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Old 10-30-2014, 12:48 AM
 
Location: California USA
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[quote=LuminousTruth;37060768]
Quote:
Originally Posted by hd4me View Post

Yes for the ancient Jews, but divine intervention would have been a bit more obvious if God had appeared and demonstrated himself... although they wrote that he eventually did in the Desert, in private only to the elders, hidden in dark clouds. Nothing brought them out of Egypt. Egypt was a better country and any refugees from droughts would have been better off there if they had acculturated as Americans in the United States seek of their immigrants.

The majority is always wrong, because they are of the world. As it stands, there is a minority in oppression that does worship Zeus and some that look upon Pharaohs as signs of Heaven's presence on Earth. I don't remember the Egyptian historians writing about Divine Plagues only about plucking the Hyksos and Atenists off their backs, and defeating the House of David and ending it's seed (killing off all the the main line of the royal family).

There are people even still believing that all the things in the Upanishads are true historical accounts. The desperate always throw themselves in the arms of their desperation. The Mosaic Laws aren't that burdensome, it's not that hard to control your hand from creating a reaping on the Sabbath and thus not keep it holy. If you did, you could always follow the law and nullify the act by buying and offering an animal sacrifice for the priests in the Jerusalem temple to Eat. Life under Mosaic Law is likely even a bit easier than life in North Korea for example.

Israel put their own hand in a hot stove, and they haven't figured out whether God controls everything or doesn't.
Not quite following the logic and we are straying off topic.

But, briefly Egypt was a "better country" if you were not a slave. The Antebellum South was a "better country" as long as you were the plantation owner not the one getting beaten, whipped and strung up on a tree. Life under the Mosaic Law was a bit easier than life in North Korea. I guess that wouldn't be so burdensome, right. As long as your part of the elite class.

And, to see God would mean death. Also, how much more of a demonstration does one need?
They survive the ten plagues culminating with the death of the first born of Egypt. Soon after they arrive at the Red Sea in front and the Egyptian military catching up from behind. Moses parts it, the people roll through it and the waters come crashing down behind on the Egyptians. I don't think God would need to be any more obvious.
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Old 10-30-2014, 01:38 AM
 
Location: California USA
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[quote=JerZ;37061119]
Quote:
Originally Posted by hd4me View Post

(bolding mine)

Scratching head here regarding the bolded. If you're intimating that Christianity has more "staying power" than the belief systems you just referenced, how are you getting that? Because Christianity is still here and they aren't? It may have escaped you that that's because they also started much earlier, LOL. And many religions follow a course - a beginning, often based on previous belief systems (just like Christianity); morphing and blending over time as new ideas set in; extinction. (We don't know yet that Christianity won't go extinct, by the way. Which is part of the point I'm about to make.)

"Total running time" isn't any longer for Christianity than those religions you just loosely referenced, and for one of them, so far it's much shorter...I'll get to those details in a minute.

Saying Christianity has more "staying power" than much, much older religions that have now run their course is like my saying I have more "staying power" than my great-grandmother (who died at age 98) because, well, look. I'm still here! And where's she?

So. "Staying power" of Christianity to date v. other religions...

Hmmm, the last "pagans" in Greece were converted in the 9th century from their overall religion, mythology and panthenon of gods and goddesses; archaeology that has been found so far (and we can by no means have uncovered ALL evidence, that's just not possible) goes back to approximately 1200 BCE linking them, among other groups, having a belief in The Olympians. And since these beliefs probably did not spring up out of thin air, it is very likely the combined religion was older than that. But to be very, very conservative, here we are talking 2100 *minimum* years before the "die-off" even began.

King worship linked to the deities of ancient Egypt are recorded back to approximately 3100 BCE, was blended into/combined with a more Hellenized view much later (~500 BCE) and continued, according to iconographic evidence, in this "newer" version until approximately the 5th century AD - AFTER the arrival of Christianity, obviously (indeed, apparently in spite of it). In fact, the earliest "Christian" Egyptians followed a Coptic religion - a very pagan-influenced version continuing many of the former basic "pagan" beliefs. Indeed, there are still Copts today, though the pagan undertones are pretty subtle now and their rituals are overall very Christian, in fact closest (I believe) to Catholic. So we are, here, talking some 3500 years *actively* of Egyptian mythology/religion. By the way, the Sphinx, with its apparently religious connotations, is dated to approximately 9300 BCE.

