A challenge to our dear Christian friends.

[MHz]

Now as for MHz, I see that individual looking through a glass darkly, not yet seeing through it clearly, but is seeking.

If I offended you Mhz, by what I said, I would think that you would understand, based on what words you've written stating your position on the words of the bible.

The unbeliever will be confused because there is no faith to establish any spiritual insight into Gods word, but to you, I expect it.

Peace>>>AJ

I'm not even sure a clear glass is possible before this verse comes to pass.
Re:10:7:
But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel,
when he shall begin to sound,
the mystery of God should be finished,
as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.

Have faith in God.

 

[talloola]

tolerance and understanding? By eradicating the religious? That's neither tolerant NOR understanding. It's the absolute opposite. People are born spiritual and seeking answers all the time. Religion will always fill that need. The only way to get rid of religion in some form or another, is to eradicate people born with a spiritual sense. Theorizing 'what if' is essentially like pondering how much less violence there could be in the world if we could eradicate racial differences. It's simply advocating a different form of genocide.

You're right, wrong use of words. I do not mean eradicate religious people, yikes, I meant, if religion did not exist
If you are familiar with my previous explanations regarding religion, you would understand that I would not iradicate anything, but 'war' or 'killer bugs' or 'disease', earthquakes, and the like.
iradicate is a nasty word and does mean violence. Sorry for that.
But now that I have looked back through the posts,
I was just dragging that word forward from a few other posts, right?, and I didn't say eradicate the religious, I said
religion, so, I'm not as sorry as I thought I was.

 

[mrgrumpy]

Don't forget that 'shut up' also applies to men when Christ is speaking.

Are you getting rattled, you spelling when downhill. That is sometimes a sign of stress.

So that's it, one verse out of all the instructions Jesus and the Apostles gave.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Sorry, that as you say "my spelling when downhill"..did you mean to type 'went' instead of 'when"?. Are YOU the one getting rattled?

If you want to be educated further on the biblegod's abuse to man I will be happy to provide further instruction for you tomorrow as it is time for dinner and I must go.

Do enjoy the time in your pew tomorrow - and don't forget to donate a richly tithe to the church - the future of your soul depends on it !!!

heh heh

 

[karrie]

Dearest Karrie,

I know that psych students generally live in the realm of the improbable and unprovable, and with latent desires of wanting to get into better paying fields, such as law for instance, one might consider a small , shall we say test, that proves the point of children being atheists. Of course even a dolt could see your weak attempt at trying to rephrase the issue in terms of "modelling their parent's behavior" - clever but transparent.

Children (absent any religious influence) do not know the concept of Supreme Being because it is antithesis to their experience of the world around them. They experience reality without superficialities that mommy and daddy may impose on them later, which is accurately called brainwashing.

No child will express any concept of God other than that which has been implanted in the child's mind. That's were the poisoning begins - mommy and/or daddy teach the child, usually , that there is a magical world of angels and doggies that go to heaven, completely seperate from the real world.

Of course it might be a little harsh, from a lawyer's perspective to say 'Prove it', but at the end of the day, if we are rational, proof and not wishful thinking or magical beings are what the world requires to function.

sweety pie grumpy,

show me the studies which PROVE that children are naturally atheist. That spirituality, and the resultant religions and theologies, AREN'T natural human psychological phenomena. Because I've read an awful lot about human anthropology, psychology, etc., and most of the literature I've read points to a pretty natural progression in our societies when it come to spirituality and religions.

 

[MHz]

Not rattled, just too busy laughing on seeing you stall-out.

I give directly to the poor, I start giving to the Church after they have given away all their gold.

Ever read about any society that hasn't had some sort of ceremony in honor of something beyond what power they can hold in their own two hands. Native North Americans believed in a spirit world, ancient South America believed in basically the same thing, a higher power than themselves. Every civilization that was discovered in the last 900 years had the same thing, even if it was somewhat different from one another.

 

[mrgrumpy]

My sweetest, most charming Karrie.

"Pointing to" isn't proof of anything.

Do you actually expect me to delve the deepest recesses of the internet and my volumnous library to offer you some support for the idea that 3 year olds are naturally religious and itching to say prayers with folded hands on their knees without mommy showing them how? Does it come naturally and spontaneously to them? Do they seem to have a predilection to worshipping the unseen, and talking to invsible entities in flowing robes and cherubic faces?

You can answer these questions for yourself and I do apologize for not being able to offer any further guidance to you today; please accept my deepest and most sincere apologies, but dinner is waiting, I can not tarry.

