Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Indeed. Always nice to see god re-defined to little more than a collective noun.
Yes, while the god of fundamentalist / literalist / inerrantist dogma is unsupportable to receive as true, the god of liberal theists is generally so watered down that it is not worth bothering with. Either it is severely limited, absent, indifferent, or indistinguishable from things we already have perfectly serviceable names for. For the liberal believer god is a symbol, a metaphor, and may have personal utility as such for rationalizing one's existence / hopes / dreams / illusions; but is not really a deity in anything like the historic sense.
It is also amazing how a whole group of believers in a god cannot believe that others can believe in the same god without believing that the Bible is a play by play account of the world.
The flood story has so much stuff being made up about it simply to be able to explain it away, a world wide massive flood without sufficient water source, the calculations of how fast the rain had to fall in order for the much water to accumulate and the flood waters could be extremely destructive, even moving continents and forming mountain ranges while at the same time allowing tiny organisms to have their delicate shells deposited in a great depth without even a single grain of mud or sand in the column. Add to it the claim of all the Christian scientists but to exclude any of their work which disproves a global flood being responsible for our geology. If course with the flood story they are quick to submit the fact that many other cultures had flood stories but they will not accept the details of those floods or a single part of the religion of those cultures.
And to Jeff, the marvels of the origin of life, however it originated, and the evolution of species and the development of ecosystems is not a random glob of goop but are beautiful subjects to study and to get to understand. And many religious people accept evolution and take the flood story as a parable.
Nothing in that passage that says God approves of rape. All we have here is a directive given ONLY to the Israelites. Extreme measures had to be taken or else the Israelite race would quickly fall into demonic destruction by worshipping false gods. The Midianites were an evil enemy of Israel and the passage shows that the women were just as guilty as men in influencing the Israelites.
What exactly do you think happened to the women they"saved" for themselves???
The women more than likely did not DO ANYTHING willingly...let alone sex...
Nothing screams RAPE ,more than taking someone to save for yourself...
Your opinion, of the fictional story. What is clear is gods leader wiped out a people, men, women, children and animals, while allowing the soldiers to have the virgins. Seems evil to me.
And you would be here claiming God was heartless and a LIAR if He did nothing to protect HIS people and let them be slaughtered by groups like the Midianites and Amalekites. Why are you even arguing the nature of God if you think He is fictional? I don't argue about the nature of Zeus or if Paul Bunyan was kind to Babe the Blue Ox.
My point stands. There is no verse where God directly says He approves of rape or slavery. Allowing is not approving either.
My point stands. There is no verse where God directly says He approves of rape or slavery. Allowing is not approving either.
...and now we see how Trump got elected.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
