THIS is what we're striving to be???

[_evolving]

he is powerful enough to heal the common cold in a few days - but if you get the cancer -- your pretty well fu**ed

[_asbestosman]

he is powerful enough to heal the common cold in a few days - but if you get the cancer -- your pretty well fu**ed

You're wrong. He heals cancer, but he doesn't restore limbs. He has, however, been known to heal severed ears on occasion.

[_Scottie]

He has, however, been known to heal severed ears on occasion.

Naw...that was Jesus again, not God...

[_Ray A]

You ought to get together with Chris Hitchens.

I second that.

[_Who Knows]

God inspired scientists to help us appreciate the Universe, to exercise our minds, to spread His word, and to help each other.

And to lead us away from him. :o (i can't find the googely eyed smiley).

[_huckelberry]

A difficulty in making comments about the Bibles picure of God is that the book has a variety of materials from different authors spread out over a thousand years or so. Not all of it agrees in all details. People put the pieces together and come up with different images. Inevitably certain filters we bring to the book determine what we see. One person below sees God as hating women despite there being women prophets and women chrishian leaders. A person might distregard those and notce there are some legal prescriptions harshly unfair to women.

In the comments below it is easy to notice that the Book of Mormon and polygamy is forming a filter which colors everything notice about the Bible. I have some difficulty being leval headed towards some examples. I think calling polygamy an Abrahaimic is a grotesque distortion of the Bible and one which probably colors a lot of events.

Why people would think that God wipes people off the planet if they lapse into unbelief might have some influence from Book of Mormon stories. It might also be influenced by some religious conflicts in Christian history. I for one do not find it in the Bible.

Lets take a look at the God of the Bible that many, including Mormons worship, and what they believe is the pinnacle of perfection...

- He is an egotistical megalomaniac who demands worship from His followers day and night. If a society lapses into a period where they do not worship God, He may or may not "cleanse" them off the face of the Earth.

Huck, If one takes the flood and cannanite wars literally they were destroying evil developed to a terminal point, not for a difference of religoun. If you do not take them literallly they are about the ultimate elimation of evil in the future.
.................................................................
- He rules by fear. Most people don't worship Him because He is a benevolent, kind and merciful God. No, they do it because they don't want to go to hell. Few dictators have been able to instill this sense of fear into their subjects.

Huck, I can see this as true some of the time. some people continue to approach it onesided in this way and I do not see that as much help. However I cannot get my mind to a place where I can see no validity in fear of evil.
...........................................................................
- He has no qualms that 1/3 of His children (plus those on Earth that go there) will be in the Eternal Torment of hell.

Huck, isn't this some sort of Mormon idea?
............................................

- He has no problem killing babies, burning cities, turning people into pillars of salt, flooding the entire world population (minus a lucky few on the ark), etc.
- He selects prophets that have less than stellar reputations, and then commands them to further sully their reputations by lying about immoral acts to fulfill His strange commandments, which make no sense in the first place.

sounds like polygamy, no?

- He makes promises that He doesn't keep...the biggest being that if God makes a promise, He HAS to keep it.
- Of all the options available to an all powerful God to subdue a drunken man, He chooses to have His servant lop off his head.

Huckelberry, isn't that from a 19th century religious novel?
..............................................

Any others that you all would like to add?

Now, I'm to understand that THIS is what we are trying to emulate? When we reach the CK, THIS is the kind of person that we will turn into? No thanks, I want no part of that.

Perhaps some of you apologists could give me a list of good things that God does, cause I'm not seeing it.

Frees the slaves in Egypt, helps them through the desert, when no home invites them they are helped to win a homeland. they are helped under David to unify this choatic homeland. He takes the homeland away when it is abused.

[_truth dancer]

A difficulty in making comments about the Bibles picure of God is that the book has a variety of materials from different authors spread out over a thousand years or so. Not all of it agrees in all details. People put the pieces together and come up with different images. Inevitably certain filters we bring to the book determine what we see. One person below sees God as hating women despite there being women prophets and women chrishian leaders.

What does being a prophetess and leader have to do with the Old Testament God not hating women?

Hate isn't the best word however... more like the Old Testament God thinks women are to be used for the pleasure of men...(ya know... women were created so men wouldn't be lonely, and all that). Women can be disgarded, raped, used, abused, and traded at the good pleasure of men. Not really hated, just so lowly that they hardly rate on the scale as human beings.

A person might distregard those and notce there are some legal prescriptions harshly unfair to women.

Ya think? :-)

~dancer~

[_Zoidberg]

He has no problem whatsoever with a father offering his daughters for a mob to rape. Or making someone into a pillar of salt for a heinous crime of turning around.

Brad Neely did an awesome cartoon on the topic. Warning: language and somewhat graphic.

Bible History#1

[_huckelberry]

Ya think?

yes.

[_huckelberry]

He has no problem whatsoever with a father offering his daughters for a mob to rape. Or making someone into a pillar of salt for a heinous crime of turning around.

Brad Neely did an awesome cartoon on the topic. Warning: language and somewhat graphic.

Bible History#1

To imagine that God had no problem with the daughters being given to the mob is totally bizarre to my reading. I cannot even beging to imagine that God had no problem with it. I also am at a loss for a theory of what interpretive filter or method would yield the conclusion God had no problem with it.

Is there a rule that says if it happened or is related in the Bible God approves of the action?