Your most devoted admirer ( in all matters excluding child rearing and intellectual pusuits.)

 

[talloola]

,

show me the studies which PROVE that children are naturally atheist. That spirituality, and the resultant religions and theologies, AREN'T natural human psychological phenomena. Because I've read an awful lot about human anthropology, psychology, etc., and most of the literature I've read points to a pretty natural progression in our societies when it come to spirituality and religions.

You've got me thinking hard about that.

I suppose if there was a large group of children who began their lives without ever being
told about god,religion,what to believe/not believe, and they were completely left to
grow up with 'free' minds to think whatever they wanted to, then, how would they ever
decide to believe in god, and, it wouldn't have anything to do with 'not believing in god', as
they would not know the difference. They would never know an athiest, or never know
a church, or be influenced by either.
Where would the beginning of believing in god come from for them.

I understand the deep curiosity, wonderment, imagination, makebelieve, and intelligence of children, and we 'now' are not afraid of natural events in the world, as we understand most of them, so children wouldn't think that 'thunder' for instance is someone up there scolding us for 'whatever', so the children wouldn't decide anything like that, so, do you
think their intelligence would tell them that there is a 'god' out there they should
believe in?

And, if some of them, along the way, decided there must be a god out there taking
care of us, and deciding our beginning and our end, that doesn't mean that there is,
and of course, all of them wouldn't think the same, it would be, as it is now, 'just a
belief', nothing to do with fact or proof.

In my opinion, in the beginning, all of the godly beliefs started from 'fears', and
'ignorance', and we now understand the origin of almost all of those things, so?

I'm not being sarcastic, but truly curious.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

How we are to treat one another is only found in the NT. In those texts you will find nothing that advocates "all kinds of evil, murder, corruption, slavery, infanticide, torture, hatred, revenge, war,abuse of women,and just about every other kind of misery imaginable"

Is that verse below the best you can come up with?

Not that I mean to speak for mrgrumpy, who obviously has chosen a very good name for himself...

MHz, I can't give you chapter and verse off the top of my head, that'd take a lot of research that I'm simply not prepared to do in support of someone else's claims, but you've obviously read the Bible thoroughly and carefully so you should recognize the truth of what I'm saying. There are multiple instances, not just that one, in the New Testament of women being identified as subservient and unclean in various ways, there's a lot of anti-Semitism in it, and nowhere does the Bible say anything against slavery, it was simply accepted as a given in the culture of the day. It does, however, contain instructions on how slaves should behave and how their masters should treat them. I clearly remember a passage, though it'd take me a while to find it, where Jesus apparently speaks approvingly of a man and his wife and children being sold into slavery for payment of debts. And there's another one somewhere about a master beating a slave: if he beats the slave to death he's in trouble, but if the slave lives for 2 days afterwards he's off the hook. I'd agree there's a lot less cruelty and violence and assorted other mayhem in the New Testament than there is in the Old, but it's there.

 

[MHz]

Since we are just working 'off the top' customs weren't changed before the cross. Mary did her 30 days of purification before she took Jesus to the temple when He was anointed by Simeon. There were a lot of guidelines given that dealt with things that involved blood.

If memory serves me correct (and I will look this up to verify it) having a slave, or becoming a slave to somebody, had a 7 year time-limit. So once a slave not always a slave, unlike the old south in the US. Once released from that, as would be the case for the people you mentioned, I think the slave could stay and do tasks for his previous owner under the title 'servant'. I would have to look up, or try to in this case, to see if there was any difference between being a servant and being a slave. I'm also quite sure that servants were supposed to be treated along the same lines as a man's wife. Again unlike the old south they weren't raped, beaten, etc.
I'm also quite sure an owner was in deep trouble if he did abuse a servant/slave.
Back to your example, if a person owed money to somebody, how do you think they should have repaid that debt?
Working it off is how it seems to have been handled back then. I also assume if the 'whole family' was involved the debt would be paid back quicker and that would have been a way for the rest of the family to be housed and fed being that the head of the household was not going to be able to bring home a paycheck if his earnings were being used to pay a debt.

Cannot beat a servant,
Le:25:53: And as a yearly hired servant shall he be with him: and the other shall not rule with rigour over him in thy sight.

Apparently it was in a jubile year (50th)that was the release date for some in Ch:25, I still want to double check if 7 years was also part of ownership.

