Evidence for God from Science

MAGSolo wrote:So the first point made that violence (beatings) cleanses evil is correct then? That is indeed what the bible is saying? I just want to make sure we are clear on that before we move on.

Have you ever heard the word hyperbole?

What it is saying is that God will correct us, sometimes these will be painful lessons and not necessarily physical punishment.

It is saying that those painful processes, whatever they may be will refine us into the people who we are meant to be.

Dan

Thats not what its saying. That is how you are interpreting what was actually said. You dont know that its hyperbole, you are just interpreting it as such

MAGSolo wrote:Thats not what its saying. That is how you are interpreting what was actually said. You dont know that its hyperbole, you are just interpreting it as such

You have your interpretation, I have mine.

Proper exegesis will look at, who is was written by, who was it written for, what was the purpose of the writing, what was the cultural context at the time, the type of literary genre, analysis of grammatical and syntactical features in the text itself.

Or there is your method, which is a plain reading of an English translation of a text that is thousands of years old written in ancient Hebrew that does not account for anything.

The question is who is right.

That is your decision, you can remain with your own interpretation, do I agree with you, absolutely not.



Dan

Leviticus 25: 44-46
44 “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

I am not going to go through every text for you, you know the methods we use, how about using some initiative and do some research on the subject.

One thing I want you to think about is, the Westboro Baptist Church interpret the texts the exact same way you do, if you do not know who they are you can google them.

You interpretation method is used by extremest groups, people that hate, people who are ignorant of the truth, people who don't want to be enlightened, be careful or you may one day find yourself in their category.

Sadly by the look of your posts you already have hate in your heart, I will pray for you.


Dan

Im using initiative just by coming here and discussing it. What better way to find out what the bible means then to ask actual christians?

MAGSolo wrote:Im using initiative just by coming here and discussing it. What better way to find out what the bible means then to ask actual christians?

Yet you don't care for our opinions, so why continue?

Why don't you go do some study on the history of the Jewish nation, find out why God would have made that decree.

Dan

Think of it like this, if you were a maths student trying to solve a problem and every time you looked at a new problem you asked the teacher for the answer and they just gave it to you, do you think you would learn how to use maths correctly?

If we always give you the answer to verses that are hard to understand, you will never learn how to interpret the text yourself, or even think for yourself.


Dan

Well my point all along has been that the notion that the bible needs to be interpreted is pretty silly and is evidence that the bible was not divinely inspired. What kind of omnipotent, all-knowing God would have his message inspired in such a way that his creation generations later wouldnt be able to understand it with out complicated methods of interpretation. That doesnt make any sense at all.

MAGSolo wrote:Well my point all along has been that the notion that the bible needs to be interpreted is pretty silly and is evidence that the bible was not divinely inspired. What kind of omnipotent, all-knowing God would have his message inspired in such a way that his creation generations later wouldnt be able to understand it with out complicated methods of interpretation. That doesnt make any sense at all.

Think about what you are saying, divinely inspired means written by man (not by God) with all the baggage that comes with that, this is why God came here in the form of Jesus to tell us personally his love for us and to express that love by dying and conquering death for the washing of our sins, because we were just not getting it.

The OT was Gods preparation of our hearts and minds for when he came here.

God gave us the lens to use (Jesus) so we can interpret the Bible correctly, and that lens of Jesus is love.

You tell me how you would have done it if you were a God and wanted people to freely come into a relationship with you, but the people were stubborn, hard headed and rebellious (evil).

If you think you have a better way, I am all ears, please tell us how you would have designed the world to allow the most number of people to come to you, how would you have revealed yourself to a lost and evil people, without killing them outright in the process.

How would you have revealed your nature to people?

By the way this is so far off topic now, prehaps start a new thread.

Dan

MAGSolo wrote:Well my point all along has been that the notion that the bible needs to be interpreted is pretty silly and is evidence that the bible was not divinely inspired. What kind of omnipotent, all-knowing God would have his message inspired in such a way that his creation generations later wouldnt be able to understand it with out complicated methods of interpretation. That doesnt make any sense at all.

