deleted

Post Reply New Topic

I'm probably closer to being YC than OC, but I just don't believe for one second that the information in the Bible is useful for determining the earth's age. Honestly, I don't even think the age of the earth is relevant, which is why I really try to avoid getting into it. Every now and then I will if I want to know what someone else thinks about it, but I'm not exactly going to lose sleep trying to defend it. The YC folks don't know any better than the OC folks.

As far as interpreting it that way, it does show you obviously don't know the context of the genealogies.

Genesis 5 is pretty detailed. But what about Genesis 10? Genesis 36? Numbers 26 (the second census)? Numbers is ESPECIALLY problematic if you interpret it as a father-son kind of genealogy. The further down the line you go, the more of a problem it becomes.

Deuteronomy is not a contradiction, either. Moses knew his successor, Joshua, and it's hardly likely they would not have spent any time together. The traditional view is that Joshua finished Deuteronomy. In no way does that undermine Moses' authorship of the Pentateuch. However, the Bible informs us that Moses had a very close relationship with God. True prophets have the ability to see future events, so it's not even a stretch to assume that Moses wrote his own obituary.

The "Blood Field Account" is not contradictory--just a collection of different perspectives, and you have to put all the pieces of the puzzle together to get the big picture. In Matthew 27, the chief priests took Judas' money and bought the potter's field, which was called the "Blood Field" because it was bought with "blood money." Luke doesn't really go into detail about this. It's possible that the Acts reference means the way in which the field was bought (with blood money) rather than how Judas died. What makes the MOST sense is that Judas hanged himself over or near a cliff and that whatever rope or other support he used broke. A nasty fall more than explains how Judas would have "spilled his guts," and given the topology of the region such an explanation is very likely.

No, I really am not. "Unpleasing to God" still doesn't show us what God is displeased by, and talking about "anything less than perfect" doesn't really tell us what perfect is, or what is considered less than perfect? Are handicapped people being saved by Jesus from God's dislike for their handicappedness? Well, I don't think that is taught, but most people consider handicaps to be less than perfection. Now, it seems to me that you are referring to moral qualities, correct? So, adding that qualification to your definition, then how about homosexuality? Is homosexuality a sin? Well, that's not apparent, why are homosexuals imperfect? It seems to me that "natural law" explanations are all we have and those suck, but I know that many Christians hold this to be immoral on the basis of scripture. What about lust? Is lust imperfect? Well, I don't know how one gets to that outside of reading the scriptures. Even further, is it really straightforward that imperfect people need a sacrifice for an attribute natural to them? I mean, let's say that I get a speeding ticket, why would I feel that I need a person to *die* for my imperfect quality? Couldn't I just be forgiven for making a mistake? Couldn't I just be corrected, rather than requiring a human to be sacrificed for this?

Am I just trying to ridicule Christianity here? No, it just isn't actually intuitive.


Umm.... yes? But the issue is that this doesn't MEAN anything without a context. What are the commands? Even further, what is really the issue that Christians have faith in?


What does that mean, and why does that relate to his dying?


There is no logical relationship between the different things. Also, how do you know what Christ did unless someone tells you, or unless you read about it? I mean, I don't have some deep intuition on Christ's life story.


Ok, and what do most people know about other religions? Even further, aren't there specific commands? The religions aren't all the same, period. I mean, Hinduism and Christianity aren't night and day, but they really don't ask for the exact same things, so using this as an analogy can be confusing. Finally, have you actually read your scripture? You're saying that emulating a man who died on a cross is "not much different" than other religions. Other religions don't bring up the issue of dying on a cross or even a command to "carry your cross". Some religions don't even have a God to love, like Buddhism is often Godless and instead tells people to seek Nirvana, but how can that translate to "Love God with your entire being"? How could confucianism translate into that? I mean, there is a real difference. There is a real difference in ethical teaching between Old and New Testaments, and it is stark and rather major, so... how can Judaism really be the same? Heck, just the sociology of Christian origination should predict very different ethical teachings than other groups, as many of these other groups were guiding religions for their societies and thus are more practically oriented, but Christianity was a fringe love cult, and that is kind of apparent in the teachings.


Is that the Catholic doctrine or the Protestant?


Umm.... I kind of think you've just reaffirmed my point, while saying that I was making the matter overly complex.


Yes, you do. There are two ways to know something: you can have direct knowledge of it, or indirect knowledge of it. Certainly, you can't go without some scriptural foundation and find the Christian faith, otherwise every other religion would also actually be Christianity.


