Christians rejecting the Old Testament

[PaulSacramento]

I don't think that we can get "perfection" from "In God's IMAGE" as it is written in Genesis.
I don't think that the notion that Adam was perfect is anywhere to be found in Genesis.

Exactly, it still doesn't help the point.... You can't create something imperfectly as a perfect being and not have full knowledge of the outcome.
How then does a perfect being get angry and punish it because it did exactly what he knew it would do?

Suddenly God is demonstrating his own imperfection, because it's rather sadistic!

Is God's creation truly this unintelligent, or is it unintelligent because it is man's own creation in an attempt to explain God?

God gets "angry" when we do what we KNOW to be wrong.
Any parent gets that.
Foreknowledge doesn't diminish the "anger" or "pain" that a parent feels when their child knowingly chooses to do bad.
God gave Adam and Eve a choice, they were aware of the consequences and still they choose to go against God.
As we do to this very day.
God's response?
Grace given freely via Christ.
Because only love and forgiveness can heal.
Does God punish? Yes, He must if He is God ( as parents, we punish also when our children knowingly do what is wrong).
When we bring a child into this world, it is an expression of love ( or should be).
We KNOW that the child will do many wrong things, we know they are not perfect and we know we will have to be there to "pick up the pieces".
None of that matters when a child is an expression of love because the good ALWAYS outweighs the bad.
Humanity is a lot like that too.

Lets test the logic behind your Adam and Eve.... You have the same exact genetic makeup as Adam. You have the same exact influences as Adam and you are met with the same identical circumstances.... Would you have chosen differently?

I have done enough [poop] in my life to be honest enough to say that I simply do NOT know what I would have done in their "shoes".

[Revolutionary]

I don't think that we can get "perfection" from "In God's IMAGE" as it is written in Genesis.
I don't think that the notion that Adam was perfect is anywhere to be found in Genesis.

Exactly, it still doesn't help the point.... You can't create something imperfectly as a perfect being and not have full knowledge of the outcome.
How then does a perfect being get angry and punish it because it did exactly what he knew it would do?

Suddenly God is demonstrating his own imperfection, because it's rather sadistic!

Is God's creation truly this unintelligent, or is it unintelligent because it is man's own creation in an attempt to explain God?

God gets "angry" when we do what we KNOW to be wrong.
Any parent gets that.
Foreknowledge doesn't diminish the "anger" or "pain" that a parent feels when their child knowingly chooses to do bad.
God gave Adam and Eve a choice, they were aware of the consequences and still they choose to go against God.
As we do to this very day.
God's response?
Grace given freely via Christ.
Because only love and forgiveness can heal.
Does God punish? Yes, He must if He is God ( as parents, we punish also when our children knowingly do what is wrong).
When we bring a child into this world, it is an expression of love ( or should be).
We KNOW that the child will do many wrong things, we know they are not perfect and we know we will have to be there to "pick up the pieces".
None of that matters when a child is an expression of love because the good ALWAYS outweighs the bad.
Humanity is a lot like that too.

Lets test the logic behind your Adam and Eve.... You have the same exact genetic makeup as Adam. You have the same exact influences as Adam and you are met with the same identical circumstances.... Would you have chosen differently?

I have done enough [poop] in my life to be honest enough to say that I simply do NOT know what I would have done in their "shoes".

By your own argument of having choice and being aware of the consequences, shouldn't you know?
That IS in a nut shell your entire argument, so why now are you shying away from answering the question with any real resolution?

[RickD]

Neo wrote:

Rick the context of exo 20:11 demands a single day interpretation.

Ok. Let's see...

"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."

The 6 yoms of work to 1 yom of rest is a pattern. It's not meant as a concrete reading in which all times it means 24 hour day. Another instance where the 6x working, to the 1x resting can be seen in Leviticus 25:1-8. While the word for year isn't yom, it shows that the pattern of 6x working, to 1x resting is still there. And it's not only used in 24 hour days:
25 The Lord then spoke to Moses [a]at Mount Sinai, saying, 2 “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘When you come into the land which I shall give you, then the land shall have a sabbath to the Lord. 3 Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its crop, 4 but during the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord; you shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard. 5 Your harvest’s aftergrowth you shall not reap, and your grapes of untrimmed vines you shall not gather; the land shall have a sabbatical year. 6 All of you shall have the sabbath products of the land for food; yourself, and your male and female slaves, and your hired man and your foreign resident, those who live as aliens with you. 7 Even your cattle and the animals that are in your land shall have all its crops to eat.

