WrongPlanet.net an anti-christian site?

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I understand, but I would also suspect actual lane and shoulder widths might play into deciding that since certain two-lane roads would be safer than others at higher speeds.

However, the situation that surprised me the most happened several years ago while my wife and I were traveling "out west" somewhere: I got a ticket for passing someone "in an intersection" even though that "intersection" was nothing more than an opportunity to turn right or left onto a county (gravel) road while traveling on a paved, state, 55-mph highway. The cop was pretty cool, though, since he let me slide on the matter of my doing 85 with them hot Harley pipes wide open!

To be quite honest, I am getting lost in this metaphor... either I didn't understand where you were going with it or it has evolved into something I just don't get. My initial statement is that God is all-knowing and therefore shouldn't have to test our comprehension or faith in things.... I'm not sure how this evolved into people who don't deserve a license should get one anyway... I never implied that.


Again, but in alternate wording, I will state... If Abraham "knew" he had nothing to fear, then his "demonstration" meant nothing because he knew that he would never be expected to follow though... He would have been just going thought the motions. This does not constitute testing ones faith because, although the faith was there, it was not tested....


I appear to be completely ignorant of what kashrut laws are... perhaps this is why I find the entire Bible teeming with God's contradictions...


To me, a rational conclusion is that if God is all-knowing... Then he can see what's down the road before he actually commits to an action.. Therefore, if he sees that outcome and proceeds regardless, he is thereby making that choice and by default intending for that outcome to occur.
Examples:
God creating angels and angels becoming wayward.
Adam and Eve and the damned tree.
Adam and Eve and the damned tree and ensuing procreation.
Adam and Eve and the damned tree an ensuing procreation and the immaculate conception and the death and resurrection.

If God didn't foresee the need for the resurrection upon creating the angels... then God is not all-knowing. If God did foresee it, and chose to go forward with his plan anyway, then God, in fact, knowingly created the system of events and chose for this to happen.


No.... That other people find fault with "God's work" and blame the masterpiece, not the artist. All based on an outdated book that supposedly encapsulates the concept that "God is love"..... That states that a man's relationship with God should be private and that we aren't supposed to judge others. That makes me want to vomit.


As I stated above, God chose to accept that chain of events, therefore as the supreme being, that responsibility for his should be his. If I leave a plate of cookies on the coffee table and tell my toddler "Nono, don't eat" and he does, is that my stupidity or his sin? Adam and Eve were naive to temptation.... therefore, in my book, the equivalents of toddlers in the situation.



If he foresaw the outcome, and chose to move forward with his intended course of action, then he accepted the future scenario. Therefore, he adapted his plan to include that... making it his INTENTION.

Here's an interesting verse that is relevant to this discussion:

Isaiah 45:7 (King James Version)

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

It could be argued that if the Christian God is the Creator of this universe, then anything and everything that happens in it, good and bad, is ultimately His fault since it wouldn't even be possible unless He created the universe in the first place.

Last edited by TheBicyclingGuitarist on 26 Apr 2011, 5:19 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I have to apologize.... I shouldn't have said "outdated book"... Regardless of my thoughts on that, I said it to be disrespectful, and I should be bigger than that. I'm very sorry.

I get very upset to see, what I perceive to be, hate substantiated by "God's Word".... and you may not see that as what you're doing. But to me, that's exactly what it is. I don't know a God who hates his children and condemns them for being who they are. I know a God that is loving and forgiving.

I have heard people say Abraham was being "tested" so he (Abraham) might thereby discover something about himself ... but Abraham likely already knew he was willing to be obedient.

So then, the next possibility might be about some kind of lesson being taught ... but then we fall back to the problem of "'God' playing a trick" on Abraham as well as the problem of "God" also allegedly having told Abraham to make a human sacrifice.

One of the silliest explanations I have ever heard suggests "God" wanted to find out whether Abraham would be willing before deciding about something similar himself ... as if "God" might not do it unless Abraham actually would.

Personally, I think "test" here means nothing more than bit of "exercise workout" in preparation for something more demanding later on ... or maybe "test" is about Abraham simply "giving a demonstration" of some kind for the rest of us ...

... and I think that actually makes the best sense here since Abraham certainly did leave a fine impression on me by just saying/doing something like, "Oops, something seems to have changed here ... but I am just going to move right along and follow what seems to be the next direction anyway."

At least, that is the experience of my own life.

