there. I'm simply stating the absolute fact that God cannot be TRUSTED to actually do anything for anyone in any given situation. This is why it is so absurd for Christians to constantly praise God for his "trustworthiness." It makes them look insane, like some naked drooling person running down the street proclaiming to be the President of the United States. Words have lost all meaning, yet Christians say them everyday and think they are full of meaning. This looks insane to me. Do you understand?




And how do you know that you are interpreting it correctly? The folks in those churches were every bit as sincere as any other Christian. Yet they came to different conclusions. And when I compare you logic with theirs, I sadly must report that it seems quite inferior. Why then do you believer your own conclusions which you know are based on your own fallible human logic applied to the Scriptures? What makes you logic superior to that of everyone else?
I might not be interpreting perfectly, but in some things, based on what many verses corroborate, I think I have a better understanding. I give my reasons and alternative explanation and it is for you and others to decide and compare with what the Bible says. I accept that you understand some verses differently and so doing your comparison will lead you to the same conclusion. I think you have become fixed in your own interpretations such as Jude 6 and the explanation of the word "angels". I have not seen a full exposition of Jude 6 from you that leads you to the conclusion you make. You do not want to accept that "angels" are referring to human messengers. There is no reason to assume that Jude is speaking of God's Angels in the context that the angels Jude is talking about had to be in the wilderness after God had delivered the Hebrews out of Egypt. Had the translators used the word priest or minister instead of angel, I doubt you would have made the link to an Angel of God. Just as you falsely accuse God of being unrighteous, you also accuse God for not having control over His Angels. I do not have to twist words in order to come to the conclusion that God's Angels do His will. This is what Jesus believed when he said God's will is done in Heaven. You are taking your stand against God claiming this is what the Bible (God's word) says. God is not accusing himself of unrighteousness nor having created Angels to sin. It is your own propaganda that is being spouted and is not what I understand the Bible to say.

There you go, confirming everything I have explained so many times. You have nothing but your own fallible "thinking" to go on just like everyone else who must "decide and compare with what the Bible says" for themselves according to their own judgment, to "what is right in their own eyes". How is it possible that you don't understand this simple fact?

It is ironic that you constantly appeal to your view of Jude which is contrary to the conclusions of the vast majority of equally sincere, and largely better informed, Bible students.

Your assertion that I "do not want to accept that 'angels' are referring to human messengers" is false, and I've explained your error many times so it is weird that you keep repeating it. It has nothing to do with what I "want" to accept. It has to do with my best judgment as to what the writers of the Bible really meant. I give good reasons for my conclusions, and you have not given good reasons in response. On the contrary, your "reasons" are largely irrational from my point of view and are easily shown to be fallacious.

I have never "accused God for not having control over His Angels". That's simply a confusion on your part. Your whole argument is that angels cannot sin in heaven. Great. If we take that in an absolute sense, then the angels did their sinning on earth, not heaven. Then when they went back to heaven, there was a war and Michael kicked them out because God doesn't allow sinful angels to be in heaven. It doesn't matter if this is what "really" happened. The point is that there are other possibilities and so you absolute assertion that angels could never sin anywhere is shown to be false.




I don't see any justification for your assertions. How can the Bible be "proof" of anything if no one can prove which interpretation is correct?
I think Jude 6 amply demonstrates the point. To refuse to accept that "angels" is not a reference to God's Angelss in Heaven is to avoid the obvious. Of course there is no proof without asking Jude directly and find out from his own mouth who he was referring to, but the context of Jude 5 in which the word "angels" refers should be proof enough. The evidence is stronger for than it is against, and yet I cannot stop you basing your belief on the weaker evidence.

Again, I do not "refuse" to accept your doctrine about angels. I given good reasons why I think it is false.

And I showed that the "context" of Jude contradicts, rather than supports, your assertions. You made a big deal about a "big clue" in Jude that supposedly proved your point that they were human messengers, and I showed that was fallacious.




I think this whole line of questions is very valuable and important. Thanks for your contributions.
I was not expecting to answer so many questions in this thread. I wanted to leave these things to a proper exposition of the Bible dealing with certain subjects. I do not want to deal with lots of different subjects that distract us from the task. This exercise has shown that unless we adopt the right approach we will not get very far. I am sensing that we might be so polarized that to make an exposition of different subjects in the Bible will be impossible. Still we must give it ago and hopefully if we apply some rules and confine ourselves to the subject, we might succeed.

Yes, threads quickly diverge onto many topics. The best way to avoid that is to constrain your assertions to things that can be demonstrated true with evidence, logic, and facts. I don't think the "polarization" would be much of a problem if we both do that one thing.

Great chatting,

Richard

[David M]

Hello Richard


Good afternoon David,

Sorry for the slow response. Been busy busy busy ...
"No problem" as they say. With all the new posts, I have been replying to more recent posts than this one. I have to come looking for responses I have missed in the side panel. I shall try and keep my reply short to lessen the size of the post that will be your reply.


I don't think the lesson is the same in any way at all. There is a world of difference between believing that the serpent was a personal being called "Satan" as opposed to your interpretation.
So you cannot see the difference between Jesus speaking in parables and speaking plainly?


Of course, this doesn't mean that your interpretations are not possible. They just aren't likely in my estimation.
As long as you state your interpretation is your own estimation, I accept that. I do not like it when you quote from others, unless that is what you have personally estimated. I think you should apply your own original thinking.


First, each person must choose which "instruction" is correct according to "their own eyes." Sorry, but there's no way out of this one. It is one of the most fundamental facts of reality. Each person can do nothing but what they think is right in their own eyes. If you think that following your interpretation of what the Bible says, then you are doing what is right in your own eyes.
Choosing an instruction from someone else is different to making up one's own instruction.


Second, you have no access to "God's inerrant and infallible truth" since all you have is a book written in ancient languages that you don't understand and you must interpret the translations with your fallible human logic. Sorry again, but there is no way out of this one either. Your doctrine of the "inerrant and infallible truth" in the Bible is therefore vacuous because no one has any access to it.
I accept all your interpretations are from a fallible man. You have not proven to me God's word is infallible. I make sense of God's word when you cannot. That is your problem. I do not doubt that some errors have crept in as are result of translation and transcription.


Third, it appears you agree with all that I've said when you admit that people have no choice but to "decide from those studies what to believe." Your conclusions are all filtered according to your fundamentally fallible human mind. You have no way to avoid this truth. It is the most fundamental fact of reality. Anyone who does not understand this is delude because they confuse their own fallible conclusions with the "inerrant and infallible truth."
I acknowledge that we all make mistakes and some make more mistakes than others.


Your assertion that "The principle should be not to accept anything coming out of the lips of men without checking it against what the Bible says" is logically incoherent because the Bible itself - especially the translations you depend upon - came from fallible men.
Fallible men who were inspired by God. That is the difference.


