Kevin's Watch

Posted: **Sun Jun 04, 2006 4:48 pm**

Heh, Danlo.

Posted: **Sun Jun 04, 2006 5:04 pm**

Since we're using the Bible to set our parameters on this thread, I thought that these two texts (one from the OT, one from the NT) might be instructive:

Malachi 3:6, "For I am the LORD, I do not change; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob."

He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews13:

Posted: **Sun Jun 04, 2006 5:13 pm**

Excellent Pliss. As I have said often: I have no problem with christianity. My problem is with the bible. It can't be taken literally. Most sensible people (including those at the watch) seem to agree on that. But if it is open to interpretation, whose interpretation is right? And is any interpretation wrong?

Posted: **Sun Jun 04, 2006 5:57 pm**

By the same token, He did change rather dramatically between the OT and the NT.

Posted: **Sun Jun 04, 2006 6:05 pm**

That's why I included both OT and NT references.

"Our God is unchanging."

"Actually, He's changed quite a lot."

"No, no. It says right here..."

"But, look! He's changed His mind about this, and this, and this,..."

"It says, right here..."

Posted: **Sun Jun 04, 2006 6:38 pm**

Plissken wrote:Since we're using the Bible to set our parameters on this thread, I thought that these two texts (one from the OT, one from the NT) might be instructive:

Malachi 3:6, "For I am the LORD, I do not change; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob."

He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews13:

Yes. As I do not change in wanting my children to learn and be safe.

Prebe wrote:Most sensible people (including those at the watch) seem to agree on that.

That is, if we define sensible as those who agree on that.

Posted: **Sun Jun 04, 2006 6:43 pm**

So there was a point in your children's development when throwing rocks at them until they were dead, dead, dead was an appropriate punishment?

And then what? The surviving kids grew out of their need to have rocks thrown at them?

EDIT: Okay, that reads a bit more snarky than I intended it, so I'll elaborate:

The Judeo/Christian God has changed in His views as the needs and wants of His followers changed - in short, God changed as what we needed Him to be changed. I still have problems with how His followers need for Him to be unchanging, even to the point that they can find no contradictions in the translations of the system of Laws set out in Leviticus ("You have committed Abomination. Go stand in the corner. They have caused Confusion. Go get the rocks."), but clinging to the idea that God Himself has not changed over the course of the millenia is more of a problem for me.

Posted: **Sun Jun 04, 2006 6:48 pm**

I am not going to defend specific things in the Bible. Not only do I not believe the Bible is what Furls believes it is, but I also strongly disagree with many things in it. I'm just saying that it is possible for me to do things that seem contradictory, yet my will, my goals, are the same all the while. And if I can be that way, there's no reason to believe that God, if there is any G/god, cannot.

Posted: **Sun Jun 04, 2006 7:50 pm**

Fist,

You are anthropomorphizing God. If God is indeed a divine being, how can He have the human characteristic of making mistakes?

Posted: **Sun Jun 04, 2006 8:30 pm**

Hell, I can't fault him for that - I've managed to anthropomorphize my unbelief. Go take a look at my "Agnostic" thread.

Posted: **Mon Jun 05, 2006 2:04 am**

"yeah, it's illogical... so what? I choose to say it is logical, what's the problem?"

This is why I quit arguing this arguement...

It is frustrating as can be, good luck to those such as Plissken and Prebe, if you can take it.

Posted: **Mon Jun 05, 2006 3:47 am**

Lord Mhoram wrote:Fist,

You are anthropomorphizing God. If God is indeed a divine being, how can He have the human characteristic of making mistakes?

You have me wrong on both counts. Let me try to reword.

I am not anthropomorphizing God. I'm saying that if a lowly human can act in ways that appear contradictory to his children, but are actually not contradictory, it should be a given that an infinite, eternal, perfect being that appears contradictory to us might not be.

Nor is there the slightest mistake in the scenario I made in my post on Sun Jun 04, 2006 10:43 am. And it is possible for God to do two things that we might perceive to be contradictory, and think at least one was a mistake, but for us to be wrong.

I realize it's easy to misunderstand what I'm trying to say. Most people here are talking about the God of the Bible, and are questioning certain things the Bible says that God did. But I'm just speaking of the possibility of an infinite, eternal, perfect God, which may or may not be anything like the Bible's God, and how we might easily misunderstand such a being's plans.

Posted: **Mon Jun 05, 2006 3:59 am**

Well, that's one of the reasons we're on this thread - to try to figure out how far the Bible can be trusted in it's description of God, and if it's possible to find a way through the seeming contradictions in the Bible to find that description.

Posted: **Mon Jun 05, 2006 4:14 am**

Plissken wrote:Well, that's one of the reasons we're on this thread - to try to figure out how far the Bible can be trusted in it's description of God, and if it's possible to find a way through the seeming contradictions in the Bible to find that description.

