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To: Just mythoughts

The infants were ordered to be slaughtered by your god. It asks humans to perform this act of mass murder. Why did your god “knit in the womb” that which it wanted destroyed by humans? And if this god is also Jesus, some “great plan” it had for those infants’ stomped-out short lives, eh? Not a sentence in the Bible to address this immense moral conundrum, almost expecting the addresses population to accept it at face value, as if it were nothing. And if this is the standard of evil your god chooses to associate itself with, then how did you make a choice between such a god, instead of, say, Allah?

It’s laughable how jealous, uncompromising and arrogant your god can be at times, while allowing perfidious evil at other times because it suddenly realises the “hardness” of human hearts. Your god’s principles and “absolutes” waver like the seasonal sea winds. A true god would not be able to contradict itself the way the OT god and Jesus do, with each other, as well as with each’s self, and it doesn’t take plenty of mental gymnastics to not see this. If you are honest with your conscience, you are aware of it. Even Mrs. Don-o admits the difficulty she had about the problem.

A god, due to stringent definitional qualities, will have to be held to a higher standard than mere pharoahs. A god simply cannot do a single wrong or condone a single act of evil without contradicting and therefore nullifying itself. Do you realise this?

Oh, and by the way, evolution is the undeniable truth, buttressed by evidence with each fossil find, and the basis of whose truth is used in biology, medicine and agriculture by millions, and ultimately benefitted by billions. The more you oppose accepting it, the harder you make it for yourself to contend with the growing evidence. The Catholic Church realised this, and so will you be forced to, likewise.


32 posted on 11/01/2012 7:42:24 AM PDT by James C. Bennett (An Australian.)
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To: Just mythoughts

addresses = addressed

doesn’t = does

Autocorrect isn’t always effective.


33 posted on 11/01/2012 7:47:02 AM PDT by James C. Bennett (An Australian.)
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To: James C. Bennett; little jeremiah; Just mythoughts
(I am pinging little jeremiah to this comment too. LJ, as a Hindu will have some good insights here.)

I appreciate the beauty and spiritual relevance of the Bhagavad-Gita, with its many elements of truth and goodness.

Two points: first, the relevance of warfare in sacred writings like the Gita, and second, the mode of interpretation of the Bible: is it, essentially, a moral manual, or is it a true record of the unfolding of incarnational revelation?

My take on the Gita relies heavily on Gandhi and also on Eknath Easwaran. As I understand it, the Gita --- from which you derive inspiring excerpts --- is a “Poem of Force” comparable in some respects to the Iliad /Odyssey epic or the Talmud. In what way is it moral? How does it “get around” or “through” its inspired war imagery?

In the Gita, Arjuna, realizing that his enemies are his own relatives, beloved friends, and revered teachers, turns for advice to his charioteer/guide, Krishna, who tells him his duty is the protection of the pious and the destruction of the impious. Krishna displays his Vishvarupa (Universal Form) to Arjuna on the battlefield, a splendid Being facing in every direction at once and brandishing every implement of bloodshed (swords, axes, arrows, daggers, lances). He summons Arjuna to do his duty as a warrior.

Is all this a glorification of war? It apparently depends upon interpretation by the devout mind, and not by the ignorance-filled mind. Faith and total surrender to a chosen God (Ishta-deva) are considered to be important aspects of warfare interpreted in a spiritualized sense. It’s Bhakti yoga -- devotional service with no thought of personal reward, a total oblation to God alone. Like (I daresay) the annihilation of a Canaanite town in Deuteronomy.

This is beautifully rendered in the selected texts you quoted to me, but it doesn’t resolve the question of killing in warfare.

You look at wars in Deuteronomy and Judges, etc, as literal, outside of the interpretive context of some 60 other books of the Bible and ignoring the three solid senses of Scripture beyond the literal: the analogical, the moral, and the anagogical. At the same time, you are willing to take the devotional bhakti-aspects from the Gita as a kind of unalloyed moral teahing, easily ignoring the explicit war and battle context.

This seems to me a truncated and tendentious reading doing justice neither to the Gita nor to the Bible.

Now turn to the Bible. Saying there’s “not a sentence in the Bible to address this immense moral conundrum,” is like being indignant about a forest because it has not a tree to be seen. It failing to engage with the vast hermeneutic of commentary provided by the whole rest of the Bible.

Some key points:

Not worthy. Got that? And then, who ends up building the Temple? Hold on. Oh! Those names.... they sound ....familiar. They weren’t genocided? Oh! AND they built Solomon’s Temple? What is going on?

And then later Jesus says that God dwells in a Temple not made by hands?

“There’s a contradiction here,” says James C. Bennett.

You don’t say??!

This announcement that one has discovered the bleedin’ obvious almost leaves me gaping. It’s so far off it’s not even wrong. It's (as Mark Shea says) like watching some sophomore burst into a chat room discussion on relativity among quantum physicists in order to say, "If you're so smart, then how can light be a particle and a wave at the same time. Huh? Huh? Isn’t that some kind of contradiction? Why don't you learn some real science? When are you going to admit you don’t know a thing about non-contradictory logical thinking? Huh?”

Did you notice that the Catholic Church has been pursuing a kind of Unified Field Theory of Ethics, a hermeneutic cognizant of history, philosophy, Divine and Natural law, for, like, 20 centuries now?

And that we’re not “Sola Scriptura” believers, “verbal inerrancy” supporters or Fundamentalists? (I notice that skeptics tend to have the most fun arguing with fundies, strangely... maybe not so strangely ...beinst y'all have the same presuppositions about how "a deity" is "supposed" to communicate and how Scripture is "supposed" to work.)

