Questions about the God of the Old Testament

[_Franktalk]

You'd have to discredit all dating techniques simultaneously, as they all accord with each other. :)

I have already posted data on erosion which does not agree with the other methods. It is your house of cards which is coming down not mine. I have always stated that I don't know exactly what the past was. It is science that makes that claim. I happen to believe in supernatural events which leave an unknown set of trace elements and may effect the world in ways that we could interpret incorrectly. So if science rests on assumptions like constant rates and the rates are changing then what else has science assumed that is also false? I do not trust the projections back in time that come from science. To me they have always been littered with assumptions that for me were impossible to accept.

[_Buffalo]

You'd have to discredit all dating techniques simultaneously, as they all accord with each other. :)

I have already posted data on erosion which does not agree with the other methods. It is your house of cards which is coming down not mine. I have always stated that I don't know exactly what the past was. It is science that makes that claim. I happen to believe in supernatural events which leave an unknown set of trace elements and may effect the world in ways that we could interpret incorrectly. So if science rests on assumptions like constant rates and the rates are changing then what else has science assumed that is also false? I do not trust the projections back in time that come from science. To me they have always been littered with assumptions that for me were impossible to accept.

Data from where exactly?

[_KimberlyAnn]

What may appear as a heartless act can be used as a teaching moment for the spirit children. The life of the flesh has but one purpose. To teach us what we came here for. We need to be surrounded by evil and good and witness evil and good to see and feel what they are. God has set this stage. It was our choice to come here. To fall into the world and surround our self with its treats is to abandon our chosen path and lose our self. God respects free will and will respect our choice even in this world.

God orchestrates pain and heartbreak and terror here on the earth for the benefit of spirit children? That's crazytalk, frankly.

God respects free will, you say?

But, just a few pages back, you made this comment:

Now we have the stage set for Moses to come to Pharaoh and ask that he free the Hebrews. Of course Pharaoh says no and then many kinds of problems come upon Egypt. It is my view that God did not want Egypt to be one of the major players in history after the Jews left. We had the rise of Assyria then Babylon, next was Persia and then the Greeks, last was the Romans and Europe is still basically a busted up Roman empire.

What of the Pharaoh's free will? (Exodus 10:1)

What of the free will of the firstborn of Egypt?

Thanks for frankly letting us know that you've not a clue what you're on about.

Surrounds herself with treats,

KA

[_Franktalk]

Howdy Frank,
I'll see you popsci decay article and raise you one peer reviewed astro physics refutation.

http://donuts.berkeley.edu/papers/EarthSun.pdf

Thank you for pointing out this article. I don't know why you assumed that I thought decay rates were tied to the sun. I know that early researchers thought that. I am of the opinion that it is more universal than sun proximity and neutrinos which cause the decay rates to change. I am of the opinion that the small variations being observed now are part of a large swing that took over 5800 years to settle out. But this is a guess as all theories are. The large swing was caused by a change in the fabric of space or the ZPE. This would explain anomalies in the distance redshift relationship as well. So please do more checking. But what you have found only makes me feel that I may be on the right track. So I thank you.

[_Shulem]

So what lesson is there to be learned from the murder of children? What lesson can we glean from this?

That evil prophets will do anything to get power. They are willing to kill their own children to do it. Prophets of Jehovah were the most wicked men on earth. When they were killed it was because justice met its due. Bible prophets deserved death. They lived by the sword and they died by it. They were murderers.

Paul O

[_Shulem]

I do not trust the projections back in time that come from science. To me they have always been littered with assumptions that for me were impossible to accept.

Science is able to read the writing found within the registers of Facsimile No. 3. Are you aware of that?

And further, science has proven Joseph Smith's Egyptian translations of the same to be a total lie. Are you aware of that?

Paul O

[_cksalmon]

No parity there. If I believe in the god(s) of the Bible, I must reconcile this God killing infants with a God that commands that I shall not kill. A little bit of hypocrite there. A God who says, do as I say not as I do, essentially. The reason this is a more compelling question than the world's origin is it impacts how I will live my life, if I otherwise would want to go about my life killing people. Since I do not, I blithely ignore it, except for the humor that comes from realizing there are people that believe (a) it is "bad" to kill other people, (b) God is omnibenevolent, but (c) God kills people. It's even funnier to see these believers find refuge in the mysterious--we don't know God's reasons for doing so. God works in mysterious ways. Not so mysterious. God's a hypocrite. That's not too mysterious. Funny, but not mysterious.

Hi sock,

The point I was making has nothing to do with how compelling we might find the one issue vs. the other, sock. That's not where the parity lies. Stormy Waters suggested that the way he might sidestep a critique of his own worldview is by "simply" punting to ignorance. Demand answers from others while exempting his own view from scrutiny.