Given how many people uneducated on their scripture's teachings work, they really don't know a damn thing about what they are doing, they just have a cool feeling, and frankly, for the most part, they've just joined their culture's beliefs without really knowing what they've gotten into. So, I am sure that you feel this is "sweet", but these people don't actually know what they believe, or even if they are really following what is commanded. They're going off of their impulses. This is very often seen with the common self-proclaimed Christian, they say "God likes X", "God believes in Y", but they are really only saying what they believe on the matter, and if their own beliefs on a matter changed, so would their view of God's beliefs, and studies have been done on that average person to show this. This is obviously intellectually irresponsible, and theologically shallow, so I can't see the point in promoting this.

Frankly, I didn't say one had to be a "dedicated, hardcore Bible reader" but one has to know the basics of what is going on. Not all scriptures are equally useful for each person, and certainly if one doesn't know what the heck they are doing.


So, you complain that I make the issue more complex than it needs to be, but then explicitly affirm my biggest point? Great.(you implicitly affirmed it earlier)


Ok, but AngelRho, you qualified "own well-being" in a manner that isn't intuitively obvious. Christianity has a huge self-sacrifice/martyr motif, and without the parenthesis, you've basically entirely obscured the central point of the cross. It's arguable that your point is to obscure the teachings of your own religion, to make them cuddlier or something. Even further, none of this actually makes sense without a good solid core of knowledge about Christianity, as most of these words are only used in the Christian faith, or even only used in the manner that they are used in the Christian faith, so it can't be obvious to an outsider.


This isn't a new convert. The issue is whether a person can be faulted for a lack of effort in trying to know something. And well... "finer points" aren't the issue. I didn't even bring up a single finer point, you've just started blabbering on after accusing me of getting it wrong, when you say something that ends up being very similar, but you somehow miss how much many of these concepts only exist within Christianity and that theological context.


Some of it is necessary though, as you can't really have "eternity with the Father" if you have no real concept of what "the Father" is.


You do realize that we are giving advice to a person who is Catholic, don't you? Someone who is really intending to maintain their Catholicism, yes?


Ok? That has almost nothing to do with my response to RICKY5. That I said "Christianity isn't "easy or simple", well... if you want me to quote scripture that says the very same thing, then I can do so. It is explicit throughout scripture that Christianity isn't easy or simple. I mean, one can say "Jesus really does all the work", and that's great and all, but that's not simple to a person who doesn't know what's going on, and even further, getting to that kind of position isn't something most people will find easy, given y'know Paul's own talk about enslavement to sin and his body of death.

Even further, I would really bet that my views on the matter are a bit more trustworthy than yours. This isn't to say that I will get all of the different sides and nuances that you want, as it is true that I might not, but I think most people would at least consider me reasonably informed.


Well, if the people are such that they can be considered "veriably Christian", and the behavior is horrible, then I don't see why it shouldn't. John 13:35 says that we should know Christians by their love. Matthew 5 talks about Christians being a "city on a hill". Even further, I really get the feeling that you are trying to engage in some sort of ad hominem, as you are basically trying to suggest that I should be discredited because of your attempt to infer what I may have experienced, and saying that my reaction is ridiculous to this. The problem is that you don't know what I have experienced, nor do you know what drove what in my response, nor would it matter so long as I am not unreasonable in my writings. The fact of the matter is that you don't know me, I don't really want you to know me, (or vice versa) and you really can't say too much about me or my experiences without knowing me.

But there's no reason to interpret it this way.


I only referred to Genesis 5 and the timeline for how long a person's life was. The problem of "father and son" is existent in the Jesus lineage though, as it is father-son each way along the way.

I did not decide to go out and look at every genealogy and you didn't ask that.


Umm.... are you high?

Deu 34:10 And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,

MAKES NO SENSE unless it was written AFTER the death. Even further, the third person perspective is bizarre.

The same holds for this:

Deu 34:6 and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day.

"but no one knows the place of his burial to this day", refers to a burial in the past. The view that Moses wrote like this.... is pretty much discredited in scholarship because it is literally freaking insane.


Hanging oneself and falling headlong and having one's body burst open is pretty damn contradictory. I suppose one could try to rationalize this, but..... your rationalization is kind of ridiculous. Are you saying that Judas threw the money away, then acted as an agent for purchasing the field for the temple, and then in his field(which he seems to owe but apparently doesn't if the priesthood bought it) he decided to hang himself over a cliff that happened to be in that field(I am not sure how many fields have cliffs nor why a person would do something so difficult), and then his body burst open upon landing.