Well, the Old Testament was written by and for a bunch of Iron Age superstitious goat herders in a patriarchal society. The Hebrews took stories from earlier civilizations, the Sumerians, Babylonians and so on, and changed the names of the characters to incorporate them into their mythology. The Christians later kept the Old Testament but interpreted it differently than the Jews (who should know it best, it being their book), and the Christians incorporated many elements from Egyptian mythology, Greek mystery religions and other earlier Messiah tales into their mythology.

The human condition being what it is, some elements of these mythologies are timeless and apply to any age. I believe there are deep spiritual truths in the Bible. In some ways though, the Bible is outdated. It can be shown, for example, that those who wrote the books of the Old and New Testaments had a flat-earth cosmology inherited from the Sumerians and Babylonians. If one tries to use the Bible as a textbook of history or even more, of science, one runs into some serious contradictions between it and reality.

Last edited by TheBicyclingGuitarist on 26 Apr 2011, 5:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

While God is all-knowing and can arguably see all possible futures, we still have something known as free-will so we end up making the choice as to which path we go down.

I very much agree with you on pretty much all of that. I am aware of mythologies borrowed and shared all throughout the world and in fact not only find that very interesting, but where for some people it shows a falseness to the Judaic, and inherently the Christian, tradition.... to me it shows a "truth" of oneness.

However I view the validity of any religion's scripture, I feel that I should respect the value that faith places on those writings. I didn't do that, and therefore should apologize. Not for having my views, but for being disrespectful to someone else's... That's not really who I am or what I stand for. All I can say is that indignation got the best of me and hope that my apology is accepted.

Just sitting here for a bit trying to figure out how to chart that ...

Old Testament = "their mythology" + "stories from earlier civilizations, the Sumerians, Babylonians and so on"



Question: From where did "their mythology" come? Or, did you not really mean to say "'incorporate stories from earlier civilizations, the Sumerians, Babylonians and so on' into 'their mythology'"?

Note: I am not trying to pin you to anything here, just asking whether or not I have heard what you were actually meaning to say.

Hi leejosepho.
What I meant is that many of the stories in the Hebrew mythology were not original to that people, but were Hebrew versions of similar stories from earlier cultures in that area. In other words, my opinion, based on archaeological evidence, is that some of the stories of the Bible are secondhand versions, not the original. The names were changed, some of the details changed, perhaps even in some cases the interpretations or purpose of the stories were changed. Of course others might say that it is the Babylonians and Sumerians who have corrupted versions of the Biblical tales. But then, why are there records from those cultures that are so much older than anything from the Hebrews?

I was influenced some by the books and videos of Joseph Campbell, but I do not agree with all his conclusions about Jungian archetypes of the collective unconscious. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Still, he was a great storyteller. I also read the Cambridge Ancient History some years back. These were very thick books, and the first two volumes had been split into two parts each for the edition I read because so much more had been discovered since the time of the previous editions.

The issue is that this point is contested in the philosophy, as some have argued(quite credibly as I believe this to be the case) that if God can see all futures, then he could really just make the choices that entailed our specific choices, thus causing our choices to be contingent on his choices, thus removing our effectual moral liberty, our culpability, and our ability to thwart God's will (for matters of the problem of evil).

Inasmuch as free will makes no sense, let's pretend it does. Can't an omniscient God see the future without affecting it in any way?

Hi ... and sure, that is fine. I was simply curious as to whether you might have been including the thought of non-original stuff having been added to other things that actually already were "original to the Hebrews". Overall, I am curious to hear what anyone might have to say about that kind of thing.

I think you mean to be asking "Can ..." rather than "Can't ...", but either way ...

Imagine a great bunch of dominoes all set up and ready-to-go for one of those progressive knock-overs.
If "God" was/is omniscient, he could easily tell you exactly what was going to happen in every way and all along the way ...

... and that knowledge of his would not in any way affect the outcome.

Now bringing "free will" into the mix ...

Imagine a great bunch of dominoes with "free will" all set up and ready-to-go for one of those progressive knock-overs.
If "God" was/is omniscient, he could easily tell you exactly what was going to happen in every way and all along the way ...

... and your question was what?!

Just start with Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythologies. It's very easy to spot the correlations. Those can tie you up for quite a long time depending on how much depth you go into and how much you really want to learn it. Then get into some of the not so popular religious cultures.

If you leave a loaded hand gun on the coffee table and your toddler picks it up and unwittingly kills your wife, do you condemn the child for the rest of his life? Or do you hold responsibility for leaving the hand gun where he could get it?

My contention is that Adam and Eve did not have the tools to use their "freewill' appropriately. Therefore, God should have put the damned tree in the gun safe!