8 ‘You are also to count off seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, so that you have the time of the seven sabbaths of years, namely, forty-nine years.

And, here's another with the same pattern 6x working, to 1x resting:
Exodus 21:1-2:
1 "Now these are the ordinances which you are to set before them: 2 "If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years ; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment.

Neo wrote:
Rick, if I substitute the word day as longer periods in these verses, it makes no sense whatsoever.

Remember the Sabbath day(long period) by keeping it holy. 9 Six long periods you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh long period is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six longer days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh longer period. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath longer period and made it holy.

Neo, I only said Exodus 20:11 is long periods. Obviously, in verses 8-10, yom means day, because the text is telling the Israelites to honor the Sabbath day, as in Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. Then verse 11 goes on to explain why the 6x working, to 1x resting pattern is what they should follow.

My point is that God established the pattern of 6 to 1. And that pattern isn't always 24 hour days, as seen in the text about rest for the land, and rest for the debted slaves. So, since the text shows that the pattern doesn't always mean 24 hour days, the text doesn't demand 24 hour days.

Neo wrote:
Please notice that the first mention of sabbath day is a direct reference to genesis 1. Also the sabbath day is being reference here as a 24 hour day for Israel and the verse says that this was the 7th day in the original creation.

Its quite apparent, a longer period use of yom is not only inapplicable here, this reference actually implies that genesis 1 uses the same.

Again, Genesis establishes the 6 to 1 pattern. Remember, God's created work lasted 6 yoms. And He is resting(from His creative work) on the ongoing 7th yom, which I would say, is still ongoing to this day. God is no longer creating. The creation work was stopped, for now, after God created man. The reason why I say the 7th yom is still ongoing, is because in Genesis, the 7th "day' wasn't bracketed by "evening and morning". Remember, "evening and morning" just show the beginning and ending of each creative period.

I would argue that one cannot take "evening and morning" to show that the text means 24 hour day, as YECs claim, because according to YEC interpretations, the sun wasn't even created until the 4th day as seen in the YEC interpretation of the text in Genesis 1:14-16:
14 Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years ; 15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth "; and it was so. 16 God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night ; He made the stars also.

All YEC interpretations I've seen, interpret this as the sun being "made" on the 4th day. While the text also allows for the interpretation of the 'lights' which were already made, to appear in the sky. During this 4th creation period, the conditions in the earth's atmosphere changed, to allow the lights to be seen from the earth's surface. Thus, the lights appear now. They weren't created now. Remember, the point of reference is the earth's surface. This point of view was established in Genesis 1:2:
The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.
where the Spirit of God was moving over the surface.

And in verse 16, it says:

16 God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night ; He made the stars also.

I would argue a better translation would be this: 16 God had made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night ; He hadmade the stars also.

Had made meaning God had made the "lights" sometime in the past.


We all know a 24 hour day is measured by sunrises and sunsets. How could the text demand a 24 hour yom(as YECs assert), if the thing(sun) used to measure a 24 hour day, wasn't even created until the 4th day(as YECs assert)? Then logic would tell us that at least the first 3 days had to be something other than 24 hour periods. See what I mean?

[Revolutionary]

[quote="RickD"]
Exodus 21:1-2:
1 "Now these are the ordinances which you are to set before them: 2 "If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years ; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment.
[quote]

Can we beat them for six days as long as we give rest on the seventh?

[RickD]

Exodus 21:1-2:
1 "Now these are the ordinances which you are to set before them: 2 "If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years ; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment.

Can we beat them for six days as long as we give rest on the seventh?

As long as they are 6-24 hour days, not 6 long periods of time.

Don't make me get the klowns!!!!

[Philip]

Can we beat them for six days as long as we give rest on the seventh?

To say this shows that you are WOEFULLY ignorant about what a slave was in ancient ISRAEL. They were CONTRACTED with a MUTUAL agreement entered into between the slave and the master, beneficial to both, only for a specific period (after which they were no longer obligated and could go free), and there were very strict commands from God as to how these slaves were to be treated. Anyone who thinks of 17th-19th century slavery in the Americas and tries to apply that to slavery as practiced in ancient Israel doesn't know what they are talking about. In fact, many so-called Christians who used the Bible to support slavery were equally and tragically ignorant of the grave sin they wished to perpetrate.