Are you gratified to know that our Councils and Catechisms teach that the intentional killing of an innocent human being under any circumstances (whether under medical or military auspices, whether by abortion or infanticide or counter-city bombing or genocide,) is a “crime against God and humanity” which is unequivocally condemned?

Yes? Well, good. I’m gratified, too. Let’s shake hands.

Welcome to the chat room.

34 posted on 11/01/2012 11:36:55 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("Christ lui-meme est descendu et m'a prise." -- Simone Weil)
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To: James C. Bennett
The infants were ordered to be slaughtered by your god. It asks humans to perform this act of mass murder. Why did your god “knit in the womb” that which it wanted destroyed by humans? And if this god is also Jesus, some “great plan” it had for those infants’ stomped-out short lives, eh? Not a sentence in the Bible to address this immense moral conundrum, almost expecting the addresses population to accept it at face value, as if it were nothing. And if this is the standard of evil your god chooses to associate itself with, then how did you make a choice between such a god, instead of, say, Allah?

This is like having a conversation regarding 'toe'. The pretense of that supposed claimed hot steaming pot of primordial soup that never existed. But always referenced as the origin of life. So here is what God has to say. He created all souls long before this flesh age. It is call the 'age' that was, by Peter. Other writers reference this time period where in all souls/spirit intellect existed, but not in flesh bodies. At some point during this 'age' that was Lucifer who reached the level of the anointed cherub that covereth the mercy seat, was perfect in his ways and beauty stopped loving the Creator. Lucifer fell in love with himself and decided he would be god and drew with him a third of the sons of God.

As result he, Lucifer, Satan, the devil, the serpent, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the accuser, the destroyer, all 'names' he was called to identify his method of operation, (plus many more) was judged to death.

But rather than sentence any soul/spirit to death that followed the first rebel, that heaven/earth age was destroyed. Hence no more dinos, etc., but their remains were left to give evidence there was an 'age' that 'was'. The Genesis account of 'creation' is the cleaning up of this earth to make it habitable for this present earth age, as Peter calls it the 'world' (age) that is 'now'. Genesis 1 describes the creation of multiple peoples in flesh bodies and even describes their responsibilities/dominion of this earth.

Peter says that God keeps time that one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as one day. So each day of creation would account for a thousand years. Quite a clean up after the first rebel was cast down. We in this age have not personally witnessed a supernatural war yet.

The Adam was not formed until the 8th day, 2-3 thousand years depending on which part of the thousand year time frame the creation took place.

Now there were some that did not follow the first rebel when he rebelled. They are the 'elect' and they earned in that first heaven/earth 'age' their justification and were chosen to perform specific duties by the Creator. We can know who some of them are by who penned the WORD. We can also know the mindset of those that carried their rebellious nature with them in this present age. BUT, what no person can know or JUDGE is the standing of any of God's children when all is said and done.

It’s laughable how jealous, uncompromising and arrogant your god can be at times, while allowing perfidious evil at other times because it suddenly realises the “hardness” of human hearts. Your god’s principles and “absolutes” waver like the seasonal sea winds. A true god would not be able to contradict itself the way the OT god and Jesus do, with each other, as well as with each’s self, and it doesn’t take plenty of mental gymnastics to not see this. If you are honest with your conscience, you are aware of it. Even Mrs. Don-o admits the difficulty she had about the problem.

A bit of a refresher here Exodus 20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them; for I the LORD thy God am a jealous GOD, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and forth generation of them that *hate* Me;

6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that *love* Me, and keep My commandments.

It is not like the peoples have not been warned.

Hebrews 2:14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

You obviously have not read all of the WORDS of Christ, because Christ was right there in the Garden of God called the tree of life. And right there allowed in the midst of the Garden was the first rebel, called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Ah, when the peoples were warned, even in the heaven/earth world (age) that was, and rather than literally destroying their very existence then and there God gave opportunity for each and every soul/spirit to come through this flesh age. That is the first requirement to see the kingdom of God. And not all of the sons of God took that opportunity, some of them came and cohabited with the daughters of the Adam and produced hybrid giants. Hence the flood of Noah. Obviously there was a second influx that produced the Amalekites, and God was not going to allow that already preplanned blood line to Christ get polluted.

A god, due to stringent definitional qualities, will have to be held to a higher standard than mere pharoahs. A god simply cannot do a single wrong or condone a single act of evil without contradicting and therefore nullifying itself. Do you realise this?

I would say given your ridicule of Him and you still have the gift of breathing demonstrates a far greater love for you than you for Him.

Oh, and by the way, evolution is the undeniable truth, buttressed by evidence with each fossil find, and the basis of whose truth is used in biology, medicine and agriculture by millions, and ultimately benefitted by billions. The more you oppose accepting it, the harder you make it for yourself to contend with the growing evidence. The Catholic Church realised this, and so will you be forced to, likewise.

A load of donkey dung. There is absolutely NO evidence of the hot steamy pot of primordial pond scum and without it there is NO such thing as evolution they way it is manufactured. And you are itching about the Creator removing a peoples from His real estate promised to His peoples because they loved Him, and you have the audacity to tell me I will be forced to 'believe' evolution. You have no clue the level of ignorance you promote.

35 posted on 11/01/2012 12:50:24 PM PDT by Just mythoughts (Please help Todd Akin defeat Claire and the GOP-e send money!!!!!)
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