I have been thinking about this a bit and I disagree that it is overly complicated, I think that God wants us to use the brains he gave us, why give us the answer on a silver platter, what would we learn by just giving us the answer, nothing in my opinion.

It is no more complicated that physics or maths, if it was simple you would argue that a God who is all the omni's couldn't have made something so simple and easy (bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situations.).

I think this is exactly the way an all powerful, all loving, all knowing etc... God would have revealed himself to a stubborn, evil, twisted etc... people.

God is a complex being, I would expect complexity in his creating and revelation.

I am amazed and awestruck by the way God has revealed himself to us, it was a very ingenious method.

Dan

Dan, hope you don't mind me saying this but by the look of it, you are wasting your time. I am not saying it is totally futile, just that I think Magsolo's theological perception is wrong on a devestating scale and unless that gets sorted out first, you two are talking past each other. Just my two cents, for what its worth.

magsolo, you have every right to hold your opinion, but believe me I see what you are saying, I think its just that you can not see how this fits into view, yet your view of God is totally different from me, us. You think we are worshipping a tyrant which we fail to recognize, or you think we know he is a tyrant but we are too afriad to cancel our faith and can't accept the fact that our God whom we worship is a total nut job created by mindless buffoons 4000 yrs ago. If either of this is remotely close to what you think than I am afraid we are not going to convince eachother at all.

The third is that we are genuinely trying to show you things that make sense, but you have already ruled that out, you would not listen to us when we say that you are reading it wrong. In the end, you are always entitled to your opinion, me to mine but let me know if any of this rings a bell. The perception is not here that the Bible is sadistic, its that you think we fail to realize what you think is right is the actually thing. And believe me we have good reason to think otherwise.

MAGSolo wrote:Well my point all along has been that the notion that the bible needs to be interpreted is pretty silly and is evidence that the bible was not divinely inspired. What kind of omnipotent, all-knowing God would have his message inspired in such a way that his creation generations later wouldnt be able to understand it with out complicated methods of interpretation. That doesnt make any sense at all.

No one is talking about mystical interpretation except you. I gave you a simple explanation on Pr 20:30 - it means exactly what it says - and you still do not understand! I also showed you how to go about discovering what a difficult passage like Pr 20:30 means, yet you are not able to use the technique.

You've said on several occasions that you want to understand the Bible. I have no doubt that there is a sliver of truth here. However, this understanding will not be yours until you get rid of your spiteful attitude and discipline your mind.

FL

You say it means exactly what it says, Daniel says it means something else. If Christians cant agree on what a verse actually means, how can you expect people like me to understand? Youre taking me to task while completely ignoring the fact that Daniel completely contradicted you. Tell me honestly, how do you think it looks when two Christians say that the same verse means two different things. You both cant be right, so that means one of you is on here spreading misinformation. Can you come to an agreement on who it is?

MAGSolo wrote:
You say it means exactly what it says, Daniel says it means something else. If Christians cant agree on what a verse actually means, how can you expect people like me to understand? Youre taking me to task while completely ignoring the fact that Daniel completely contradicted you. Tell me honestly, how do you think it looks when two Christians say that the same verse means two different things. You both cant be right, so that means one of you is on here spreading misinformation. Can you come to an agreement on who it is?

FL wrote:
I'm talking about any manner of discipline God may choose to use: it could be illness, injury, bankrupcy, mugging...and whatever else may come a believer's way. (There is a popular secular saying that parallels this idea: Whatever doesn't kill you makes you strong.) A beating is something that hurts you and can appear unfair and illegitimate to the person receiving the beating. Any correction by a father will be seen as hurtful to his child, and the child will probably resent it.
Ultimately, the correction is for the good of the child.

Daniel wrote:
What it is saying is that God will correct us, sometimes these will be painful lessons and not necessarily physical punishment.

It is saying that those painful processes, whatever they may be will refine us into the people who we are meant to be.

MAGSolo, FL and Daniel seem to be saying the same thing.