Why do you keep repeating the same question that I've answer dozens of times? I am not focusing on the "wickedness of man." Look at what I wrote. It was GOD who is so strangely enamored with VIOLENCE, VIOLENCE, and more VIOLENCE as a solution to his problems. Did you not read my words? The behavior of the biblegod who is totally enamored with VIOLENCE that seems entirely "ungodlike" to me. Do you understand this point? Can you see why I would think his behavior is "ungodlike"?
I know you will not focus on the wickedness of man and that is the point I am making. Man has to be blamed first for the judgment of God that comes upon man.


I am not superimposing anything on "God." I am judging the meaning of words in a book written by humans using human language. If I cannot judge anything to be righteous or unrighteous, then that word has no meaning.
We see the Bible as written by totally different authors; That is the problem and that will remain as long as you do not recognize that God's word has been written down as inspired which the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy. I believe Paul and I do not believe what you say about the fallibility of God's word.


I do not have a "hangup" about obedience. I just recognize that it has nothing to do with authentic morality. The teaching of Obedience as "morality" enabled Hitler to get his Christian army to follow his orders and slaughter 6 million Jews (along with a little help from the anti-Semitic passages of the NT, of course). If the German Christians had been taught true morality, they never would have obeyed his evil commands, which just happen to be morally identical to the commands of the biblegod to wipe out every man, woman, and child of the Canaanites. This is a great irony - when Hitler commands genocide, it is recognized as a great evil but when the biblegod does the same thing, Christians make up excuses for why it wasn't really wrong at all.
I do not disagree that the Christians in Germany were not to blame the same as Hilter was to blame. Though we cannot tar all Christians in Germany with the same brush, many were to blame for discriminating against the Jews. I am not sticking up for the actions of Christians who by a true definition are not Christians. I will defend the Bible and its teaching.


As for David, that only shows that the biblegod was truly unrighteous. He did not enforce his law when David broke his commands. Therefore, he has no moral right to impose any penalties on anyone because that would make him a "respecter of persons." Imagine two people convicted of murder. The judge lets one go because he was a "friend of the judge" and the other he executes. Is that justice? Nope. Case closed.
I think your meaning of "friend" as applied to a friend of a human judge is not to be compared to David being described as a "friend of God". We use the expression, "it is the exception that proves the rule". If God had not shown mercy to David, then that would give us no hope at all. Since we are all guilty of sin, we should have no hope, but God has given us hope in providing for our sin to be covered and God is showing mercy to us in accepting the sacrifice of His own begotten Son. It is different today than in David's day, because we can have hope in Christ who has been made manifest, but who was not manifest in the time of David only that David received the promise from God.


Your statement that "it is a matter of personal conscience" is exactly correct. That is the sum total of all morality. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with any "rules". I've explained this many times but you just seem to ignore it.
Yes, it is a matter of conscience knowing the rules. I accept God rules and not your own theory of morality.


And I have never said that anyone should live by the "moral CODE of loving others as ourselves." Neither have I said that it is a "rule" we should live by. This shows how deeply your moral thinking has been corrupted by the Bible. I have explained over and over and over again that RULES and REGULATIONS and CODES that are listed in a set of ordinances have nothing to do with morality. I've explained this many times, but you've never shown any understanding. It's like your mind goes blank when I explain this point.

And now you are repeating the same error. I explained that the Golden Rule is not a "rule" in the sense of a regulation, code, or ordinance. You didn't understand, and now are repeating your misunderstanding by saying that I am "backtracking." That's not true. The "Golden Rule" is a principle that expresses the essence of morality. It's very simple. Any child can understand it. It simply tells a person that to know what is right or wrong, all you need to do is imagine BEING THE OTHER PERSON. That is not a "rule" like "pay 10% tithe" or "rest on the sabbath." How is it possible that you don't understand something as simple as this?

I have been totally consistent on this point. You simply don't understand the words I've written.
You agreed that it was a rule we should all live by and then you have back-tracked and tried to qualify that remark. You said earlier that morality was not based on any rules and was based on love. You have not been consistent when you later agreed that your theory was in fact a rule. Incidentally, what has happened to all the responses that I made to the blog "The Logic of Love: A Natural Theory of Morality"? The new site only shows 2 responses and I cannot find the quote that I have previously quoted in another thread. Yous said plainly "it is a rule" and I am not going to continue to go round in circles arguing.



I have written nothing that proves "it is impossible for man to not have rules t live by." That's absurd. I haven't written a word that says anything like that. But your comment does expose another confusion on your part. It is true that societies need rules to function. But that has nothing to do with morality. For example, there is nothing immoral about driving 100 miles an hour, but society chooses speed limits to help protect from accidents.
There is nothing immoral about driving 100 miles per hour when there is no restriction to do so. Your statement requires qualification as with most of the comments made.


The fact that Jesus was the model of obedience only shows how much of the Bible is confused about authentic morality. It is the teaching of OBEDIENCE as morality that enabled Hitler to raise his Christian army to destroy the Jews, and the Pope to raise his Christian army in the crusades. Watch this video to see how teaching OBEDIENCE leads directly to immorality:

I watched the video and it does not prove anything to me other than it is an experiment and the participants are agreeing to the rules. I do not see you agreeing to the rules if life is an experiment. You choose not to enter the game.
Sometimes people have to be told what should be obvious. Ideally, rules should not have to apply but if not innate then they have to be learned
As it is some people will do exactly what they want to and disregard rules. Then they are not complying with you theory of morality.


Religion is a social control institution. I will stick with James's definition: (1:)27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. There is nothing wrong with this form of religion.


Where did you get the idea that the Bible is the "inspired word of God"? You got it from other humans who gave you the book they got from other humans. My case stands.
You cannot prove the Apostles were inspired by God and that Paul was not inspired? Paul acknowledges he received a message from Jesus. (1 Cor 11:23) For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, You do not want to believe because nothing can be proved to you. You cannot prove everything you say to me, so why should I believe a word you say?


And since the Bible contains demonstrable errors, you are the one who is claiming that God is a liar when you attribute those errors to him.
What errors am I attributing to God?


The doctrine that the Bible is the inerrant and infallible word of God is not taught in the Bible. The Bible doesn't even define which books belong in it, so you are relying 100% on fallible humans for your beliefs. I've explained this to you many times, but you just don't seem to understand.
I am accepting what we have in the Bible and not what might have been as you like to introduce the B of E by way of referring to unreliable resources. If books in the Bible do not contradict, then it does not matter if I can prove they are inspired or not or should be in the Bible. The fact that what I read in the Bible is consistent is all the proof I require. I know it is not enough for you because you do not want to resolve the inconsistencies and prefer to find as many as you can.