2000 years of Christianity, with belief on the decline or at the very least beginning to be modified by/blended with more realistic (scientific) views (for example, the Bible is no longer necessarily considered literal, but for various books or various passages now generally considered allegorical...and even the Pope currently claiming that the Big Bang is a possibility, albeit that God caused the Big Bang), I'm saying it is showing no more "staying power" than the two examples you gave (and to date, as compared to the second example, 1500 years less).

For that matter, Judaism has shown more "staying power" to date than Christianity (obviously...I mean it's just older, period, can't change that, and yes, there are still Jews, again, obviously). As far as Hinduism, as long as we're using "staying power" as proof of veracity: much much older than Christianity and still going strong. "Origins" of Hinduism are hard to pinpoint simply BECAUSE of its great age, the apparent influence of earlier, Neolithic mythology and other factors (the farther one goes back in history, the less likely there will be written accounts of actual dates, for example). However, estimates *begin* at 4000 years ago (and stretch much farther back in history than that, but again, just being conservative here), i.e.: 2000 BCE at the latest.

One other extant religion with more "staying power" to date than Christianity: Gautama the Buddha was born in 563 BCE. Buddhism: still going strong.

By the way, I am far from a history scholar, so anyone, please correct me on these exact dates and details. I would welcome the corrections as I am always fascinated with history. However, the basics should be about right, giving evidence that there were (indeed, in some cases, are) religions that have, if we're going by total time here, at least as much or, in many cases, more "staying power" than Christianity so far.

If "staying power" is proof of veracity, so far, Christianity is coming in fourth among the extant religion examples, sixth if you include the two more or less extinct ones.
You could have saved yourself the time. As I posted "the Bible" and "the God of the Bible" not New Testament or Gospels. Also, the "some 2000 years" was meant to coincide with the time during which the Hebrew Scriptures and Christians Greek scriptures were being gathered leading to a closed Bible canon from Genesis to Revelation. The Muratorian Fragment, for example, confirms that most of the books of the Books of the Christian Greek Scriptures were considered part of the Bible canon by the second century AD and Josephus around 100 AD indicated the canonicity of the Hebrew Scriptures had been fixed for quite some time.

Let's go back to the topic...What do you think about Ezekiel 20:25, 26?
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Old 10-30-2014, 01:53 AM
 
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Originally Posted by hd4me View Post



Let's go back to the topic...What do you think about Ezekiel 20:25, 26?
What do I think of it? Well, I'm not sure my opinion counts since I'm really not a Bible believer, so take this with a grain of salt. I may have no idea what I'm talking about. But...what I get out of it is a feeling of real manipulation and in a very, very negative way...like Munchhausen syndrome...like a parent who deliberately makes her child sick so that the child is forced to look for help, and the parent is the only one there, so the child is forced to turn to her (the parent)...the child hasn't made a choice, she just HAS no other choice. Yet it's the one who's smarter and in control of the situation who made her ill in the first place.

So what could have prevented pain and allowed pleasure would have been just to leave the child alone in the first place.

100% honesty? It sounds like mental illness or derangement to me. Like the parent in my example, or, I guess I just have to come out and say this, like God in that passage, deliberately hurts people just so they'll pay attention to him.

God in this passage (don't laugh) reminds me of my mother-in-law. She HAS to create problems wherever she goes...so that she can fix them. Because otherwise, she is just not important...and she CAN NOT BE UNIMPORTANT. It just can't happen. She tries to literally corner, say, my children - I mean, physically get in front of them and all around them with her arms, etc...literally entrapping them, then starts forcing answers out of them to weird stuff. Last weekend it was my middle son, at my youngest son's soccer game. She "entrapped" my son and then started firing questions at him, demanding to know whether anyone at school picks on him. She wouldn't take no for an answer, either. After she dragged out of him some helpless half-agreement, probably just so she would let him go (he was apparently VERY confused...he is intellectually delayed), she pounced on that about how she was going to "help" him. It was a mess. He freaked out, tantrumed, yelled at my husband and hit my husband's arm and had to be taken home. (This is an otherwise very, very happy, very loving, cheerful little boy who never wants to harm others.)

And no, I was not there (I was at home, setting up for the kids' Halloween party). Because if I had been there you can trust that I would have put an end to that sh*t RIGHT QUICK.

