I'll try to make this post shorter than my previous one.
robtex said:
Karl, just because I am curious due to your posts here.....have you ever read the entire first four gospels of the new testiment?
I've read each multiple times. I've also studied the historical and cultural context they were written in.
robtex said:
Prophecy is contigent upon predestination.
None of the quotes you provided implies that. Obviously you managed to infer that detail from them, but I can't see what basis you used for that inference.
prophesy = the fore
telling of the future as a direct revelation by God.
predestination = the act whereby God is believed to have fore
ordained all things.
ordain = to prearrange unalterably
As I pointed out with my meteorologist analogy, it is possible for a
person to predict the future without being involved in making it happen. Why do you believe that this is impossible for
god to do?
robtex said:
According to the bible Christians nor anyone else REALLY has a choice of accepting Christ or not. Because to not accept is to recieve internal damnation. That isn't a choice in my book.
You're aware of what's been said, yet you've made another choice. Ergo, there is a choice.
But let's place that choice into its historical and cultural context. In Jesus' time, judaism was terribly corrupt, similar to the roman catholic church around the time of Martin Luther. As one example, the whole institution of temple sacrifices was being misused to price-gouge worshippers.
The roman gods were basically copies of the greek gods. I don't know the actual details of greek worship at that time, but I am aware that the greek myths include multiple stories of Zeus raping women, which leads me to believe he wasn't a great role model.
If your two main choices are a corrupt church or cruel gods, then I'd suspect that your odds of salvation are not so good. Jesus came around preaching a simple life of love, honesty, and generosity. (And I'll admit that the christian church routinely falls away from this core teaching.) Jesus might have been condemning anyone who doesn't follow him, or
he might have been pointing out that the other choices were highly likely to lead to condemnation.
I would agree that Jesus' audience lacked good alternatives to the choice Jesus presented.
robtex said:
realize when you decide some things in the Bible didn't happen you are calling the prophets who were attempting to spread the word of God through the Bible, the inspired word of God, liars and decievers.
That's incorrect. I'm considering them to be people who lacked the benefit of modern science and modern critical thinking to explain the world around them. Their audiences also lacked science. The writers who wrote down what they observed lacked modern science. And the people who read those words for the next 15 centuries or so lacked scientific knowledge.
Did you expect god to ignore the needs of the immediate audience, just to make this book easier to understand a couple millenia later? I think god's message was intended for the audience that was present at that time. Some of the message was so clear that it's still valuable today. The rest is valuable if we can understand its original context and extrapolate the meaning into the time and culture we live in now.
robtex said:
people who don't believe in the Christian God view the bible as a work of fiction.
I acquire valuable knowledge from works of fiction all the time. I'm certain that many non-christians do too.
robtex said:
If you read the OT and the NT the one thing that is consistant throughout death and destruction. Sometimes God does it and sometime man does it with the direction or inspiration of God.
Where is it consistent through the new testament?
I realize you blame Jesus' death on god, but that would be a bit hard to prove. God didn't kill Jesus, the romans did. God didn't tell the romans to kill Jesus, the phairisees did. God didn't tell the phairisees to encourage the romans to kill Jesus. They did it because Jesus was challenging their authority.
With the exception of Revelation (which is based on a vision, and open to wildly differing interpretations), I can only think of one person in the new testament that died at the hand of god. King Herod was struck down, but based on the description, I consider it much more likely that he suffered a massive heart attack or stroke. Witnesses then claimed that god was responsible.
God doesn't command anyone to kill in the new testament. Jesus didn't command anyone to kill in the new testament. The apostles didn't command anyone to kill in the new testament. Jesus and a number of his apostles are martyred, but those incidents are caused by people excercising their free will to do evil.
robtex said:
The Bible is very specfic on why Jesus was sacrificed. It had the purpose of man's salvation. Nothing more nothing less.
Please cite your source on the "Nothing more nothing less" part.
robtex said:
Jesus torture and murder were conditions that had to be met for mans salvation as orchestrated by God in his grand plan.
Jesus' sacrifice was necessary, because Jesus was symbolically the sacrificial lamb for all time. (Feel free to reference the parts of jewish law pertaining to sacrificing lambs.) The torture was an embellishment added by the cruelty of humans.
The crucifiction was prophesied, but prophesy does not imply that method was necessary, just that it was foretold. I'm certain that there are verses that state "the crucifiction was necessary for salvation", but you need to understand that "Jesus' crucifiction" (the manner of sacrifice) is used as a synonym for "Jesus' sacrifice".
Similarly, Jesus' betrayal was prophesied. It wasn't a necessary element of the sacrifice.
As I pointed out in a previous post, if Judas hadn't betrayed Jesus, someone else eventually would have. Judas was condemned for his own choices.
robtex said:
I feel you are guilty of is giving God a free ride when it comes to murder cause he is God. God drowning eveyone in a great flood (noah's flood) or encouraging armies to war in his name, or sending about plagues are acts of cruelty and to define them as something lesser because you worship the source (aka God) is suggestive of a bias.
People used to think diseases were caused by evil spirits. (Which is why we say "god bless you" when people sneeze.) Because of science, I know that I should blame a virus for the cold that's afflicting me, not evil spirits.
Similarly, I believe that natural disasters happened due to natural causes, despite what people in biblical times might have thought or said.
Usama bin Laden can claim he is waging a holy war at the behest of Allah, but I am convinced that he's using Allah as a smokescreen to cover his political agenda. (Though it's possible that he's really a delusional madman who believes his own claim.)
Similarly, I am strongly suspicious of anyone who claims that god commanded them to go to war ... even if that person got quoted in the bible.
There is no bias. I hold all superstitions to the same standard, and all self-serving politics to the same standard.
I believe in science. I believe in skepticism. I hold the bible to the same scrutiny that I would use on a newspaper, a history book, or a scientific journal. (And I don't blindly believe any of those, either.) My belief in one newspaper article is independent of my belief in the article next to it. Similarly, my belief in one part of the bible is independent of my belief of another part.
And I realize this critical analysis is rare among christians ... just as it's rare among the rest of the population. That doesn't alter the validity of the bible ... or the morning newspaper.
robtex said:
If one saw God as omnipotent (all poweful) and he made a world of suffering than he incurs the blame for the suffering he created.
As a parent, you could prevent much of the suffering that your children incur. You could lock them up in a padded room, give them plush toys to play with, and make certain they are safe from any harm.
Your children wouldn't suffer, but they'd have no opportunity to learn and grow.
Acquiring knowledge involves pain, whether you're learning to ride a bicycle or getting involved in your first romantic relationship. God wants us to learn, grow, and mature. Suffering is a necessary part of the process.
If you don't believe me, take a martial arts class. Getting kicked in the teeth dramatically speeds up the process of learning how to duck.
robtex said:
Are (the aspects of the crucifiction besides salvation) relevant to the debate and if so what are they?
I listed two of them in previous posts. Re-read my previous posts ... more carefully this time.