Yes. But I've been addressing this:

Murrin wrote:
Cail wrote:IOW, does the Will of God change over time?
If God is taken as infinite, eternal, and perfect, then God's will is infinite, eternal, and perfect. You can then ask: If God's will is perfect, then what would it mean if God's will could change? If God's will changed, then it is not eternal. Indeed, it would suggest that His will is not, in fact, perfect. And if God's will is neither eternal nor perfect, then our assumption about the nature of God must be questioned.
If we are to say that God is infinite, eternal, and perfect, then we must assume that His will does not change. If we assume that His will can change, then we must accept that He is not perfect. It all depends on how we are to perceive God's nature.

I've been saying:
1) Murrin is making an assumption about what an infinite, eternal, perfect God, and that God's will, must be like, and I don't think he has the credentials to make that assumption.

2) What appears to us to be God changing his mind, his will, may not be a change. If we infinitely less complex beings can do things that appear contradictory to others, but are not, then there's no reason God couldn't do the same.

I'm coming at this from my unbelief, and my attempt to imagine a God who is not in the Bible, but is infinite, eternal, and perfect. However, that doesn't mean what I'm saying can't be applied to the Bible's God.

Posted: **Mon Jun 05, 2006 8:17 am**

Good posts folks. Lord Mhoram, who is to say that making mistakes is something that only humans do?

And I think that I see Fist's point about only appearing to change. However, since I doubt very much that the bible is anything other than a collection of rules/allegories/instructions for a harmonious society, put together at various times by people who had a vested interest in society being harmonious, the manifold contradictions don't bother me much anymore.

I don't really believe in perfection, (Fist, that was the exact quote I would hve used.

), any more than I believe in god. I certainly don't believe that the bible is any sort of tool to be used in discerning the nature of any super-human being either.

Written by humans, it must by necessity reflect the desires, intentions, agenda's and prejudices of humanity.

--A

Posted: **Mon Jun 05, 2006 10:57 am**

Avatar wrote:However, since I doubt very much that the bible is anything other than a collection of rules/allegories/instructions for a harmonious society, put together at various times by people who had a vested interest in society being harmonious, the manifold contradictions don't bother me much anymore.

That's how I see it, of course. The fact that one guy wrote one thing, and, three hundred years later, another guy wrote something else doesn't mean God made a mistake.

And if God did some of the things the Bible says he did, then that's my proof that God is not perfect, so I'm not specifically talking about that God. I'm just discussing how we might perceive the will of a perfect being to be something it is not. And some of what I'm saying could probably apply to the God of the Bible, too.

Posted: **Mon Jun 05, 2006 3:54 pm**

Exerpted from "An Open Letter to Orson Scott Card," published in The Rhino Times (and responded to by Mr Card. I'm kinda proud of that.):

A very large reason for my leaving organized religion was because I could not reconcile the angry Old Testament God with the principles of Christ's teachings, at least not in the context of God being unchanging, and all of His Word being divinely inspired and recorded. Christ seemed so right, Angry Old Testament God seemed so wrong.

As a young man, I was still struggling with this problem. Then I read Card's "Harmony" series, and learned an important concept that made some of the more inexplicable of the Capital Crimes in Leviticus make sense: Desert Law.

Desert Law is ideal for small social groups trying to survive for an extended period of time in a harsh wilderness environment. Card may have been inspired by the first Mormons heading "out west" to Utah, I don't know. I, of course, immediately connected Desert Law with Moses and the tribes of Israel wandering around in the Desert for 40 years.

Suddenly, the God of Leviticus made sense! To survive in the desert, people had to do certain things. Back then, they had to avoid disease - both shellfish and unconventional sex had to be avoided. Back then, about the only thing more dangerous to the group than a conflicting doctrine was an unrefrigerated pork chop. They had to breed, maintain large and strong family units, and not kill each other in fits of jealous rage - adultery and masturbation are both right out. Most importantly, under desert law there are no resources for maintaining prisons, no way to punish offenders that wouldn't just leave you stuck with an angry miscreant hanging around. The solution? Death. Simple. Best for the larger group.

As I thought about it longer, I embellished this line of logic: You've got not just any social group, you've got a group of exiled ex-slaves, who by definition don't have a lot left to lose, who you've got to keep alive... At the end, while I still didn't feel comfortable with Him, I could see the logic of the God of Leviticus. I could feel empathy for those who had to administer His Law.

Posted: **Mon Jun 05, 2006 4:52 pm**

Avatar, Fist,

So can a god make mistakes? If so, what sets a god apart from a human?

Posted: **Mon Jun 05, 2006 7:28 pm**

I don't think that's what they're saying (and if it is guys, feel free to correct me). What I'm getting from Fist especially is that us puny mortals have no idea what God's (or gods') plan(s) is (are). IOW, we're ascribing human characteristics to something that is utterly beyond human comprehension.

Posted: **Mon Jun 05, 2006 9:46 pm**

Yes, Cail, that's my position.

As for Mhoram's question, the only thing I've ever been able to think of that ALL gods - whether they are real or not - that anybody has ever worshiped is the fact that they were worshiped. That's the only objective definition of god I can think of: One that is worshiped.

Of course, the definition I like best is: That which groks.

Back then, they had to avoid disease - both shellfish and unconventional sex had to be avoided.

I know absolutely nothing about the transmission of diseases from non-human animals to humans. Was that actually a concern?

Kevin's Watch

Illogical Passages in the Bible