It's rather ironic that Moses was supposed to "write things down plainly so that the people would understand and have not excuse" since no book on the planet is less clear than the Bible. Take yourself for example. You hold to views that are rejected by the large majority of serious, informed, highly educated Christians. So if you are right about your beliefs, then you have proven beyond all doubt that the Bible is anything but "plainly" written "so that the people would understand." You need to work on your awareness of irony. It saturates all your comments.
Moses wrote down the law plainly and he gave instructions for the construction of the Tabernacle plainly which God had given him. Its your problem if you do not accept any explanations given you.


You complain that I am repeating the same point. There's a reason for that. You keep bringing it up! You constantlyl assert that the Bible is the "inerrant and infallible word of God". So if you want me to stop explaining why you are wrong, all you need to do is stop asserting a falsehood. You can believe it if you like, but for you to assert it as if it were a valid answer to anything in our discussion is absurd because you cannot support it with any logic or facts. I do not like going round in circles so please stop stating things you know I do not agree with. Unless you are doing it to force your point to visitors to the forum, we should not have to keep going over the same disagreements.


The fact that the Bible contradicts itself does not make it true! In one place it says that God is righteous but in other places it shows that he is not. That is a pointless remark unless you back it up and show where God is unrighteous. It is not sufficient to quote a passage in which the consequence or the parents results on the children. It is man who is to blame in the first instance.


You missed the point. The point is that NOBODY can trust God and everyone knows it! God cannot be TRUSTED to actually do anything for anyone in this life. That is the definition of UNTRUSTWORTHY. This shows how religion destroys the minds of believers. They say words with no meaning, like a psychotic in a mental hospital. No offense - but this is serious. There is one thing that everyone knows - God cannot be TRUSTED to do anything for anyone in this life. I'm not saying he hasn't done a miracle here or there. I'm simply stating the absolute fact that God cannot be TRUSTED to actually do anything for anyone in any given situation. This is why it is so absurd for Christians to constantly praise God for his "trustworthiness." It makes them look insane, like some naked drooling person running down the street proclaiming to be the President of the United States. Words have lost all meaning, yet Christians say them everyday and think they are full of meaning. This looks insane to me. Do you understand?
I am not missing the point when you make remarks "everyone knows - God cannot be trusted". You are putting words in other people's mouths. I do not agree with your words.


There you go, confirming everything I have explained so many times. You have nothing but your own fallible "thinking" to go on just like everyone else who must "decide and compare with what the Bible says" for themselves according to their own judgment, to "what is right in their own eyes". How is it possible that you don't understand this simple fact? [?QUOTE]
We both have fallible thinking so why continue to keep on saying the same thing? Drop it and move on.

[QUOTE=Richard Amiel McGough;51937]It is ironic that you constantly appeal to your view of Jude which is contrary to the conclusions of the vast majority of equally sincere, and largely better informed, Bible students. That is your opinion and you know what I think of that.


Your assertion that I "do not want to accept that 'angels' are referring to human messengers" is false, and I've explained your error many times so it is weird that you keep repeating it. It has nothing to do with what I "want" to accept. It has to do with my best judgment as to what the writers of the Bible really meant. I give good reasons for my conclusions, and you have not given good reasons in response. On the contrary, your "reasons" are largely irrational from my point of view and are easily shown to be fallacious. I gave an exposition of Jude 5 and 6 and you did not. I rest my case on that.


I have never "accused God for not having control over His Angels". That's simply a confusion on your part. Your whole argument is that angels cannot sin in heaven. Great. If we take that in an absolute sense, then the angels did their sinning on earth, not heaven. Then when they went back to heaven, there was a war and Michael kicked them out because God doesn't allow sinful angels to be in heaven. It doesn't matter if this is what "really" happened. The point is that there are other possibilities and so you absolute assertion that angels could never sin anywhere is shown to be false.
That is also why I disagree with you. God's Angels do not sin at any time or any place. Saying they sin on earth is your own man-made myth which does not stand up.


Again, I do not "refuse" to accept your doctrine about angels. I given good reasons why I think it is false.
If you say it is false, you have rejected it, just as I reject that which is false.


And I showed that the "context" of Jude contradicts, rather than supports, your assertions. You made a big deal about a "big clue" in Jude that supposedly proved your point that they were human messengers, and I showed that was fallacious. Not to my satisfaction; only to your own.


Yes, threads quickly diverge onto many topics. The best way to avoid that is to constrain your assertions to things that can be demonstrated true with evidence, logic, and facts. I don't think the "polarization" would be much of a problem if we both do that one thing.
We cannot agree the logic so that leaves us with facts only. It is a fact that we shall never agree.

All the best

David

[Richard Amiel McGough]

Good morning David, :tea:



So you cannot see the difference between Jesus speaking in parables and speaking plainly?

I have no problem seeing that difference. You and I differ because you explain away all the verses that I see as indicating that Christ (and the rest of the Bible) was not speaking figuratively about Satan as a personal being. So the question is this: How do we determine if he was speaking literally or figuratively?



As long as you state your interpretation is your own estimation, I accept that. I do not like it when you quote from others, unless that is what you have personally estimated. I think you should apply your own original thinking.

Knowledge is a network. If I cut myself off from that network and rely only my own opinions I will be a person with private opinions not integrated with the vast body of human knowledge, and if there is anything we know about such people it is that they tend to be delusional. I don't want to be delusional, so I check my opinions against those of others to help discern the truth. Did you know that the word "idiot" comes from (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=idiot) the Latin "idios" which literally means "of one's own"? People who cut themselves off from the network of human knowledge are called idiots because they are lost in their own private world.



Choosing an instruction from someone else is different to making up one's own instruction.

True, but that misses the point. The point is that you first have to choose which set of instructions are "right in your own eyes."




Second, you have no access to "God's inerrant and infallible truth" since all you have is a book written in ancient languages that you don't understand and you must interpret the translations with your fallible human logic. Sorry again, but there is no way out of this one either. Your doctrine of the "inerrant and infallible truth" in the Bible is therefore vacuous because no one has any access to it.
I accept all your interpretations are from a fallible man. You have not proven to me God's word is infallible. I make sense of God's word when you cannot. That is your problem. I do not doubt that some errors have crept in as are result of translation and transcription.

I think you meant that I have "not proven that God's word is fallible." I think I have proven that beyond any shadow of doubt, and you have never shown any error in my proof as far as I know. You merely reject the evidence because you don't like what it implies.

In my estimation, you do not "make sense" of God's word. You merely twist words and ignore facts to force the conclusion you desire.

And you are missing the point again. I have never appealed to the translational errors as proof of the fallibility of God's word.

And did you really mean to imply that my interpretations are more fallible than yours when you said "I accept that YOUR interpretations are from a fallible man"? Or were you just trying to make a joke?




Third, it appears you agree with all that I've said when you admit that people have no choice but to "decide from those studies what to believe." Your conclusions are all filtered according to your fundamentally fallible human mind. You have no way to avoid this truth. It is the most fundamental fact of reality. Anyone who does not understand this is delude because they confuse their own fallible conclusions with the "inerrant and infallible truth."
I acknowledge that we all make mistakes and some make more mistakes than others.