I am considering stopping all visitations by the grandparents until my mother-in-law checks herself into a mental clinic or something and fixes some of this sickness right up.

I hope that doesn't seem OT...to me it just hit me when you asked me what I thought of the Ezekiel verse...holy cow, GOD IS JUST LIKE MY MOTHER-IN-LAW.

That clinches it. I definitely don't want to go to God's heaven, LOL! I get enough entrapment and forced negative experiences that never had to happen right here.

Last edited by JerZ; 10-30-2014 at 02:55 AM..
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Old 10-30-2014, 09:03 AM
 
18,172 posts, read 16,278,361 times
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Originally Posted by JerZ View Post

That clinches it. I definitely don't want to go to God's heaven, LOL! I get enough entrapment and forced negative experiences that never had to happen right here.
Don't worry, you wont go.
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Old 10-30-2014, 09:35 AM
 
Location: New England
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Originally Posted by thrillobyte View Post
Ever heard of parents who try to teach their children a lesson by subjecting them to the pain they are trying the keep the children from experiencing? Like for example parents who put their child's hand on a hot burner to burn them so that they will know what a burnt hand feels like and won't touch a hot stove ever again?

Is this an example of what we'd call "good parenting"?

Apparently God did the same thing to Israel.

Ezekiel 20:25-26:



Now look at Jeremiah 32:35:



Now Jeremiah says God never commanded Israel to burn their children in sacrifice offerings to pagan gods, but Ezekiel says God DID give Israel such a command [statute] to burn their children as sacrifice offerings to teach them a lesson. Moreover, God says in Jeremiah that it never even entered His mind to do such a thing. But it must have entered His mind because He issued a statute to do just that in Ezekiel 20:25-26.

What do we have here, a flat-out contradiction of scripture, or an apologetic's dream example to twist and turn the meaning so that two contrary statements can actually be rationalized into reconciliation?
Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live; I let them pollute themselves with the very gifts I had given them, and I allowed them to give their firstborn children as offerings to their gods [in that they caused all their firstborn to pass through the fire]--so I might devastate them and remind them that I alone am the LORD.



When you read scripture literally by the belief that God is a separate entity to ourselves you can be forgiven for seeing that the God of the bible as being nothing other than a raving lunatic, lets face it that would be our opinion of anyone being portrayed that way on the nightly News

The very gifts that God gave us of recognition of who God is and who we are, became polluted by unbelief and in doing so we created statutes, and decreed something other than God within us to be god and that god needed to be appeased.

The "I" in "I caused all their firstborn to pass through the fire", is nothing other than our uncontrolled imagination that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and that has not been controlled and brought unto the obedience of the mind of Christ.

That is my understanding of the Ezekiel passage you quoted.
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Old 10-30-2014, 09:46 AM
 
30,907 posts, read 32,875,433 times
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Originally Posted by expatCA View Post
Don't worry, you wont go.
I knew I'd get some open-hearted Christian love around here, LOL.

By the way, I don't literally think that Ezekiel passage is how God feels. I think it's how some dude a couple thousand plus years ago believed God feels, so he wrote it down. My interpretation was of some other person's interpretation (because someone asked), not what I literally think to be true. The thing about not wanting to go to heaven if God is like my mother-in-law was facetious...(Although if you ever met my mother-in-law, you might just agree with me...)
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Old 10-30-2014, 09:50 AM
 
Location: Southern Oregon
17,071 posts, read 10,848,840 times
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Well, love.... ok. Would you like me to send you a fan?
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Old 10-30-2014, 09:56 AM
 
30,907 posts, read 32,875,433 times
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Originally Posted by nateswift View Post
Well, love.... ok. Would you like me to send you a fan?
No, simply not telling someone s/he is bound for hell would pretty much be enough.

By the way, my comments weren't in answer to anything you said...?

I do like fans, however, so if you're so moved, go ahead and mail it on out. I like little touches of gold, particularly on the edging, as long as you're offering.
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Old 10-30-2014, 10:01 AM
 
Location: Southern Oregon
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Ok, bad joke. I wuz jes tryna show a little Christian love and ease your suffrin.
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Old 10-30-2014, 10:04 AM
 
30,907 posts, read 32,875,433 times
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Originally Posted by nateswift View Post
Ok, bad joke. I wuz jes tryna show a little Christian love and ease your suffrin.
I didn't hear you say you'll pray for me. (waiting) (tapping foot)

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