Some were bondmen for life,
Le:25:44:
Both thy bondmen,
and thy bondmaids,
which thou shalt have,
shall be of the heathen that are round about you;
of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.
Le:25:45:
Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you,
of them shall ye buy,
and of their families that are with you,
which they begat in your land:
and they shall be your possession.
Le:25:46:
And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you,
to inherit them for a possession;
they shall be your bondmen for ever:
but over your brethren the children of Israel,
ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.

Here is the one that covers the 7 years,
De:15:1:
At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release.
De:15:2:
And this is the manner of the release:
Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it;
he shall not exact it of his neighbour,
or of his brother;
because it is called the LORD's release.
De:15:3:
Of a foreigner thou mayest exact it again:
but that which is thine with thy brother thine hand shall release;
De:15:4:
Save when there shall be no poor among you;
for the LORD shall greatly bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it:

That 2 days thing is in the OT, so it doesn't hold for the NT. If a servant was 'lightly hit' and when he fell to the ground he hit a rock hard enough so he did die within that time-frame I assume the owner was 'up the creek'.
Exodus:20:21. Lots of guidelines in that chapter.

I won't try to defend everything in the OT as being 'quite fine' with my inner being. That being said it would still be helpful to know how other societies that were flourishing at the same time would handle everything Scripture covers. But no such texts exist as far as I am aware of. Considering the time the Bible might have been considered 'quite liberal' even with all the 'severe punishments' that it has. Good thing those same consequences didn't follow into the NT when thought alone makes a person as guilty of a sin as actually doing something did in the OT.

How can laws given to OT Israel be anti-Semitism?

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Mary did her 30 days of purification before she took Jesus to the temple when He was anointed by Simeon.

Purification from what? Apparently giving birth, even to the Messiah, according to Biblical references makes a woman unclean and she has to go through the proper purification rituals before she's fit company again.

Hasn't it struck you on reading his many epistles that Paul apparently hated and feared women? A certain amount of that's hardly a surprise in a pre-scientific and largely pre-literate culture full of superstition. People who routinely bleed for several days every month without any obvious debilitating effects must have seemed pretty mysterious. Can't you imagine the thought pattern? A man who bled from anywhere for several days would probably die, all women of a certain age do it routinely, from their most intimate orifice, they must have some mysterious power, better take control of that and put it down pretty quickly... Echoes of that attitude still linger in our own culture. But Paul goes way over the top.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

How can laws given to OT Israel be anti-Semitism?

That's not what I said. The anti-Semitism's in the New Testament. Jews are repeatedly portrayed as the killers of the Messiah--somehow they lose sight of the fact that if Christ hadn't died as he did none of this would have worked--, Paul complains repeatedly about them abusing him, and Peter and John offer many other complaints against them.

 

[look3467]

Whatever laws were in the books, the customs, Jesus came to change none.

What Jesus came to change is the heart of the law.

The Jews had the letter of the law but no heart, so they followed it to a T.

The heart of the law is to love the law, meaning the change from have to, to want to.

The have to, was a must prior to Jesus, but after Jesus, the law was not written in stone tablets, but in the hearts of mankind.

2Co 3:3 Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.

So Jesus' purpose was to save that which was lost by changing the hearts of mankind.

Servants, slaves, masters were in operation during those times and were not affected by the work of Christ, for He wanted us, if slaves, to be good slaves, if servants to be good servants and if masters, to be good masters.

But get this, for His followers were called servants of the ministry of Jesus, but Jesus said:
Joh 15:15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.

Yes, friends for we know what the Father has done in our favor.

peace>>>AJ

 

[look3467]

Today, if Israel gets a heart, they will know and understand who Jesus really was, and become converted. But until that happens, their heart remains as prior to Jesus time.

Peace>>>AJ

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Today, if Israel gets a heart, they will know and understand who Jesus really was, and become converted. But until that happens, their heart remains as prior to Jesus time.

Look, that's one of the aspects of organized religion that most irritates me, the presumption that if you don't buy the message it's because you don't understand it. I understand Christianity's central message about salvation through Christ as well as you do, but I think it's wrong. Implicit in the message is the presumption of correctness: this message is absolutely correct, absolutely right. My reading of history suggests that when people believe they're absolutely right, with no test in reality, they generally do unspeakably horrible things to each other if they can. I reject any religion's claims of absolute correctness utterly and completely. I believe they are, without exception, delusions and superstitions.

 

[look3467]

Look, that's one of the aspects of organized religion that most irritates me, the presumption that if you don't buy the message it's because you don't understand it. I understand Christianity's central message about salvation through Christ as well as you do, but I think it's wrong. Implicit in the message is the presumption of correctness: this message is absolutely correct, absolutely right. My reading of history suggests that when people believe they're absolutely right, with no test in reality, they generally do unspeakably horrible things to each other if they can. I reject any religion's claims of absolute correctness utterly and completely. I believe they are, without exception, delusions and superstitions.