You miss the point again. The point is that every interpreter must ultimately depend upon what is right in their own eyes.




Your assertion that "The principle should be not to accept anything coming out of the lips of men without checking it against what the Bible says" is logically incoherent because the Bible itself - especially the translations you depend upon - came from fallible men.
Fallible men who were inspired by God. That is the difference.

That's what you choose to believe because you want to. You have no basis of any kind for making such an assertion. It's no different than a Muslim or a Mormon declaring their holy books are inspired by God.




Why do you keep repeating the same question that I've answer dozens of times? I am not focusing on the "wickedness of man." Look at what I wrote. It was GOD who is so strangely enamored with VIOLENCE, VIOLENCE, and more VIOLENCE as a solution to his problems. Did you not read my words? The behavior of the biblegod who is totally enamored with VIOLENCE that seems entirely "ungodlike" to me. Do you understand this point? Can you see why I would think his behavior is "ungodlike"?
I know you will not focus on the wickedness of man and that is the point I am making. Man has to be blamed first for the judgment of God that comes upon man.

You missed the point again. The wickedness of man is irrelevant because we are talking about problems with what the Bible teaches about God's behavior. You are trying to distract from that by focusing on human wickedness. That is a red herring designed to distract from the real issue.




I am not superimposing anything on "God." I am judging the meaning of words in a book written by humans using human language. If I cannot judge anything to be righteous or unrighteous, then that word has no meaning.
We see the Bible as written by totally different authors; That is the problem and that will remain as long as you do not recognize that God's word has been written down as inspired which the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy. I believe Paul and I do not believe what you say about the fallibility of God's word.

Why should you believe Paul?

And as explained before, Paul was not talking about the Bible as we have it today. It didn't exist at the time he wrote. And the Bible does not define which books belong in it, so that verse does not justify your assertion that the 66 book Bible is inspired.




I do not have a "hangup" about obedience. I just recognize that it has nothing to do with authentic morality. The teaching of Obedience as "morality" enabled Hitler to get his Christian army to follow his orders and slaughter 6 million Jews (along with a little help from the anti-Semitic passages of the NT, of course). If the German Christians had been taught true morality, they never would have obeyed his evil commands, which just happen to be morally identical to the commands of the biblegod to wipe out every man, woman, and child of the Canaanites. This is a great irony - when Hitler commands genocide, it is recognized as a great evil but when the biblegod does the same thing, Christians make up excuses for why it wasn't really wrong at all.
I do not disagree that the Christians in Germany were not to blame the same as Hilter was to blame. Though we cannot tar all Christians in Germany with the same brush, many were to blame for discriminating against the Jews. I am not sticking up for the actions of Christians who by a true definition are not Christians. I will defend the Bible and its teaching.

I think you might have stated that backwards. You said "I do not disagree that the Christians in Germany were not to blame the same as Hilter was to blame." That's the opposite of what I was saying. It is the Christian Church that created the Christian army that was to blame for Nazi Germany. Hitler could never have raised such an army if they were not taught to OBEY authority and hate the Jews by the Church.




As for David, that only shows that the biblegod was truly unrighteous. He did not enforce his law when David broke his commands. Therefore, he has no moral right to impose any penalties on anyone because that would make him a "respecter of persons." Imagine two people convicted of murder. The judge lets one go because he was a "friend of the judge" and the other he executes. Is that justice? Nope. Case closed.
I think your meaning of "friend" as applied to a friend of a human judge is not to be compared to David being described as a "friend of God". We use the expression, "it is the exception that proves the rule". If God had not shown mercy to David, then that would give us no hope at all. Since we are all guilty of sin, we should have no hope, but God has given us hope in providing for our sin to be covered and God is showing mercy to us in accepting the sacrifice of His own begotten Son. It is different today than in David's day, because we can have hope in Christ who has been made manifest, but who was not manifest in the time of David only that David received the promise from God.

It is not just for God to let David off while punishing others. Simple as that.

Saying that it was a demonstration of mercy doesn't work because it is unjust for God to show mercy to one criminal while executing others for the same crime.



Yes, it is a matter of conscience knowing the rules. I accept God rules and not your own theory of morality.

Morality has nothing to do with rules. I've explained this many times, over and over and over again, but you show absolutely no understanding and grossly misrepresent what I said, as shown below.



You agreed that it was a rule we should all live by and then you have back-tracked and tried to qualify that remark. You said earlier that morality was not based on any rules and was based on love. You have not been consistent when you later agreed that your theory was in fact a rule. Incidentally, what has happened to all the responses that I made to the blog "The Logic of Love: A Natural Theory of Morality"? The new site only shows 2 responses and I cannot find the quote that I have previously quoted in another thread. Yous said plainly "it is a rule" and I am not going to continue to go round in circles arguing.

Your statement is false on multiple counts. First, I never agreed that the Golden Rule was a "rule" in the sense of a "regulation" or "ordinance." I've explained this many times but you ignored it as shown below. Second, explaining your mistake is not "backtracking." Third, I have been perfectly consistent and have never agreed that my theory "is in fact a rule." You are just putting words in my mouth that I never said without understanding what I meant no matter how many times I've explained it to you.

As for the comments on the old blog - they are still in the comment stream of the old blog. I didn't import them to the new blog. I have put a link to them called Old BW Blog. You can find it by clicking on the Forum tab. It will show up in the list of links under the tab bar. I'll see if I can convert them to normal forum posts in their own thread for ease of reference and further commenting.

Your assertion that I "said plainly 'it is a rule'" is false. It post #7 (http://www.biblewheel.com/forum/showthread.php?3420-Article-The-Logic-of-Love-A-Natural-Theory-of-Morality&p=50142#post50142) of that comment stream I explained my position as follows:
Richard: First, I think you have confused authentic morality with societal rules. Societal rules are not necessarily moral as we know because we judge many societal rules as immoral. Real morality cannot be captured in a list of rules. We have moral intuitions of what is right and wrong. And what are those intuitions based on? The essential key is self-love and the Golden Rule - we place ourselves in the place of the other and ask if we would want to be subject to the same things as the other. This is how we teach morality to our children. We ask them "How would you like it if I did that to you?". It is an objective test of morality because the answer is accessible to each person.

You responded in post #8 (http://www.biblewheel.com/forum/showthread.php?3420-Article-The-Logic-of-Love-A-Natural-Theory-of-Morality&p=50157#post50157) by saying:
David: I might be mixing up societal rules with authentic morality, but we have a major problem that needs fixing. The Golden Rule as you refer to it is key, but alas society by enlarge does not practice it to its full extent.

And I responded in post #10 (http://www.biblewheel.com/forum/showthread.php?3420-Article-The-Logic-of-Love-A-Natural-Theory-of-Morality&p=50162#post50162):
Richard: One of the reasons folks don't practice the Golden Rule is because they have been taught morality is based on ordinances and regulations. So they have lost sight of the way. For example, most religious folks are taught that there would be no morality without God. Thus, they lose sight of the connection between what they do and morality. And worse, they are taught that horrible moral abominations like genocide, sexism, and slavery are not immoral because God commanded such things in the Bible. Thus their moral sense is corrupted by religion.