If you want to seriously know what you are talking about, as this applied to Israel, read this: http://www.amazon.com/Is-God-Moral-Mons ... 0801072751

Also, as Rick has just refuted your simplistic and ignorant time assertions about the "days" of Creation, what do you do but throw out another rabbit trail. Do you know that a very significant percentage of evangelicals either believe in an ancient universe and a 4.5 billion year old earth? Here's a list of many evangelical leaders who testify that the Creation days in Genesis need not be read as literal, 24-hour ones: http://www.reasons.org/articles/notable ... erspective

Revolutionary - you are anything but - and you are embarrassing yourself with a high school mentality of cheap shots that repeatedly show your ignorance of key issues. The people here a long time have seen your tactics over and over. And so many, like you, have eventually become educated as to how little they even understand about the issues and the viewpoints - both historical and contemporary - Christians have about such issues. But your attitude shows right away that you have a highly elevated opinion of yourself and little to no respect for those who don't believe as you do (or, rather, don't believe). At least don't come off with a sophomoric, pompous attitude and sarcastically rhetorical questions. If you just want to take cheap shots and aren't willing to respectfully understand Christian viewpoints, then you might as well go to an atheist forum where all they do is take such shots - all the while repeatedly patting each other on the back as to how smart they think they are. Really, what is your point in being here?

[Revolutionary]

Can we beat them for six days as long as we give rest on the seventh?

To say this shows that you are WOEFULLY ignorant about what a slave was in ancient ISRAEL. They were CONTRACTED with a MUTUAL agreement entered into between the slave and the master, beneficial to both, only for a specific period (after which they were no longer obligated and could go free), and there were very strict commands from God as to how these slaves were to be treated. Anyone who thinks of 17th-19th century slavery in the Americas and tries to apply that to slavery as practiced in ancient Israel doesn't know what they are talking about. In fact, many so-called Christians who used the Bible to support slavery were equally and tragically ignorant of the grave sin they wished to perpetrate.

If you want to seriously know what you are talking about, as this applied to Israel, read this: http://www.amazon.com/Is-God-Moral-Mons ... 0801072751

Also, as Rick has just refuted your simplistic and ignorant time assertions about the "days" of Creation, what do you do but throw out another rabbit trail. Do you know that a very significant percentage of evangelicals either believe in an ancient universe and a 4.5 billion year old earth? Here's a list of many evangelical leaders who testify that the Creation days in Genesis need not be read as literal, 24-hour ones: http://www.reasons.org/articles/notable ... erspective

Revolutionary - you are anything but - and you are embarrassing yourself with a high school mentality of cheap shots that repeatedly show your ignorance of key issues. The people here a long time have seen your tactics over and over. And so many, like you, have eventually become educated as to how little they even understand about the issues and the viewpoints - both historical and contemporary - Christians have about such issues. But your attitude shows right away that you have a highly elevated opinion of yourself and little to no respect for those who don't believe as you do (or, rather, don't believe). At least don't come off with a sophomoric, pompous attitude and sarcastically rhetorical questions. If you just want to take cheap shots and aren't willing to respectfully understand Christian viewpoints, then you might as well go to an atheist forum where all they do is take such shots - all the while repeatedly patting each other on the back as to how smart they think they are. Really, what is your point in being here?

One of the brilliant aspects of anger is that it demonstrates more about our self then it does about the person we are throwing it at!

You are independently responsible for how you conduct yourself; in that reality, there is no excuse for that..... If you feel I have failed in my focus and expression, there is a much more effective way of demonstrating that fact.

I only have one interest, it is to grow as an expression.... I take constructive criticism towards that focus very seriously, this is not an example of that!

[PaulSacramento]

I have done enough [poop] in my life to be honest enough to say that I simply do NOT know what I would have done in their "shoes".

By your own argument of having choice and being aware of the consequences, shouldn't you know?
That IS in a nut shell your entire argument, so why now are you shying away from answering the question with any real resolution?[/quote

]

The nut shell is that it is human nature to KNOW wrong and DO WRONG anyways.

I can't answer truthfully if I would do what Adam did knowing exactly what Adam knew.
I HOPE I would do better but the simple fact is that based on my experience of ME knowing wrong and still doing it, I would think that I probably would have screwed up like Adam did.
To be tempted to be like God, that is a temptation beyond all others.
The crucial element of the story is that Adam, who had everything he NEEDED and had a PERSONAL relationship with God that was to be envied, still WANTED more and what He wanted was to KNOW what God knew, in short to be like God and He wanted it NOW, not when he was ready mind you, but he wanted it now regardless of the consequences.

[Revolutionary]

I have done enough [poop] in my life to be honest enough to say that I simply do NOT know what I would have done in their "shoes".