I don't think that's the best option for either myself or for him, but what's sauce for the goose, etc.

If I believe in the god(s) of the Bible, I must reconcile this God killing infants with a God that commands that I shall not kill.

Your objection appears to hinge on the assumption that God as creator has precisely the same set of moral obligations as his creatures. But, it's not clear to me how you reached that conclusion. Is it, perhaps, due to a residual Mormon intuition/belief? If God is merely an exalted man who attained Godhood by obedience to moral laws that preexisted him and constrained his actions, then I can see how your objection would make some sort of sense. But, that’s not a traditionally-Christian view of God’s relationship to the world.

Christians typically believe that God exercises (or, at least, is free to exercise) absolute rights over his creation as he sees fit. Job confessed, “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD" (Job 1:21, ESV). The psalmist writes, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (Psa 115:3, ESV). The book of Daniel places on the lips of Nebuchadnezzar the confession, “…All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’” (Dan 4:35, ESV).

So, your assertion that God is a hypocrite for normatively proscribing murder of creatures by creatures and also authorizing the killing of the Amalekites, for example, suggests to me that you don’t have a firm handle on the Christian conception of God’s rights in relation to his creatures.
But, the more general concept I’m referring to—the normative injunction again killing sitting side-by-side with the authorization/command to kill certain others—is not unknown even in relatively mundane affairs.

Is Obama a hypocrite because federal law forbids you from killing people with an M16A4—assuming, that is, that you’re not on active duty in a warzone?

But, it’s not general US policy to target innocents in our current military involvements. So, let’s consider a more comprehensive example: Was Truman a hypocrite for commanding and authorizing the deployment of the “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” weapons over the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, because you would not have been so authorized to have done so and it would have been illegal for you to have done so without the requisite stationing and order?

But, perhaps you’re a thoroughgoing pacifist who eschews any notion of Just war theory. If so, I can respect that, and I’ll consider it going forward.

If you, on principle, object to God’s elective destruction of human life for reasons he deems sufficient, can I assume, as well, that you oppose the killing of fetuses generally, or, at least, that of viable fetuses?

That would be a silver lining.

[_cksalmon]

So what lesson is there to be learned from the murder of children? What lesson can we glean from this?

1. Can you provide evidence that any of this ever actually happened... outside the Bible, of course.

2. Can you provide evidence that God had anything to do with any of it?

Hi Harmony,

Your objection that you don't believe the events in question actually happened is irrelevant to the question, I think, at least with regard to those who are assuming, on principle, or merely for the sake of argument, that they did.

The evidence for such an assumption is obviously found within the confines of the Bible. That's what's at issue.

[_Stormy Waters]

Hi sock,

The point I was making has nothing to do with how compelling we might find the one issue vs. the other, sock. That's not where the parity lies. Stormy Waters suggested that the way he might sidestep a critique of his own worldview is by "simply" punting to ignorance. Demand answers from others while exempting his own view from scrutiny.

I don't think that's the best option for either myself or for him, but what's sauce for the goose, etc.

The point that I was trying to make is that I don't need to prove that an alternative worldview is true, to claim that the Old Testament God is either evil or fictitious.

[_Franktalk]

When I read the Old Testament for the first time I also saw a cruel God that was not consistent among the people. This is the surface reading of scripture. Only later did I acquire the truth about God. I know from my relationship with Him that He is not cruel and wants the best for all of us. So at this point I had these two different views of the same God. One in which I knew was correct from first hand communication and another obtained from reading scripture. Only after a lot of study was I able to reconcile these two views. My love for God drove me to find a different understanding of scripture. I refused to accept that I was right in my reading of scripture. I know that many things are said and written about in scripture as a stumbling block for us. If we use the world to interpret scripture we will most likely read scripture with an incorrect interpretation. Now I do know many people who love God and know that God loves them. They have read the Old Testament and see the books describe a cruel God. But they basically look the other way and leave that area of scripture alone. Their love of God overrides their curious nature and they just accept that they just don't understand everything. Others let the interpretation of the Old Testament be their guide and they abandon their quest to reconcile the problem. They cast the God of the Bible aside and seek the meaning of life else where. I can only describe what I have done and what I believe.

My starting point to understand the Old Testament God was a realization that we were known to God before the earth was made.

Eph 1:4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

and

2Ti 1:9 Who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

and

Tit 1:2 In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

Once I knew that we existed before the creation of the universe I saw the life we have in the flesh differently. It is a transitional necessity but separate from who we are. I have already given my short version of my views on life in the flesh and what that means.