I also wrote these words in post #25 (http://www.biblewheel.com/forum/showthread.php?3420-Article-The-Logic-of-Love-A-Natural-Theory-of-Morality&p=50363#post50363):
Richard: Thanks for sharing your personal struggles. That is very enlightening. You found the concept of "accountability" helpful in your effort to do what you already knew was right. This means that the concept of accountability functioned like a crutch to help you walk where your integrity was not strong enough to carry you. It's like a child who needs to be told what to do. When you mature to be a fully integrated man with authentic integrity, there will be no need for such a crutch. You will naturally act according to your own innate sense of morality. You will see that the FEAR invoked by ACCOUNTABILITY does not actually make anyone moral. This idea was well captured by Paul when he said that there is no LAW that brings life - the law is only a schoolmaster to lead you to "Christ" which represents the fully integrated (whole) individuated person who is a mature "child of God" (to use the Biblical metaphor). This is why Christ said that the Golden Rule sums up the law and the prophets. He was telling us that external rules and regulations will never encompass true morality. They are at best a measure of where we have erred. They are not the essence of morality at all.

It is the "accountability" to a set of rules that ended with the OT law. The Gospel says you are totally free from the law. But does this mean that you have no moral intuitions? Of course not! You now are "living in the spirit" whereby you make you own moral judgments according to the life that is in you. Christians call this life "Christ" or the "Spirit" but I see no need for those terms since all we really know is our own mind and spirit. But I'm glad the Bible got it right on this point. I think that may be why the Bible has such a deep hold on people. Christ's formulation of the Golden Rule was the highest since he grounded it in love: "Love thy neighbor as thyself." This is my "scientific" theory in a nutshell. I find it quite profound that it is based on the same fundamental principles that have unified our understanding of physical reality. This exemplifies the unity of Reality. It is why the theory seems so strong.

You quoted those words and responded as follows in post #28 (http://www.biblewheel.com/forum/showthread.php?3420-Article-The-Logic-of-Love-A-Natural-Theory-of-Morality&p=50375#post50375):
David: The theory, which Richard agrees is a rule, is being ignored by “the world” which can be defined as; those who do not know God and do those things which God hates. Hate is the opposite emotion of love which is not part of the theory of morality, but hate impinges on morality with dire consequences, especially when the rule is not observed. It is not wrong to hate; we can hate the sin and not hate the sinner, yet we do not have to love sinners while they remain sinners and will not repent.

Your assertion that I agreed it is a "rule" is false. I have never agreed it is a "rule" in the sense that you are using. I corrected your misunderstanding in post #32 (http://www.biblewheel.com/forum/showthread.php?3420-Article-The-Logic-of-Love-A-Natural-Theory-of-Morality&p=50383#post50383):
Richard: While it is true that the "Golden Rule" is a kind of rule, it is NOT a rule like specific commandments and ordinances given in the Bible that must be "obeyed." This is the fundamental confusion cause by confusing morality with obedience. Those kinds of rules (ordinances) have nothing to do with morality because such rules can never encompass all possible situations. For example, some extremists assert that it is ALWAYS wrong to lie, even if lying to Nazis to protect Jews in the attic. This is why there can be no rule of that nature that encompasses morality - for any given rule we can always imagine a situation where it would be MORAL to disobey.

And again, you are confusing morality with "rules" that people don't "want to live by." That misses EVERYTHING about morality. Morality cannot be subsumed by rules, regulations, and ordinances. People naturally want to live by love - they just don't know how all the time. Thus we need to teach them the Way of Love which the Bible calls the "Royal Law."

You responded in post #34 (http://www.biblewheel.com/forum/showthread.php?3420-Article-The-Logic-of-Love-A-Natural-Theory-of-Morality&p=50436#post50436): but showed absolutely no understanding of my explanation which I repeated over and over and over again:
David: In your own words you said; "According to my theory, it already is the "rule" that humans live by." In other words you are saying that morality is living by a rule that requires us to love others as self and we do not self-harm. I do not see how you can avoid the use of a rule.

And so I explained your error yet again in post #35 (http://www.biblewheel.com/forum/showthread.php?3420-Article-The-Logic-of-Love-A-Natural-Theory-of-Morality&p=50453#post50453):
Look again at what I wrote. The Golden Rule is not a "rule" in the sense of a regulation or ordinance that a person "obeys." I have explained this many times to you. In many posts you have expressed your belief that morality is IDENTICAL to obeying an arbitrary set of rules declared by the Bible. Confusing such things with morality is one reason Christians often get their morality exactly bass-ackwards and teach that good is evil and evil good (e.g. the genocide, slavery, and sexism in the Bible).

And that's where the conversation ended.

Your assertion that "You said plainly "it is a rule" and I am not going to continue to go round in circles arguing" is utterly absurd. It is as ridiculous as it is false. Look at my comments in red. I have been perfectly clear and consistent in stating that the Golden Rule is not a rule of the kind you say it is. If you can't understand something as plain and simple as this, then there is no way to communicate with you.




I have written nothing that proves "it is impossible for man to not have rules t live by." That's absurd. I haven't written a word that says anything like that. But your comment does expose another confusion on your part. It is true that societies need rules to function. But that has nothing to do with morality. For example, there is nothing immoral about driving 100 miles an hour, but society chooses speed limits to help protect from accidents.
There is nothing immoral about driving 100 miles per hour when there is no restriction to do so. Your statement requires qualification as with most of the comments made.

That was my point exactly. Morality has nothing to do with societal rules like speed limits or anything else. Sure, societal rules can be based on moral facts, but rules do not define morality. I've explained this over and over and over again. See above.




The fact that Jesus was the model of obedience only shows how much of the Bible is confused about authentic morality. It is the teaching of OBEDIENCE as morality that enabled Hitler to raise his Christian army to destroy the Jews, and the Pope to raise his Christian army in the crusades. Watch this video to see how teaching OBEDIENCE leads directly to immorality:
I watched the video and it does not prove anything to me other than it is an experiment and the participants are agreeing to the rules. I do not see you agreeing to the rules if life is an experiment. You choose not to enter the game.
Sometimes people have to be told what should be obvious. Ideally, rules should not have to apply but if not innate then they have to be learned
As it is some people will do exactly what they want to and disregard rules. Then they are not complying with you theory of morality.

Apparently you did not understand the implications of the experiment shown in the video.

And again, you constant reference to people "complying with my theory" shows that you do not understand anything about my theory. The purpose of the theory is to explain why people have the moral intuitions they do and to justify moral judgments as objective facts. It is not something that people "comply" with. It is like a theory of gravity that explains the facts of gravity. My moral theory is designed to explain the facts of morality. It has nothing to do with "compliance."