I am sorry, that's not exegesis, that's making s**t up that makes no sense. It isn't very coherent, and no author would be so misleading as to make the accounts so out of harmony that I can't even think of a good harmonizing account.

I'm not. It'll be warm and I'll get loads of sex.

All it means is that believers have to follow their own consciences in regards to what they believe they are called by God to do. If I feel that my knowledge of scripture is deficient, then sure, I ought to correct that deficiency. If I need to strengthen my relationships with others, then I should expend more of my energy in that direction.

You have a general disdain for what you perceive as intellectual weakness. Well, honestly, "intellectually weak" by any number of standards is a pretty good description of a majority of people. It's not necessary for the average Joe to over-intellectualize every aspect of his life. He knows the proper use for a nail gun, and that's all he NEEDS to know. What he might come to realize with time is that the looming question of eternal existence is really more important than physical existence, and any number of convictions may lead him that way. The security of one's soul is much more important than the condition of one's intellect. Knowing that faith in Jesus alone is enough for that security is much easier than, say, having to memorize every verse of the Bible from cover to cover.

Jesus said "my yoke is easy, my burden is light." In context, yoke refers to His specific teaching as opposed to the yoke of the Pharisees and company. And given the fact that many of those Jesus taught were NOT particularly well-educated and likely not even literate, demands that they SHOULD have a thorough intellectual ability in understanding scripture are completely unreasonable. The only way to really understand it is in the simplest possible way. It amuses me that you pick apart my comments almost line-by-line. Biblical truth is NOT that complicated, and picking things apart and making them more complicated than they have to be serves no real purpose other than to distract from the central message.

Ok? You aren't really saying anything, and in my own first statement in this thread, I thought about the possibility that the OP had a learning disorder or something else that made reading very difficult for them.


I said nothing about memorizing the Bible cover to cover, at all. I mostly pointed to the existence of some concepts that are central to the faith, that are not necessarily intuitive at all, and that their meaning had to be understood in order to accept even a basic affirmation of faith. You might wail out "You are being arrogantly over-intellectual", but frankly, I've stopped giving a rats ass about your complaints.


Our OP has a freaking INTERNET and typed out a freaking question! They are not illiterate. Even further, I didn't say they had to know all of the Psalms, or the Jewish sacrifice system, or the history of scripture, instead, I pointed out that in order to say "Jesus died for my sins", they have to have some knowledge of what it means to have sins and what it means when you say "Jesus died for my sins". Otherwise the sentence lacks meaning. If you don't know what it means, you might as well say "Jesus died for our Dunkin Donuts"!


The issue is that obviously the Christian faith is about something more than that.


That makes no sense. The only way to really understand it, is to actually understand what this means in the theological context. This can be a simple understanding, or it can be kind of nuanced, but if you don't understand what the words really mean, then you don't understand it.


You mean like now? This is because you go off on this random idiotic tangent, and I need to nail you down to something serious and get the matter clear.

Frankly, I WISH you picked comments apart more line by line, as this would stop you from trailing off onto other topics, and really actually address the issue.


It really means what you mean by Biblical truth. The fact of the matter is though, that people who don't know Christianity that well have more than a few conceptual leaps to understanding the Biblical message. It really isn't like other things, so it is difficult. I mean, AngelRho, you grew up in a conservative Christian context, correct? So, you, of all people, are not going to see the conceptual leaps most people have to take to get there. Most people have to take rather large conceptual leaps to get to a conservative Christian understanding of the world. It isn't that they are dumb, it is just that the stuff you take for granted, other people have no conception of to ground themselves in.

Now, I don't know how good or bad the background of the OP is. Given the message, I assume the worst. As such, I don't really see a reason why I shouldn't make it clear that putting your head in this paradigm unlike anything a person will tend to be used to, is going to be a difficult thing. It *is*, and I don't see the reason why I should have to trade words with some poor fool who has no good conception of anything, whether it is competence or incompetence. I certainly don't care to have to deal with somebody who in all honesty, cannot see past their own nose.

heres the problem with the bible....

(btw im NOT an athiest)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwJP24MzCD0

Damn it, why do those people of religion want to keep us from riding a bike!! !!