I completely understand your reasoning Dexter, but I place no requirements to force Israel to believe as I do, but, what is clearly seen in the bible as a whole is that Israel had to be as Israel is, in order for them to offer up the ultimate sacrifice which was to clear the way for all souls to gain access to the kingdom of God.

Their stubbornness to the law exact, is what God purposed, so they are not held responsible for the offering of the sacrifice, but are exempt equally as we all are.

But, there will be a day, when they will see, and when that happens, you and I will see a change.
The rivers in the verse below are the nation of Israel when their eyes are opened, and the fish are the people of all nations and shall be healed.

Eze 47:9 And it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh.

Words in the bible are meant to mean other than what the word means, so a study of them is necessary to extract the true picture of those verses.

2Ki 2:21 And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast the salt in there, and said, Thus saith the LORD, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any more death or barren land.

Israel became spiritually barren, because they were blinded from seeing who Jesus was, but richness and a blossoming dessert is ours as believers.

So healing is in order for them at the appointed time, for death spiritually will be no more as their eyes will be opened.

Eze 47:8 Then said he unto me, These waters issue out toward the east country, and go down into the desert, and go into the sea: which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed.

Again the sea means the worlds people.

So, you see, I have no urgency to convert anyone to Christianity, but will lead them there if they so desire.

Peace>>>AJ

 

[Dexter Sinister]

I have no urgency to convert anyone to Christianity, but will lead them there if they so desire.

I think you'd be leading them into delusion and superstition. I know of no good reason to think any god exists at all, there is no evidence or argument anyone can offer in support of the Judeao-Christian god's existence that doesn't apply equally well to any other god humanity's invented, and I find no substance in any of it, it's all just anecdotal. Zeus and Apollo and Thor and Wotan and all the others had followers in their day just as convinced as you are, but neither of us believe in them. When you fully understand why you don't believe in those gods, you'll also understand why I don't believe in yours: he's no different. Possibly you'll say, "Ah, but we have these revelatory texts those gods didn't have..." to which I say BS. The only evidence those texts are revelatory are claims to that effect within the texts themselves; that's self-referential and not a valid argument. The Quran makes the same claims for itself, and I presume you don't buy it any more than I do, or we'd both be Muslims. L. Ron Hubbard made the same claims in his writings about dianetics, and obviously we both reject that too, or we'd be Scientologists. I don't see that you have any firm place to stand, you're on the same shifting sands every religious believer is.

 

[look3467]

The wonderful thing about my view Dexter, is that my view allows any and all generations to practice their beliefs according to what is at their times journey through this earth.

My views of God covers the whole spectrum of beliefs and or non beliefs from the very first set of parents to the present and all future yet unborn souls.

I am neither for your beliefs and or against your beliefs, but I do include you into the kingdom of my God, for as I understand it, He provided the means by which All mankind, I mean all mankind to ultimately be with Him in the spiritual world.

I do concern myself with our societies policies and practices, for we are a kingdom unto our selves, therefore, we are allowed to make up our own laws, live by them and or execute them accordingly.

Whether we do it right or not, consequences or rewards are meted out accordingly.

Peace>>>AJ

 

[MHz]

Purification from what? Apparently giving birth, even to the Messiah, according to Biblical references makes a woman unclean and she has to go through the proper purification rituals before she's fit company again.

She was only restricted from a few very specific things.
Le:12:4:
And she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days;
she shall touch no hallowed thing,
nor come into the sanctuary,
until the days of her purifying be fulfilled.

Hasn't it struck you on reading his many epistles that Paul apparently hated and feared women? A certain amount of that's hardly a surprise in a pre-scientific and largely pre-literate culture full of superstition. People who routinely bleed for several days every month without any obvious debilitating effects must have seemed pretty mysterious. Can't you imagine the thought pattern? A man who bled from anywhere for several days would probably die, all women of a certain age do it routinely, from their most intimate orifice, they must have some mysterious power, better take control of that and put it down pretty quickly... Echoes of that attitude still linger in our own culture. But Paul goes way over the top.

I wouldn't go so far as putting Paul in that boat, I can find texts where he is harsh to the way men can and did act. Back in those days women were sub-servant to men. Men were the ones who brought home the paychecks, held most, if not all positions of any importance.
Really, woman have been having periods since they were able to conceive, it was maybe a mystery of why but certainly no big surprise that they would have them.

