Is God’s law relevant without enforcement?

actually they are nor added conditions but the wider scope for terms like "theism"

if that's your actual position why bother to vent air on philosophical implications for things you hold as ultimately untenable due to an absence of proof?

on the contrary its your style to pose general problems with theism solely on the basis of christianity (and even then, only your speculative and selective understanding of bible passages ... I mean have you ever read any biblical commentary ... like ever? )

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I am on God’s side but not O T Bible God’s. He is immoral.
I believe in the usefulness of the Bible but in no way do I give it historic value. Those who do, have to end up believing in a genocidal maniac who can cure as easily as kill and chooses the immoral title of genocidal maniac instead of great doctor.
If you are such, then check your morals and that of your foolish and immoral God.

Love is an emotion and to be true it must be shared.
It call us to action but is not an action in and of itself.

“this was applied to adultery, not to all sins.. find me quotes that says it applies to all
sins..”

If you need a quote then you have not learned of God.


“ Ask women, gays and slaves. ”

all those were caused by the attitudes of man not god..”

Look at your Bible again for the first time.

Regards
DL

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I hold almost nothing as untenable and yes I have done my fair share of reading many books of wisdom.
I take none of them literally or indeed, too seriously.

Regards
DL

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Has not much of the trouble endured by the human race been caused by "getting mad"?
If one realizes the harm done by another person, or group of persons, and does feel angry, what is the best way to express that anger?
If one finds a way of expressing it in an intelligent, articulate manner, as did for example, Richard Dawkins, is there any guarantee that this won't lead to further contention and conflict?
How can anger be put to constructive use?

Evil grows, regardless of my puny reaction. Evil grows, because it is not inhibited by scruples.

 

chicken

again..show me..

 

then why suddenly drop midway for a request for truth?

such as?

If only you had the same attitude to your speculations ...

 

Evil grows by good men not acting.
Even Jesus said he was a two edged sword.
In goodness you have three choices. Lead, follow and support or get out of the way.

Regards
DL

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvRPbsXBVBo

 

that is not any verses from the bible..

that is another atheists opinion.....not valid to your point.
i only watched 4 minutes of it and in that time he did not quote ANY verse.
it is only an opinion..this is a science forum..i asked for a verse to back up your opinion..you have yet to give it..which tells me your opinion is based on someone elses opinion..VERY susceptible to errors..

let me ask you again..

where does it say that if you think of sinning you have sinned?

 

My statement: Of course some might and do claim that children cannot possibly avoid falling into such issues regardless to how we teach. Such people have made redundant any argument. If they cannot possibly avoid it, it's equivalent to grounding them for breathing.

Is there something in that statement you disagree with? Your question does not seem related.

 

It's obviously been a while since you've read the Bible. An immortal God isn't ridiculous - there's nothing wrong with the internal logic. What you really find ridiculous is that God exists. I just hope it's for better reasons than these. "The Bible" isn't a single book, it's a collection of books that contain all literary forms - myth and history (otherwise the field of 'biblical archaeology' would not exist), poetry and prophecy, laws and letters. You read them differently, you interpret them differently, but they will always say something that was important enough to someone to preserve for millennia.

"It can be shown..." Really? Scientifically?

What you're talking about is moral law, and without any authority to appeal to, no morality is more authoritative than any other. Your model of morality (based on English Common Law) might be incompatible with the Ancient Near Eastern model, which had Pharoahs and Kings far worse than Hitler to set the standard, but on what grounds is it more valid? 'Common sense' is obviously not set in stone. Our laws would seem foolish and unworkable to them as well.

Still, the Mesopotamians could recognise injustice and unfairness just as well as you. For them to say God represents a standard of justice impossible to find on earth is just as significant today as it was then.

Rightly so. "If the guilty are not punished, justice is not done". But you forget that "an eye for an eye" was itself a milestone in penal law, and taking its existence for granted would be a mistake. The concept of retribution also underwent development, and Torah was already a very advanced legal system that still applies in many forms today.

But two wrongs don't make a right, and Jesus famously revoked any possibility of retaliation it might imply when he added "if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." The Golden Rule is still the benchmark for morality. You obviously regard it highly, despite your objections to 'biblical laws'.

Why not? The 'traditional view' might not be the proper one - which is what you're arguing. Or do you prefer a strawman? Regardless, an offence against God is bound to be different than an offence against a human being, and the consequences cannot BUT be final (eternal) at some point.

One possible argument would be that if you're still working with 'an eye for an eye', then it's God's eye, after all. Proportionate punishment would be unbearable - hence the concept of hell. Another point is that time has no meaning when death is no longer an option (since nothing 'decays' to a zero point). You're either there or not there, with nothing to measure the 'time' by. And if that's the case, "eternal" describes the quality of existence, not the quantity.

But I would ask you this: according to any alternative worldview, how long do you suppose you're dead for after living 120 years? Combine your answer with the fact that the grave was called sheol in the Bible, and hell (Hades) was a Greek idea, and you'll see the alternative really isn't much of an alternative.