But what you don't get is that it IS simple. The simple message of the OT--forgive me if I've spent a lot of time there in my PPR posts, it just happens to be what I'm studying the most at the moment--is that people, EVERYONE, including a group of people God set aside for Himself through which to communicate His desire for humanity to humanity, quite simply were sinful people and were seemingly seldom in obedience to what God intended. To get into the DETAILS of that, sure, you have to actually READ and understand the Law. But in my reading, I've found most often that the people of whom the OT was written themselves didn't even practice the law, much less try to understand it. It's very simple. God provided Law to instruct us at the time of Moses. We refused to obey it. It really is that simple.

Before you HAD the law, you just had a bunch of guys running around doing whatever they felt like doing. The Bible reports that they were evil guys who did bad things to each other. These days, if someone is caught committing a crime, what do we do? We hold a trial and decide what, if any, justice we ought to apply to them. It appears that man, left to his own devices, will commit criminal acts if left unpunished. Well, sure, that's common sense. So we may reasonably assume that the wicked punished each other, but then by what measure of justice? Their own? The blind leading the blind? It's unlikely if these guys HAD any sense of justice, it wasn't punishment-fits-the-crime justice. So if these guys have no good thoughts or fail to worship God, and mankind has strayed so far off from what God intended His creation to be, then it only makes sense that God would completely destroy His creation.

Go back even further, all the way back to the beginning. After the fall in the Garden of Eden, we find that not only were those guys just wicked, they were wicked by nature. Their destruction is their own fault. Death is the penalty for sin. Even Adam and Eve could figure that out because the Lord slaughtered an animal to provide some kind of covering for their nakedness. God Himself instituted the first blood sacrifice!

There you have it. We are not only evil, we are evil by nature. The Law prescribes blood sacrifice to cover the sin. Sin MUST be atoned for in order for the repentant sinner to be acceptable for God.

That's not complicated at all.

Human beings continued to worship other gods and offer sacrifices to Yahweh. But the "good" sacrifices are not "good enough" because the heart of man is not a willing participant in the sacrifice. Sacrifices, then, are no sacrifices at all. And those who perpetuate this practice keep atonement away from the people seeking God's mercy.

Jesus, who is the incarnate Son of God, born of a virgin, takes on Himself humanity while, born of the Spirit, is free from sinful nature. Being perfect, He provides the perfect sacrifice for the atonement of the sin of all humanity. The ONLY condition for atonement being that we believe that what was done is sufficient.

Simple.

No more messy blood sacrifices which, by the way, was ONLY acceptable at the temple in Jerusalem. Last I heard it was destroyed in the 1st Century and there's a mosque sitting where it used to be. I'm sure it's hardly likely that sacrifices will ever be allowed in the very near future, but we'll just have to wait and see.

So if it is impossible to give acceptable sacrifices, then what justice may there be from God? What mercy? What hope of salvation? Oh wait... Jesus took care of that.

Simple.

There IS no more that anyone really needs to know. I mean, sure, there is the matter of communicating the message. The Great Commission. I'm not denying that. I'm not saying that there is no value in preachers, philosophers, reading the Bible, praying, scriptural meditation, and so on.

What I'm saying is the foundation of Christianity is not in Laws and sacrifices. It is in THE sacrifice. All that matters is the penalty for sin has already been payed through the death of Jesus Christ. The resurrection demonstrates for us that there is hope for life, that physical death doesn't have to be feared.

All this garbage about being Catholic and Protestant--doesn't matter!! ! I mean, sure, the first Christians were probably Southern Baptists. But the sign-your-name-on-the-dotted-line "fire insurance" is a very simple, one-step kind of belief. "Theology" isn't important. What's important is that whatever church you attend and whose teachings you adhere to acknowledges that basic premise. And that's where it DOES start to get complicated.

It seems to me that more SBC-associated churches are springing up that don't really OPENLY acknowledge their ties with the SBC. Many more are non-denominational, and I think the reason why is that the "conservative" message is confusing in its strength while the "liberal" message somehow isn't all that compatible with scripture (in their minds, that is). This argument is not about "conservative" or "liberal" but rather doctrine that is Biblically based while not being hateful. I mean, if you take Jesus' teachings, you can qualify SOME things as liberal and SOME things as conservative. What I'm saying is those things are NOT principally relevant. Being a member of an SBC church, I've never encountered church teachings that were so recondite. I briefly attended a UMC for a while because I was dating a Methodist which did make me a little uncomfortable because the "high church" liturgical style was actually more than what I was used to. Having to take all the various stylized steps getting from the first hymn to communion was a little weird for me. And I do think that obscures the relevance of the message. Nonetheless, there was nothing inconsistent in the message itself. I have more problems with Presbyterianism than with UMC, and it's all minor enough to not even be worth mentioning (hint: predestination).