Religion is a social control institution.
I will stick with James's definition: (1:)27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. There is nothing wrong with this form of religion.

True - but that's not the kind of religion that I was talking about, so it is irrelevant to my comment.




Where did you get the idea that the Bible is the "inspired word of God"? You got it from other humans who gave you the book they got from other humans. My case stands.
You cannot prove the Apostles were inspired by God and that Paul was not inspired? Paul acknowledges he received a message from Jesus. (1 Cor 11:23) For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, You do not want to believe because nothing can be proved to you. You cannot prove everything you say to me, so why should I believe a word you say?

And Muhammad said the angel Gabriel spoke to him. And Joe Smith said the angel Moroni spoke to him. No one has any reason to believe something just becuase someone said it!




And since the Bible contains demonstrable errors, you are the one who is claiming that God is a liar when you attribute those errors to him.
What errors am I attributing to God?

The demonstrable errors in the Bible that you attribute to God.




The doctrine that the Bible is the inerrant and infallible word of God is not taught in the Bible. The Bible doesn't even define which books belong in it, so you are relying 100% on fallible humans for your beliefs. I've explained this to you many times, but you just don't seem to understand.
I am accepting what we have in the Bible and not what might have been as you like to introduce the B of E by way of referring to unreliable resources. If books in the Bible do not contradict, then it does not matter if I can prove they are inspired or not or should be in the Bible. The fact that what I read in the Bible is consistent is all the proof I require. I know it is not enough for you because you do not want to resolve the inconsistencies and prefer to find as many as you can.

You are not "accepting what we have" in "THE" Bible because there are a variety of Bibles. And even if there were only one, you would still be accepting what HUMAN TRADITION has given you as the "Word of God." You are relying on the traditions of men. There is no way out of this one. Sorry.

Your propisition that "the books of the Bible do not contradict" cannot be proven, and there is much evidence to the contrary. Indeed, many people think James directly contradicts Paul. Of course, anyone can make up any explanations they like, so they disable their logical faculty and so lose the ability to make any valid judgments at all. You know what you are doing. You BEGIN with the presumption that the 66 books are correct, and then explain away any contradictions. But you could do that with any book you want. You could begin with the Catholic Bible and explain away any contradictions with the Apocrypha. Therefore, your position is fundamentally unproveable. It is merely the choice to believe a book like the Koran or the Book of Mormon or the Catholic Bible and then just explain away any contradictions. Your choice is fundamentally irrational.

And your assertion that I "prefer to find as many" inconsistencies as I can is false and rude. That is not my motivation in any way at all. I was a Bible believing Christian for many years. Truth and Integrity forced me to admit the truth. I didn't go looking for contradictions - they are there as objective facts, and your attempts to explain them away only show how Biblical fundamentalism forces people to become irrational.






The words received are not from fallible humans, but are the inspired word of God. If you want to believe otherwise that is your prerogative, but it is wrong of you to promote God as a liar. Moses was instructed to write things down plainly so that the people would understand and have not excuse. You are finding your own excuses for not accepting God's word.
It's rather ironic that Moses was supposed to "write things down plainly so that the people would understand and have not excuse" since no book on the planet is less clear than the Bible. Take yourself for example. You hold to views that are rejected by the large majority of serious, informed, highly educated Christians. So if you are right about your beliefs, then you have proven beyond all doubt that the Bible is anything but "plainly" written "so that the people would understand." You need to work on your awareness of irony. It saturates all your comments.
Moses wrote down the law plainly and he gave instructions for the construction of the Tabernacle plainly which God had given him. Its your problem if you do not accept any explanations given you.

You missed your own point! We were not talking about the instructions for building the Tabernacle. We were talking about the fact that the Bible was written by fallible men and that it is anything but "plainly written so that people would understand." If anyone knows this, it should be you since you constantly assert that the vast majority of Bible believers are totally wrong an many points.




You complain that I am repeating the same point. There's a reason for that. You keep bringing it up! You constantlyl assert that the Bible is the "inerrant and infallible word of God". So if you want me to stop explaining why you are wrong, all you need to do is stop asserting a falsehood. You can believe it if you like, but for you to assert it as if it were a valid answer to anything in our discussion is absurd because you cannot support it with any logic or facts.
I do not like going round in circles so please stop stating things you know I do not agree with. Unless you are doing it to force your point to visitors to the forum, we should not have to keep going over the same disagreements.

Read my comment again. If you want me to stop saying you are wrong, then all you need to do is stop asserting things that you know I good reason to think false and for which you have no support in logic or facts.

Of course, a better path would be for us to discuss the points of disagreement. Unfortunately, what usually happens is if I prove you are wrong, you simply refuse to agree and then quit the conversation. That wouldn't be a problem if you let it lie. But you don't. You just bring it up again, so I explain again why you were wrong and you complain that I am "repeating" myself and we are "going in circles." The circles are caused by a break in our communication. My arguments are based on objective logic and facts. I have nothing to lose by admitting I am wrong if you can show any error in my logic and facts.




The fact that the Bible contradicts itself does not make it true! In one place it says that God is righteous but in other places it shows that he is not.
That is a pointless remark unless you back it up and show where God is unrighteous. It is not sufficient to quote a passage in which the consequence or the parents results on the children. It is man who is to blame in the first instance.

I have backed it up with dozens of examples, but you have a presupossition that allows for only one conclusions no matter what evidence is presented. So the debate has hit a stalemate. The solution would be for you to give an example of what it would look like if a god actually did something immoral. Is that even possible in your world? Is there anything in the Koran or the Book of Mormon that shows their god doing anything immoral? If we can't establish a baseline for what it would mean for a god to be immoral, then there is no way to discuss that question. Note then that it makes any claim that God is moral to be empty because there is no way to judge if God is good or bad. It empties the words of the Bible of all meaning.




You missed the point. The point is that NOBODY can trust God and everyone knows it! God cannot be TRUSTED to actually do anything for anyone in this life. That is the definition of UNTRUSTWORTHY. This shows how religion destroys the minds of believers. They say words with no meaning, like a psychotic in a mental hospital. No offense - but this is serious. There is one thing that everyone knows - God cannot be TRUSTED to do anything for anyone in this life. I'm not saying he hasn't done a miracle here or there. I'm simply stating the absolute fact that God cannot be TRUSTED to actually do anything for anyone in any given situation. This is why it is so absurd for Christians to constantly praise God for his "trustworthiness." It makes them look insane, like some naked drooling person running down the street proclaiming to be the President of the United States. Words have lost all meaning, yet Christians say them everyday and think they are full of meaning. This looks insane to me. Do you understand?
I am not missing the point when you make remarks "everyone knows - God cannot be trusted". You are putting words in other people's mouths. I do not agree with your words.