That's not what I said. The anti-Semitism's in the New Testament. Jews are repeatedly portrayed as the killers of the Messiah--somehow they lose sight of the fact that if Christ hadn't died as he did none of this would have worked--, Paul complains repeatedly about them abusing him, and Peter and John offer many other complaints against them.

My mistake. True Jesus's death was part of prophecy, and so were many things that lead upto that. Does that excuse them from the deaths of others who God sent to them, OT prophets, Stephen and the persecution of Christian around the same time? I don't think it does. I doubt God saw Christ's death as an abomination, Stephen would have been a whole other matter.

The rivers in the verse below are the nation of Israel when their eyes are opened, and the fish are the people of all nations and shall be healed.

Eze 47:9 And it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh.

That chapter makes just as much sense if taken in a strictly literal sense, maybe even more so because it has a plain meaning with no mental picture switching.
It starts out at the temple Christ himself will build. It then goes on to give some indication of how big this river is, about 6,000 ft is as far as the dimensions go. Assuming the other side is similar you now have 12,000ft plus whatever distance that where swimming would be required. The banks are lined by trees on both sides (remember this part because I will get back to those trees). if you head east from where Jerusalem is now you end up at the dead sea, those are the waters that are healed. The valley the river flows through (to a sea to the east and to the west) is created when this verse occurs,
Zec:14:4:
And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east,
and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west,
and there shall be a very great valley;
and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north,
and half of it toward the south.

En-gedi is at the Dead Sea if this map is correct.
http://www.bible-history.com/geography/ancient-israel/en-gedi.html

A literal view would also be understandable in that the marshes remain salty.
Eze:47:11:
But the miry places thereof and the marishes thereof shall not be healed;
they shall be given to salt.

Now back to the trees.
Eze:47:12:
And by the river upon the bank thereof,
on this side and on that side,
shall grow all trees for meat,
whose leaf shall not fade,
neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed:
it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months,
because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary:
and the fruit thereof shall be for meat,
and the leaf thereof for medicine.

You are entirely correct that all of Jacob's house and all of Israel's house will be healed, but that is in another section of Scripture.
These few verse do not give the whole picture.
Jer:31:8:
Behold,
I will bring them from the north country,
and gather them from the coasts of the earth,
and with them the blind and the lame,
the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together:
a great company shall return thither.
Jer:31:9:
They shall come with weeping,
and with supplications will I lead them:
I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble:
for I am a father to Israel,
and Ephraim is my firstborn.

Words in the bible are meant to mean other than what the word means, so a study of them is necessary to extract the true picture of those verses.

Not always, just as written should always be the first option.

So healing is in order for them at the appointed time, for death spiritually will be no more as their eyes will be opened.

I'm pretty sure being resurrected will be quite an eye-opener for them, their joy will be in that everybody will be there, even the ones who plotted to kill Jesus.

So, you see, I have no urgency to convert anyone to Christianity, but will lead them there if they so desire.

You are right, Christ will gather whom He will when He will, some just get gathered before others. The second birth is baptism with God's Holy Spirit, you can't be condemned to the second death (fiery lake) if you have only had the 1st birth and that includes everybody alive today (and most who have long since gone to sleep, I would exempt those in Scripture who were Prophets and Apostles or others who were anointed by God) regardless if some claim to be 'born-again' these days because none of them can do any of the signs following that is a sign to others that a person does have the Spirit of God in them (2nd birth).

 

[L Gilbert]

lol
Um, I read Grumpy's frst post in this thread and I think he is just providing his own brand of hate. It just happens to be against faith in deities.
As for the rest of the bits that I read here and there, I stand right where Dex is standing. There is no evidence to support the belief in superstitions and man has always thought that if something is more powerful than him, there must be a demon or god or poltergeist or some such silly thing behind it. As Dex said, it is BS. It's not even a decent hypothesis. The device, entity, machine that is more powerful than us is simply the natural universe. It is nature. Worshiping it is foolish. Respecting it for what it is and does is wise.

 

[mrgrumpy]

Um, I read Grumpy's frst post in this thread and I think he is just providing his own brand of hate. It just happens to be against faith in deities.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I would say disdain rather than hate, but it's a small point.

What I find disgusting and reprehensible is that our society, after all it's progress, still clings to ancient myths and fairy tales that no rational person would accept.
Religion is a cancer on man's brain.

And the cause of most of man's suffering.