Getting into the individual views of guys like Calvin, Luther, Wesley (the Protestant Trinity?), pre-millenialism, dispensationalism, presuppositionalist theology, and on and on--you're not going to get the full picture unless you actually have a degree in divinity, are fluent in Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, and King Jimmy English, and have done missionary work in China. My point is that people DON'T do those things, they don't understand those things, nor should they even HAVE to. The book of Revelation is DEEEEEEP, and you really have to be pretty hardcore to understand the symbolism and imagery in context. Anybody can do it, but it just takes work. There are so many eschatological views loosely based on that book that there's no making sense of all of them. Personally, I'm a pantheist: I believe it will all "pan out" in the end.

Plain. Simple.

What does the Bible say is necessary for salvation? Christ alone. There's nothing complicated about it.

To anybody, their own position is simple, intuitive, and easy to get. The issue is that to most outsiders, these positions are a lot more difficult. This isn't a statement of intellectual complexity, it's just difficult.


I don't regard the OT as having a simple message, honestly. I mean, there are a few simple messages, but the vast majority of the OT, is a supposed history of the Jewish people. Now, if I were going to present a simple message for it, it would be this:

a) Trust God completely as he is transcendent and holy and the savior of the Jewish people.
b) Bad things happen because we screw up, or because we are being tested by God, but God will see things through and make it better, and is loyal when we aren't.

Now, I don't see a universalistic message in the OT, as while EVERYONE is doing bad things in the OT, most of the scriptures aren't about outsiders. There are a few scriptures that refer to the bad things done by non-Jews, but the scripture itself is focused mostly on the Jewish people and their issues.

That being said, I think a lot of purposes of the OT are included in the Law, and that the Law can't be so easily summarized. In the Jewish religion, one had to obey those rules, and so a summary doesn't get at what it means to be a Jew.


I don't think it is really that simple. The OT has men that are after God's heart and other things, and really, I think that a lot of the "refused to obey it" is just that nobody talks about things that are doing alright, but rather the Prophets explained the many bad things happening to people as their failure to obey the Law.


Well, it doesn't seem this way, because "the Law" didn't apply to non-Jews, and non-Jews didn't just do whatever they felt like doing. Rather, a lot of people did bad things, and some people did good things, and whether they were under Deuteronomic law wasn't the biggest deal here, so long as they weren't in flagrant violation of it.

And even further, how would Noah exist, if everybody without the Law is evil? Noah wasn't called evil, but rather it said in Genesis 6:9 "Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God."


You mean that is your common sense. I don't really think that people will generally commit criminal acts if left unpunished. Criminal acts make a lot of people rather uncomfortable, and often people have a sense of kinship/alliance with other people, and often punishment isn't needed to enforce this. Some will do criminal acts, sure, but with "man", I don't see that, because if that were the case, then how would we get enforcers of the law? Laws don't enforce themselves, so we obviously must have some people who are decent.


I don't buy the notion that without the law, they spontaneously became wicked still. That still doesn't make sense in human populations.


Romans 2:14-15 talks about how Gentiles lack the law, but clearly have a sense of justice. This had to precede the law, particularly for issues such as Cain and Abel, and other things. So, talking about how they had no sense of justice really doesn't make sense within scripture itself, and the method you use to get from "no law" to "everybody is irredeemably evil" just doesn't make sense to me.


You mean instead of trying to bring them back into the fold? Sending a stern warning? Anything else? Well.... um..... that's kind of crazy. That's not intuitive. It seems intuitive because well... you believe it, so it is obvious to you, but you haven't really considered other potential possibilities.


Umm.... Abel offered a good sacrifice. Not only that, but the Jewish interpretation of their own scripture lacks Original Sin.


If someone is naturally a certain way, how is it their fault? We are not at fault for being born, are we?


That's a matter of interpretation. God slaughtered an animal to cover Adam and Eve with its skin. It doesn't even really mention the killing of the animal, making it difficult to say "this was a blood sacrifice". We kill animals all of the time, without making it a blood sacrifice.