In rehabilitative justice systems, yes - which aren't self-evident either. But as it happens, this is exactly why God reveals the reality of punishment and gives the opportunity to change. Railing against the "threat" as an excuse for not changing your ways is therefore literally counterproductive. The flood included in the Bible as an example. There was plenty of warning and even a way to escape. Would it be more acceptable if there was no substance to the warnings, no real prospect of actually "rotting in jail"?

I might digress as well, in the interest of comparing apples with apples: In the Epic of Gilgamesh of the Babylonians, their gods flooded the earth because the people were making too much noise. How's that for an alternative morality.

And since you have plenty of evidence of hell right here on earth, why not change your attitude and actions? The doctrine of hell simply extends such a godless state of affairs eternally, fixed forever as 'life without God'. According to the Bible, the delay in justice is because God is giving people the opportunity to turn to Him, away from sin. The point is, death will not allow criminals to escape justice, nor will it rob victims of justice (if all criminals committed suicide after the fact, would 'justice' be served?).

As I understand it, death will be the torture. Energy cannot be destroyed. The alternative is life, and that's only available to those God gives it to (everyone), and restores it to (literally, those 'born again').

I believe hell - or punishment after death - was a logical conclusion for moral systems that suppose an objective separation between good and evil. It is a psychologically accurate term for what people experience where God (and justice) is absent; the other side of the divide. It might be an overstatement that does not apply equally to every person (everyone is judged according to his own life), but imagine living in a comfortable house on a hill with hell all around in the valley - even if you're not burning yourself, you'll still feel the heat.

And it provides a backdrop for the alternative: "Perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love."

 

(EDIT: Replace 'the bible' with 'science' and you'll see the problem with such a statement. While scientists and theologians are fallible and their observations may be tainted by ignorance, this does not mean the process of discovery is invalid or that no discovery can ever be trusted.)

That's the fear of fundamentalists and sites like AIG, but it's a slippery slope fallacy. As if wrong once = wrong at every point. People are fallible, yet we are still inspired by them; we still find reasons to trust those who are trustworthy despite being fallible. We just have to trust with greater wisdom. I wish people would treat the Bible with more wisdom as well.

I consider the whole argument for infallibility (or rather, inerrancy) a red herring which actually undermines the message (as evident in the creation/evolution debate). I see the fanaticism of people who make their faith contingent on a specific mould and frantically have to make it fit. Like those who have adopted scientism wholesale. It betrays a lack of imagination. The same happens when non-believers suspend faith because the text doesn't neatly conform to modernist/naturalist expectations (and claiming that's what "believing the Bible" would entail). Both sides suffer from the same impoverished theology and emerge on different sides of the fence with the poor conclusions that follow from it. Garbage in, garbage out.

The intended message of the Bible rather lies beyond the messengers who carry it. Yes, the medium can become idolised to the point of worship. But don't shoot the messenger because it's "fallible" either. If you listen to it in its own language, you are less likely to be disturbed by the anachronisms and peculiarities.

If you don't take a poem literally, you're more likely to find its true sense, not less. A truth conveyed through allegory or myth can still be trusted because it's about the truth, not about the story. Part of the modern problem with reading the Bible is that we don't understand how the authors considered events meaningful; to them history was itself a story that requires interpretation. We're used to relying on 'scientific detachment' for all truth claims, and regard any hint of subjectivity or ideological involvement with suspicion. In other words, we are biased towards our own form of historiography.

As Chesterton said, 'A fallacy does not become less of a fallacy merely because it has become a fashion.’

Because it's easier to trust something tangible and understandable. At least as slaves in Egypt they ate well, so their freedom seemed overrated at the time. Academic. And everyone knew a golden calf was the proper representation of God, whom they also called 'Lord' (Ba'al). It was a case of misplaced trust and a desire for a comfortable religion that placed no demands on them. The Israelites were children and Ba'al had candy.

And to accept that our image of God is accurate just because we call Him 'Lord' and find the concept familiar puts us in danger of repeating that mistake. I'd rather trust God because He would not be cast into my mold, because he is a good father who freed me from a kind of slavery and adopted me as his own.

No, He protected them the whole forty years in the desert. He provided manna but they wanted the "fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic" of their slavemasters. Yet even when God became angry when they complained, Moses always interceded (prefiguring the role of Jesus) and God did not destroy them (cf. Numbers 11:1-2). So the first generation out of Egypt died because they did not trust God enough to follow him out of the desert to the land he promised them. Their lack of trust was their downfall.

 

Matthew 5:28
But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

 

is one reading the bible to analyze it or to understand it?

a good bible study group can help with these kinds of understandings..

um..i already spoke to that...that was just the one sin..
you claimed ALL
(rethinking one does not make the whole any less..)

 

First the one, then the other.

Not everyone attends a good Bible study group, or study the Bible at all. And even fewer people appreciate the extent to which their perspective is a product of their times.

We need the perspectives of those who challenge our preconceptions.

 

true enough..

we need to acknowledge that we need those challenges and acknowledge that we have preconceptions..

i wanted to put so much more into this reply but i had a long day and i am tired..