By your own argument of having choice and being aware of the consequences, shouldn't you know?
That IS in a nut shell your entire argument, so why now are you shying away from answering the question with any real resolution?[/quote

]

The nut shell is that it is human nature to KNOW wrong and DO WRONG anyways.

I can't answer truthfully if I would do what Adam did knowing exactly what Adam knew.
I HOPE I would do better but the simple fact is that based on my experience of ME knowing wrong and still doing it, I would think that I probably would have screwed up like Adam did.
To be tempted to be like God, that is a temptation beyond all others.
The crucial element of the story is that Adam, who had everything he NEEDED and had a PERSONAL relationship with God that was to be envied, still WANTED more and what He wanted was to KNOW what God knew, in short to be like God and He wanted it NOW, not when he was ready mind you, but he wanted it now regardless of the consequences.

Can you give me an example of something you know is wrong but simply do anyways?

[Danieltwotwenty]

I would love to see some evidence for this "infinite void", I don't believe there is anything existing outside the universe, there is no time, no space, no matter, no nothing.................just God, an un-embodied mind.

I am reading through this at the moment if anyone is interested http://noetic.org/noetic/issue-two-sept ... s-forever/

[Revolutionary]

I would love to see some evidence for this "infinite void", I don't believe there is anything existing outside the universe, there is no time, no space, no matter, no nothing.................just God, an un-embodied mind.

I am reading through this at the moment if anyone is interested http://noetic.org/noetic/issue-two-sept ... s-forever/

There is another thread where this discussion is in full swing.... kinda.... Perhaps this would slip in nicely....

http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... &start=120

There are some nice points to the link you posted, but it's just a scratch upon the surface of where the discussion could travel.

[Danieltwotwenty]

I would love to see some evidence for this "infinite void", I don't believe there is anything existing outside the universe, there is no time, no space, no matter, no nothing.................just God, an un-embodied mind.

I am reading through this at the moment if anyone is interested http://noetic.org/noetic/issue-two-sept ... s-forever/

There is another thread where this discussion is in full swing.... kinda.... Perhaps this would slip in nicely....

http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... &start=120

There are some nice points to the link you posted, but it's just a scratch upon the surface of where the discussion could travel.

Yes I know and I have been reading it but so far you have failed to provide any substantial evidence and as far as I can see all your describing is God just without the personal part.

[Revolutionary]

I would love to see some evidence for this "infinite void", I don't believe there is anything existing outside the universe, there is no time, no space, no matter, no nothing.................just God, an un-embodied mind.

I am reading through this at the moment if anyone is interested http://noetic.org/noetic/issue-two-sept ... s-forever/

There is another thread where this discussion is in full swing.... kinda.... Perhaps this would slip in nicely....

http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... &start=120

There are some nice points to the link you posted, but it's just a scratch upon the surface of where the discussion could travel.

Yes I know and I have been reading it but so far you have failed to provide any substantial evidence and as far as I can see all your describing is God just without the personal part.

I can't even begin to fathom why God would need personal parts

[Revolutionary]

I would love to see some evidence for this "infinite void", I don't believe there is anything existing outside the universe, there is no time, no space, no matter, no nothing.................just God, an un-embodied mind.

I am reading through this at the moment if anyone is interested http://noetic.org/noetic/issue-two-sept ... s-forever/

There is another thread where this discussion is in full swing.... kinda.... Perhaps this would slip in nicely....

http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... &start=120

There are some nice points to the link you posted, but it's just a scratch upon the surface of where the discussion could travel.

Yes I know and I have been reading it but so far you have failed to provide any substantial evidence and as far as I can see all your describing is God just without the personal part.

No really, was it your plan to jump in here, not respond to anything I have said; not understand the numerous times that I have said how infinity is a lack of finite points which have the only physical 'characteristics' to even begin defining; that it has never been the focus to define infinity beyond that lack of finite points, which nobody has been able to substantiate otherwise.... Have you bothered to understand that the lack of these defined finite points provide substantial evidence until someone can show otherwise?

Was it your purpose to simply come on here and claim that I have failed, thinking you will gain any credibility in doing so?

The only credit you will receive for your actions is being an antagonist.... Do you think I'll fall for it?

BTW, take it to that thread that you have been reading and actually address something, it should be obvious that's where it belongs. This looks like you are trying to derail this thread and cover up the conversation going on here.... Makes me wonder why?

[Danieltwotwenty]

BTW, take it to that thread that you have been reading and actually address something, it should be obvious that's where it belongs. This looks like you are trying to derail this thread and cover up the conversation going on here.... Makes me wonder why?

No this was a mistake, I thought I had posted to the right thread but alas I have failed and have only realized now.