We are evil by nature. Umm.... once again, you're gliding over issues just to avoid seeing problems. Yes, the law prescribes blood sacrifices to be given by the people who have wronged God as a sign of their repentance. Why must sin be atoned though? If God is perfect, then why can't he just let an issue slide?


Um.... ok? Right, the sacrifice must be given by the person while having the right heart, however, if the sacrificing is just a legalistic duty, as seems apparent from something called "the Law", then why does intention matter? Does a cop care your intentions in paying a speeding ticket?


What does incarnate mean? Why born of a virgin? How could a virgin give birth? Why only make one man free of a sinful nature? How is that Jesus being naturally sinless is really more moral than my natural failingness? If we can't help but be sinful, and Jesus can't help but be sinless, why is Jesus better?

How is it the "perfect sacrifice" if the original sacrificial rituals required that the person at fault be a part of the sacrifice, and sacrifice something that was their own in good intention? The Romans had no good intention, and none of us today were a part of that sacrifice. In fact, only Jesus intended to die, so, how can this count to my credit? In fact, there was no priest conducting the proper ritual for the sacrifice.


AngelRho, I hope that you are joking, as your explanation is basically like this one:



It makes about as much sense as this one, as you just keep on asserting things, but there is no reason and it doesn't even really make sense, and until it makes sense, you can't really say you believe it.


Jesus died on a cross, not in the Jerusalem temple, which is one of the problems with the atonement.


Umm..... why couldn't the rules be altered if the matter ends up becoming impossibly difficult?


One, that's a lot to swallow in one sitting. Secondly, it actually doesn't make sense, both at first glance and further analysis, so to get to the point where it seems to make sense is kind of difficult. Thirdly, if you haven't been exposed to this growing up, it sounds kind of crazy and your head starts swimming at the matter.


Well, no, it is in the death of Christ, but it is also in the Christian ethic. Once again, if you don't follow Christ's commands, then you don't believe, and given that there is no logical connection between "Christ died to fulfill a rule that God imposed upon us" and "I should be nice to everybody", this means ethical teachings.


Umm.... "fire insurance" beliefs are generally considered wrong by most Christians. Most Christians, including Protestants, hold a very high view of ethics and to some degree works, and for a faith to lead to works, there has to be a logical connection between the two.


I didn't bring up any of those issues.



No, not really at all. Look, I've actually had an "intuitive explanation of the atoning sacrifice given to me", and despite all of my arrogance and intellectual bravado, I won't hesitate to say that I didn't follow it at all. It made no sense to me when presented. So, for you to do the exact same thing and say "Plain. Simple.", I just think to myself "f*****g moron."


Well, no, according to that conservative Protestant view, it says "Saving faith in Christ alone, in which saving faith entails works and following Christ's commands". That's more complex.

AG: You're STILL overcomplicating things. I can't say more about it aside from just repeating what I've already said.

A FREQUENT theme of the OT is Israel's failure to keep the Law. You have more reports of kings who did THE evil in the sight of the Lord, which in context means they engaged in and promoted worship of other gods than Yahweh. Beyond that, the people abandoned the practice of sacrifice, and many of those who held onto it did so with the wrong motives. One sacrifice to atone for the sins of ALL humanity makes things MUCH simpler. Nothing to it. Sure, if you want the story, read the gospels. All I'm saying is that believing in said "universal" sacrifice is enough for salvation.

Romans 2:14-15 doesn't apply to the pre-flood people of Genesis, including the Nephilim. Romans is referring to contemporary non-Jews. The Gentiles lack THE Law as understood by Jews, but do have a sense of justice. So at some point, God only let morality through that was in line with His intentions, which we find in the person of Noah (who wasn't a saint either, btw, but that's beside the point). It's no surprise that the same or similar morality can be found among believers and unbelievers.

I don't know about Jewish interpretation of their own scripture. The Bible does not mention sin before the fall of Adam. It can only be concluded that sin entered the world through Adam and became the inheritance of all Adam's descendants.

