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The "God" of some of the story-narratives does a lot of questionable things:
- He makes absurd and violent laws that sound man made, even psychotic.
- He commands his people to go and kill as many foreign people as they possible can.
- He instructs them to keep the virgin women for themselves.
- He commands Abraham to kill his son. (That kind of sacrifice "never entered" God's mind, according to Jeremiah).
- All of the verses in those particular stories have a self-righteous "human" quality. ("As for me and my family, we will worship the lord", etc)
Very VERY different from the more honest tone found in the wisdom literature and most of the prophets.
I really wonder if the original intent of those stories was a warning about how religion can make people evil. And perhaps, in the time of the apostles, the writers of the New Testament were trying to explain that "old" God in light of the truth, as being an example of something NOT to follow.
I don't take the bible literally. so Abraham's story is about how some people think their child is more important than everybody. It teaches us that a child can be "sacrificed" for the good of the group. Of course fundies butcher it on both sides of the isle.
I don't know the rest of the stories nor do I know the context of them all. The book is a guide and centralizing theme to have some consistency between churches. So the stories tell of the repercussions of taking oneself or a book too seriously. Or in this case too literal.
So I kind of agree, people following a literal religion can look evil. evil = a crazy sheep. A wolf in sheep clothing so to speak.
Yahweh is a pagan god, the pagan chief god of the Israelites just like Zeus was the chief god of the Greeks and Jupiter was the chief god of the Romans and Osirus was the chief god of the Egyptians.
During this supposed time of the Exodus the Israelites were a small tribe of goat herders living in the hills of Palestine and had all these grandiose dreams of a powerful and terrible god leading them out of captivity in Egypt and their god sending these seven (mystic number) plagues on Pharaoh and so through tribal storytelling around campfires their elders talked of these outrageous actions--slaughters of enemies by their god Yahweh, parting seas, etc.. Much of this was done to boost their confidence because in reality they were just small fish in a big sea of much more powerful civilizations, which is why they were getting their bottoms kicked so often by other peoples.
Gradually during the Babylonian captivity someone decided to collect all these scraps of papyrus upon which was written much of this and verbal stories and put all this nonsensical stuff into one large volume that became the Old Testament.
The "God" of some of the story-narratives does a lot of questionable things:
- He makes absurd and violent laws that sound man made, even psychotic.
- He commands his people to go and kill as many foreign people as they possible can.
- He instructs them to keep the virgin women for themselves.
- He commands Abraham to kill his son. (That kind of sacrifice "never entered" God's mind, according to Jeremiah).
- All of the verses in those particular stories have a self-righteous "human" quality. ("As for me and my family, we will worship the lord", etc)
Very VERY different from the more honest tone found in the wisdom literature and most of the prophets.
I really wonder if the original intent of those stories was a warning about how religion can make people evil. And perhaps, in the time of the apostles, the writers of the New Testament were trying to explain that "old" God in light of the truth, as being an example of something NOT to follow.
What do you think?
We're those commands to be taken in the physical realm or spiritual?
Food for thought. Not really a question to answer. Just saying.
Gradually during the Babylonian captivity someone decided to collect all these scraps of papyrus upon which was written much of this and verbal stories and put all this nonsensical stuff into one large volume that became the Old Testament.
Yes, and I think they were also heavily edited at that time. Perhaps long endless genealogies were created to connect the people in the stories with real people in the community.
Yahweh is a pagan god, the pagan chief god of the Israelites just like Zeus was the chief god of the Greeks and Jupiter was the chief god of the Romans and Osirus was the chief god of the Egyptians.
During this supposed time of the Exodus the Israelites were a small tribe of goat herders living in the hills of Palestine and had all these grandiose dreams of a powerful and terrible god leading them out of captivity in Egypt and their god sending these seven (mystic number) plagues on Pharaoh and so through tribal storytelling around campfires their elders talked of these outrageous actions--slaughters of enemies by their god Yahweh, parting seas, etc.. Much of this was done to boost their confidence because in reality they were just small fish in a big sea of much more powerful civilizations, which is why they were getting their bottoms kicked so often by other peoples.
Gradually during the Babylonian captivity someone decided to collect all these scraps of papyrus upon which was written much of this and verbal stories and put all this nonsensical stuff into one large volume that became the Old Testament.
Yahweh is so pagan, his name was only mentioned 7000 times in the OT, and the Jews changed it to LORD. Yahweh is the same God of the NT as well.
Gradually during the Babylonian captivity someone decided to collect all these scraps of papyrus upon which was written much of this and verbal stories and put all this nonsensical stuff into one large volume that became the Old Testament.
...and then Jesus, the Son of God had the entire OT memorized and taught from it and claimed the God of the OT as His Father.
Anyone who claims the OT was anything other than truth must then bear the burden of explaining Jesus's views on the matter. I've yet to hear a logical rebuttal that carries the argument.
...and then Jesus, the Son of God had the entire OT memorized and taught from it and claimed the God of the OT as His Father.
Anyone who claims the OT was anything other than truth must then bear the burden of explaining Jesus's views on the matter. I've yet to hear a logical rebuttal that carries the argument.
There's a good reason for that.
Every time you're confronted with logical rebuttal you resort to the tried n' true Fundavangelist defense:
Every time you're confronted with logical rebuttal you resort to the tried n' true Fundavangelist defense:
On the contrary, actually. I have engaged in many debates examining the evidence for various arguments. I choose not to resort to petty name-calling, ad hominem attacks, generalizations and every other fallacy you enjoy utilizing.
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