It appears you have no meaning for the word "trust" when applied to God. You know perfectly well what "trust" means in an ordinary context. Would your family and friends say you are a trustworthy man? Would you steal every chance you get, or are you trustworthy in that respect. Would you rape every girl you see, or are you trustworthy to treat them with respect. You know perfectly well what the word "trustworthy" means and you know that it does not apply to God because he cannot be TRUSTED to actually do anything for anyone in this life. What could be more plain, obvious, and incontrovertible? The only reason you don't understand these words is because the Bible has destroyed the meaning of the word "trustworthy" by applying it to God.



That is also why I disagree with you. God's Angels do not sin at any time or any place. Saying they sin on earth is your own man-made myth which does not stand up.

You are beig illogical. Your argument rests on the Lord's prayer where Christ said "Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." You then argue that angels can't sin because angels are in heaven. Therefore, your argument says nothing about whether or not angels could sin on earth. Basic logic.




Again, I do not "refuse" to accept your doctrine about angels. I given good reasons why I think it is false.
If you say it is false, you have rejected it, just as I reject that which is false.

Yes, I reject it for good reason. I don't "refuse" it a priori like you do.



We cannot agree the logic so that leaves us with facts only. It is a fact that we shall never agree.

That's because you reject the most fundamental laws of logic. That makes logical discourse logically impossible.

All the best,

Richard

[David M]

Hello Richard


Good morning David, :tea:
I have no problem seeing that difference. You and I differ because you explain away all the verses that I see as indicating that Christ (and the rest of the Bible) was not speaking figuratively about Satan as a personal being. So the question is this: How do we determine if he was speaking literally or figuratively?
In any passage whether of Jesus or another prophet we should decide by the context and the words used. I am having this argument with L67. Where say Daniel gives describes an image of beast that is clearly not a living animal. then it is figurative and must allude to something we have to determine. When a specific place is mentioned like the Mount of Olives, I do not see this as figurative language. I am waiting answer from you and L67 as to what the splitting of the Mount of Olives means if it is figurative language. Maybe this should be one of the rules for debating with you and we should define whether the passage we are considering can be agreed to be literal or figurative.



Knowledge is a network. If I cut myself off from that network and rely only my own opinions I will be a person with private opinions not integrated with the vast body of human knowledge, and if there is anything we know about such people it is that they tend to be delusional. I don't want to be delusional, so I check my opinions against those of others to help discern the truth. Did you know that the word "idiot" comes from (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=idiot) the Latin "idios" which literally means "of one's own"? People who cut themselves off from the network of human knowledge are called idiots because they are lost in their own private world.
Like you, I am not cutting myself off from communicating with others and the knowledge base available. We both know what Peter wrote: (2 Peter 1:20) Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. 21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.




True, but that misses the point. The point is that you first have to choose which set of instructions are "right in your own eyes."
If you choose your own instructions, then you are doing what is right in your own eyes.



I think you meant that I have "not proven that God's word is fallible." I think I have proven that beyond any shadow of doubt, and you have never shown any error in my proof as far as I know. You merely reject the evidence because you don't like what it implies.
If you cannot remember, I suggest you list a few and we can deal with them. There will be man-made errors introduced into the Bible and if we can agree those and just concentrate on the ones that you think are attributable to God that might be the place to start.


In my estimation, you do not "make sense" of God's word. You merely twist words and ignore facts to force the conclusion you desire. It is your estimation and I guess it is the same for me in that you do not "make sense of God's word" and ignore meanings that do not fit in with your conclusions. Why keep regurgitating these and not rise above them? Stick to the facts and take out all personal references.


And you are missing the point again. I have never appealed to the translational errors as proof of the fallibility of God's word.
Let's agree a list of possible translational/transcription errors so we do not have keep tripping one another and saying what has been said a thousand times before.


And did you really mean to imply that my interpretations are more fallible than yours when you said "I accept that YOUR interpretations are from a fallible man"? Or were you just trying to make a joke?
It was not a joke and I was not saying your interpretation is more fallible than mine; just that you are also fallible and therefore I have to regard anything you say can be fallible. We are agreed to admit our mistakes once shown and accepted by us.


You miss the point again. The point is that every interpreter must ultimately depend upon what is right in their own eyes.
Why introduce the phrase "right in their own eyes" this has nothing to do with the context of that phrase as discussed above. Yes, we have to determine for ourselves who is right. I have determined through reading and study that God is right and man is wrong; you are a man and therefore you can be wrong.


That's what you choose to believe because you want to. You have no basis of any kind for making such an assertion. It's no different than a Muslim or a Mormon declaring their holy books are inspired by God.
That maybe so, but I am reasoning from the Bible and I will reason against any other religion. If unity cannot be found, then there is division and I have to decide based on the evidence I find the strongest.


You missed the point again. The wickedness of man is irrelevant because we are talking about problems with what the Bible teaches about God's behavior. You are trying to distract from that by focusing on human wickedness. That is a red herring designed to distract from the real issue.
God's behavior (punishment for wickedness) is as a result of man's behavior, so the wickedness of man is not irrelevant. Man sins first and God exercises judgment and either demonstrates mercy or punishment. If you do not like the rules, you have to go and make your own planet.



Why should you believe Paul?
Because Paul knows more about the purpose of God and had direct revelation from God. Paul makes more sense to me than you do.


And as explained before, Paul was not talking about the Bible as we have it today. It didn't exist at the time he wrote. And the Bible does not define which books belong in it, so that verse does not justify your assertion that the 66 book Bible is inspired. we both know that Jesus and Paul referred to the scriptures Jewish scriptures that had been copied and preserved down the ages. I am dealing with what we have an not hypothesizing over what might have been. It does not matter if there are books that are equally valid, I would expect those to have been included under God's guidance and as for the books that have been left out, they have inconsistencies and are not compatible with the books that have been selected. I am content to work with what we have knowing that what we have is consistent in the message that has come from God.



I think you might have stated that backwards. You said "I do not disagree that the Christians in Germany were not to blame the same as Hilter was to blame." That's the opposite of what I was saying. It is the Christian Church that created the Christian army that was to blame for Nazi Germany. Hitler could never have raised such an army if they were not taught to OBEY authority and hate the Jews by the Church.
I agreed that many (not all )Christians in Germany were culpable.


It is not just for God to let David off while punishing others. Simple as that.
You are not qualified enough to make that judgment. God know why He should show more mercy to one person than another. God did not withhold the problems that came on David from his own household due to his failure. The final arbiter is death which comes on us all and whether we go on to eternal life depends on the mercy and grace of God.


Saying that it was a demonstration of mercy doesn't work because it is unjust for God to show mercy to one criminal while executing others for the same crime. In the parable of the workers who got paid for a whole day after only working for the last hour, are you saying that was unjust? How merciful are you?



Morality has nothing to do with rules. I've explained this many times, over and over and over again, but you show absolutely no understanding and grossly misrepresent what I said, as shown below.
I am not replying to everything that you wrote and which I have not copied to this post. I am letting the following quote from you stand by way of my reply;
(Richard Amiel McGough)
refer to objective reality despite its relative origin.