God can't just let an issue slide BECAUSE He is perfect. Therefore, atonement for sin is necessary. Based on our own view of morality, it seems what is right in our own opinions is right, hence no need for atonement. That is a prideful, arrogant view, even if it is a subtle one, and we know that Satan was guilty of same. In fact, the temptation strategy he used insinuated that we'd be equal with God Himself. God NEVER had such an intention and, in fact, by making Himself present in Eden WITH Adam and Eve already condescended to their level. Any act that would attempt to best God is not only deserving of death, but is outright absurd. A simple act of recognizing one's own propensity for sinful behavior together with asking forgiveness is a major step in "getting right" with God. Blood sacrifices are necessary because they are the acknowledgement that the blood shed should have been your own. By God shedding His own blood, the necessity for such activity is overcome by one's willingness to simply believe that God's own act of atonement is enough.

If time permitted and I COULD go on to answer more of your challenges, I would. But basically the point is that many of the challenges are irrelevant to the simplicity of the Gospel message: that Jesus died for our sins.

I'm very sorry that you have a lot of difficulty accepting the simplicity of it. The pains of that difficulty are evident in the little extra insulting language that you use. But if it's true that I'm some kind of idiot, or to use your word, "moron," what does that imply that I, a "moron," can understand this and it gives you so much difficulty? I'm not claiming to really be that smart, to be honest, nor is it an insult to you. I think maybe part of the problem for you is that you've thought it to death. Your using pure human understanding to reach something that did not originate from the mind of a human being. A lot of it makes SO much more sense than you allow your own mind to comprehend.

not so .. What he said was that there are different types of genealogies and you would have to look to see what point the writer was making to see which type of genealogies were being used .

by the way that was a fab read AngelRho thanks much for the study I did not know the half of that

No, I am not. You don't understand your belief from an outside perspective, period.


But its of questionable validity. The sacrifice doesn't work by God's sacrificial rules, such as the ones you already laid out. If God will do something invalid, why not have him do something invalid that is simpler.


The issue is that no point emerges in which we see that the non-Jews have morality. As such, saying that Romans only refers to contemporary non-Jews just... doesn't really work. Unless there is a point of time where the difference emerges, which is never pointed out, Romans 2 refers to all, as that's the only way it would make sense.


Umm..... ok? That doesn't say anything because Adam was the first man. The issue is that you are trying to bring in the doctrine of Original Sin. Now, it is true that there is an original sin, but that doesn't mean that Adam's descendants inherited anything. You're just jumping to the conclusion.


You're confusing perfect with anal-retentive. The inability to adjust is imperfect. Our basic concept of forgiveness is just letting things slide for the most part but your notion of God cannot really forgive.


Yeah, and that's another difficult issue, as the distinction and relationship between our morality and the true morality is not apparent outside of Christianity and hard to work out within it.


But having another man, whom we've never seen, do it for us, prevents us from acknowledging anything.


No, you really couldn't, and that's not because nobody ever could answer in a manner that makes more sense, but you are brainwashed and incompetent.



AngelRho, you've missed the point so thoroughly that I wish you had your head examined. I don't know what the point of talking to you is other than rebutting follies so that way nobody gets confused.

Um.... ok, you have to recognize that a comment like "Your using pure human understanding to reach something that did not originate from the mind of a human being." makes no sense without your background. You don't even recognize the problem with understanding your position, but it is blindingly present how difficult it is for someone to understand you if they aren't from your conservative Christian background.... *sigh*.... I should repost the message on why conservative Christianity sucks.... or maybe edit it more or something....

There is the problem with that assertion, is that it doesn't actually say anything, you are just asserting your own belief with that and that seems to be your starting point to try to justify your belief, the problem is that you are already assuming something that needs to be verified first, so it begs the question, "is there actually that thing outside of our reach that did not originate from the human mind?". And if that something is out of our reach to understand it, how do we know it does exist and how do we know how it works or what it wants? Besides that, your opponent may not or does not agree that there is such a thing, and if that the premise is logically unsound, given that pretty much points towards circular reasoning.

AG is right, you seem to fail to understand outsiders seeing Christianity from an outside perspective, and somehow expecting that others to swallow how "simple" it is and easily share your perspective (which is considered to not make sense) and you justify your perspective with a premise that begs the question. Not only that, but as things appears to be, it may be the other way around, that likely, it is originated from the human mind, I mean, pressumptions as yours, which I know is not your perspective.

A collection of different perspectives are, by nature, contradictory towards each other, and well, that there are two different perspectives towards the same thing can be acceptable, however, that undermines the belief in the inerrancy of the Bible, and forces us to accept that the Bible is not accurate as literalists promote it to be.

About direct inspiration from God, hmmm, the following seems somehow that it contradicts that notion:

Last edited by greenblue on 16 Jul 2010, 9:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.