It isn't a big leap at all. I stated that Satan is not in the Bible. Satan being the Christian entity that is said to oppose God. The term ha-satan is in the Bible, but it refers to an adversary, more of an office than a specific character. Simply, it isn't Satan.
Weak, really really weak. I suppose what you found so confusing was the ha. That made the word unrecognizable? What is an adversary? Someone or something that opposes someone or something else. I did clarify that it was not to be confused with Lucifer. Lucifer is the fallen angel Christians call the Devil, and would fit the description of or in your words hold the office of ha-satan. The instances which it is used are not of a position but an entity.
God is not said to have sat with Moses. In fact, we are told that when Moses asked to see God, God told him that if he say the face of God, he would perish. Instead, Moses was instructed to call into a crevice, God covered his eyes, and walked by. When God called Moses out, he was simply able to see a glimpse of God's back side. That is no sitting with Moses. Huge difference, especially since God told Moses that if anyone saw God face to face, they would perish, but that was not true in the case for Abraham.
No I think the Bible just got that part wrong. It made more sense to make God so powerful he could not be looked upon. That would explain why no one saw him, but he sat down with Moses and the had tea while coming up with the Law.
More so, you are only taking a very small look at what the Bible says about God. You are only taking the stories in which God is depicted as strict, and ignoring the rest. With the story of God and Abraham, God was anything but strict. God sat down with Abraham, and they conversed. Abraham was even able to convince God to change his mind. God was going to have Sodom inspected and see if there were any righteous. After their conversation, Abraham had God agreeing that if there were only but a few righteous individuals in there, God would spare the city. As in, God was being flexible.
Well only some parts of the Bible are based on any kind of truth, the rest is not supposed to be understood as having really happened. I am focusing only on those parts that might be or have at least a chance to be based on something that could be attributed to God (If he exists)
Also, the idea that God rules for fear is a fallacy. Much of the Bible portrays God ruling through love. The story of Jonah is a great example of this. As in, the story ends with a statement from God saying that God loves everyone, including the wicked.
Those are the parts put in for political reasons. Would not a loving God be more palatable than an uncaring God. Jonah is make believe and should not be taken literally.
If you pick and choose only the stories that depict God as strict, and ruling with fear, you have to ignore a vast majority of the Bible.
If you pick and choose only the stories that depict God as fair, and ruling with love, you have to ignore a vast majority of the Bible.
The fact is that we are limited in our knowledge in regards to God. Seeing that the Bible is written by humans, it is inevitably flawed. And since we can't actually study God physically
What then makes you think he is different than what I have described? You are confident enough to say that I am wrong, but follow it up by saying one can not really know anything about God, the only sources we have that might possibly offer insight contain flaws having been written by men.
all we have are perceptions.
= A Guess
As for the difference between the classical view of God, and a more modern view of God, that was in response to the theological problems regarding the classical view.
I have thought about, as have millions of others. The Bible is not a book simply about God. If that is what you break it down to, then I have to assume that you haven't really read the Bible.
It is all about God. Yes there are examples of the benefits of certain behavior and repercussions of others. There is history and attempts to explain complex and simple processes of biology, physics, social structures and other aspects of the physical world. Every concept though in the Bible shares one thing with every other concept. God. There is not one story in which God is not central to the plot.
I can break it down to small bits of wisdom, but that is not how it was written and if we do that what is the point of hanging on to God if he really has no value except as filler in between the parts of the Bible that can be useful?
Buddhism doesn't fall apart because it is largely non-theistic (I say largely because there are some strands that are theistic, and I don't want to ignore those). Humans compose those scriptures.
Because Bhudda never claimed to be anything but a man and the path to enlightenment is by choice. You can not let go of everything while clinging to a concept of God.
And that is perfectly fine. Throughout much of history, the books of the Bible were accepted as being written by humans as well, and there was no problem with that. I don't see why there should be a problem.
Not even close. The Bible has always been thought of as divinely inspired. The idea that man was nothing more than a pen is recent in comparison and only to explain the errors and contradictions that would not be possible for a perfect God.
I actually have a degree in criminal justice. I know what the definition of serial killer is. While some definitions may include the idea of psychological gratification. The FBI definition does not contain such an idea though, but says that the motivations could be for a variety of reasons such as anger or financial gain. If we take the stories about God killing seriously, the motivation is usually anger. So yes, serial killer would be the correct term.
No. God in your description is a loving caring God and your solution to instances that don't fit is to discount those parts of the Bible. You fail to recognize that it isn't out of anger that God punishes. If you understood the Bible you would know this. A parent doesn't punish the child because they are angry. The child obeys out of fear of the punishment, hence the parent is ruling by fear. It is a fine line, but that you miss it in favor of picking what you find easier to accept proves my point.
I never defended my belief in God. You simply are making that up. I believe in God based on faith. I don't have to defend it, nor will I.
Obviously
I also didn't say that the Bible was plain wrong, or isn't literal. I have been careful to make a distinction between the Bible and individual books. I have also been careful to say that the Bible contains a variety of different ideas. So I'm not saying the the Bible is wrong. I'm saying that parts of it are wrong. And I'm hardly the first Christian to do so.
The problem is how you cherry pick what is right and wrong. Since you take the position that the Bible is written by man you really are in no position to say what can be thought of as true or not with any certainty and since you are fond of claiming fallacies, ending with one seems hypocritical.
We are not talking about the whole Bible, but specific parts, which seems odd that every instance, which are numerous in this case in your view are always wrong.
Whether or not they are meant to be literal, does not mean that we have to take what they state at face value. Historians and scholars do not do this with any other text, why should we make the Bible a special case?
I agree. It should have no more significance than any other story of antiquities or legends of later periods. Why then do you give it a greater importance?
I'm not saying that what happened in that situation didn't happen. Yes, a child got sick and died. I'm simply not taking the entire story literally, as there is no reason to, as I know enough about ancient writings to know that it was common to attribute to a god certain events that couldn't be explained in other ways, or to attribute something to a god for political reasons.
Just as it would be common to attribute compassion and concern for the followers of a God. By taking away those things that portray God negatively you also take away those things that portray him positively. You do so in such a way that undermines the the existence of God by a combination of crediting the supernatural to the natural and discrediting human interaction as not being literal. There is nothing left to reasonably consider God a possibility.
And that actually shows exactly what I was saying. God's nature doesn't change, but perception does.
How would you know? You have nothing to base this on except a desire for it to be so. You discount acts attributed to God as actually being misunderstood natural events so therefore are unsuitable as a means of defining God in whole or part. At the same time using Gods interaction with people as a suitable means of defining God at least in part. Whether taken literally or not you are suggesting that perception is evidence for understanding God in part.