You ask "should this theory be a rule that humans are made to live by?" The answer is a resounding YES. According to my theory, it already is the "rule" that humans live by.



True - but that's not the kind of religion that I was talking about, so it is irrelevant to my comment.
I expect you think I belong to institutional religion so I wanted to put the definition of true religion that conveys true religion as a good thing for soeiety.


And Muhammad said the angel Gabriel spoke to him. And Joe Smith said the angel Moroni spoke to him. No one has any reason to believe something just becuase someone said it! I agree and the proof really comes in what is said and whether the message is consistent with all of God's word; if not, it is to be rejected.


The demonstrable errors in the Bible that you attribute to God.
I am not attributing errors to God and we have to agree the man-made errors before we debate the errors you claim are attributable to God


You are not "accepting what we have" in "THE" Bible because there are a variety of Bibles. And even if there were only one, you would still be accepting what HUMAN TRADITION has given you as the "Word of God." You are relying on the traditions of men. There is no way out of this one. Sorry.
You are not sorry... and you do not have to be for because why should I agree with your claim that the Bible is human tradition. I see the stamp of a divine author in the way you do not. I am sad that you are finding every reason to challenge the Bible instead of searching for understanding. Your confrontational approach is strengthening my understanding as I have to justify my reason for believing.



Your propisition that "the books of the Bible do not contradict" cannot be proven, and there is much evidence to the contrary. Indeed, many people think James directly contradicts Paul. Of course, anyone can make up any explanations they like, so they disable their logical faculty and so lose the ability to make any valid judgments at all. You know what you are doing. You BEGIN with the presumption that the 66 books are correct, and then explain away any contradictions. But you could do that with any book you want. You could begin with the Catholic Bible and explain away any contradictions with the Apocrypha. Therefore, your position is fundamentally unproveable. It is merely the choice to believe a book like the Koran or the Book of Mormon or the Catholic Bible and then just explain away any contradictions. Your choice is fundamentally irrational.
Whatever position we start from the truth will win out and the false position will ultimately be exposed.


And your assertion that I "prefer to find as many" inconsistencies as I can is false and rude. That is not my motivation in any way at all. I was a Bible believing Christian for many years. Truth and Integrity forced me to admit the truth. I didn't go looking for contradictions - they are there as objective facts, and your attempts to explain them away only show how Biblical fundamentalism forces people to become irrational.
I have asked you for a list and the more compete the list is the better. Once we have a list, they can be challenged and eliminated. If you think I might be right why be so confrontational all of the time? I have not read one positive comment from you or Rose on the good qualities of God. It is all negative from what I read, It saddens me to read your old posts and how you use to be so positive compared to now.



You missed your own point! We were not talking about the instructions for building the Tabernacle. We were talking about the fact that the Bible was written by fallible men and that it is anything but "plainly written so that people would understand." If anyone knows this, it should be you since you constantly assert that the vast majority of Bible believers are totally wrong an many points.
I did not miss the point and I know the subject is not the Tabernacle, that was an example of instructions that were given clearly, I am defending against the claim that you think that the Bible is an unintelligible book. In God's wisdom, His word has been written in a way that requires some searching out. This soon eliminates those who have no interest. The spiritually blind remain blind to their spiritual blindness. God is not interested in people who remain willingly ignorant of Him.


Read my comment again. If you want me to stop saying you are wrong, then all you need to do is stop asserting things that you know I good reason to think false and for which you have no support in logic or facts.
Your logic and facts have so far not been very good and I have disagreed with you on the basis you have stated your suppositions. I do not disagree with the principles of logic.


Of course, a better path would be for us to discuss the points of disagreement. Unfortunately, what usually happens is if I prove you are wrong, you simply refuse to agree and then quit the conversation. That wouldn't be a problem if you let it lie. But you don't. You just bring it up again, so I explain again why you were wrong and you complain that I am "repeating" myself and we are "going in circles." The circles are caused by a break in our communication. My arguments are based on objective logic and facts. I have nothing to lose by admitting I am wrong if you can show any error in my logic and facts.
I do not quit the argument unless we start going round in circles or when as you say below, we reach stalemate. I am having to say the same things in this post to reply to the same things you keep saying that ought to go unsaid.



I have backed it up with dozens of examples, but you have a presupossition that allows for only one conclusions no matter what evidence is presented. So the debate has hit a stalemate. The solution would be for you to give an example of what it would look like if a god actually did something immoral. Is that even possible in your world? Is there anything in the Koran or the Book of Mormon that shows their god doing anything immoral? If we can't establish a baseline for what it would mean for a god to be immoral, then there is no way to discuss that question. Note then that it makes any claim that God is moral to be empty because there is no way to judge if God is good or bad. It empties the words of the Bible of all meaning.


It appears you have no meaning for the word "trust" when applied to God. You know perfectly well what "trust" means in an ordinary context. Would your family and friends say you are a trustworthy man? Would you steal every chance you get, or are you trustworthy in that respect. Would you rape every girl you see, or are you trustworthy to treat them with respect. You know perfectly well what the word "trustworthy" means and you know that it does not apply to God because he cannot be TRUSTED to actually do anything for anyone in this life. What could be more plain, obvious, and incontrovertible? The only reason you don't understand these words is because the Bible has destroyed the meaning of the word "trustworthy" by applying it to God.
I do not test God in order to trust God. That was the point of one of the points to come out of the temptations of Jesus. (Matt 4:7) Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. I trust in the promises of God regarding His plan and purpose with this earth and mankind upon it.


You are beig illogical. Your argument rests on the Lord's prayer where Christ said "Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." You then argue that angels can't sin because angels are in heaven. Therefore, your argument says nothing about whether or not angels could sin on earth. Basic logic.
It is logical that God's Angels do His will wherever they are. There is no proof other than to misunderstand verses and build up the myth that God Angels sin. There is no direct proof God's Angels sin on earth and not in Heaven. The "sons of God" and "angels" apply to humans as well as Angels and so since both are possible, it cannot be said that these verses are conclusive proof. By a process of elimination, if you take these away, what do you have left? And so this can go on until all challenges have been eliminated and then we see what remains.


Yes, I reject it for good reason. I don't "refuse" it a priori like you do.
I also reject for good reason and not as priority though I can see how that must seem. I have already resolved these issues in my mind and come to the conclusion I share with others. As I have said above, it does not matter which direction we come from ( pro or con) the truth will win and that which is false will be exposed. we should continue with the debate and leave out personal remarks and then we might progress faster.



That's because you reject the most fundamental laws of logic. That makes logical discourse logically impossible.
I have already said above, I agree with the principles of logic and I disagree only with the suppositions which are written in a way that supports your conclusions. Until we can both agree an acceptable form of words, it is not possible to continue the discussion based on logic.

All the best,

David