Robert Byers

This is common Christian belief.
The new testament says clearly that Abraham reasoned in his heart that his son would be raised from the dead because God had promised this son would lead to a people.
In fact the bible says this is when Abraham was justified by faith and so could enter heaven.
Rob Byers

Dogfish

If you believe that babies deserve to die because of what their parents did, you're one sick fuck.

Dogfish

The New Testament? Written a little after the fact, wouldn't you say?

There are plenty of "common christian beliefs" not supported in the bible. I guess wishing DOES make it so!

Dogfish

So how can they "do" evil, if they are in the womb? Redefining words again, huh?

juergen

vs

One one side, we have Elisha, who happens to use the name of the lord in vain (was there specific punishment assigned to this in the OT?), we have evil forces acting upon his pronouncement, we have God not doing anything to interfere, nor set Elisha straight on his sin.

On the other side, we have the children being punished for taunting (which is what all children do, have done, and will do forevermore) by God, because the curse was authorized and followed-through by God.

The "one" side implies God in all probability will not interfere, and would let humanity curse itself into the ground without being able or wanting to do anything about it. Equally, it would be possible for people of great faith to bless the world out of world hunger and disbelief. It seems that all this would imply that people of great faith don't need to be Christians to do this, or else only a Christian's curse or blessing would have any effect. But it seems you think all humans have this power.

Does this mean that dark powers are constantly awaiting curses to be uttered by which they can finally get off of their invisible spirit-butts and have free card for making this curse come through? On a similar note, would you think Benny Hinn's curse on those who oppose him (other Christians) will work on them?

The "other" side says that it was God, not just honoring a curse uttered by his personal prophet, but that it was dead-on correct to happen like that.

Now, which one of these two is it? What does the Bible want to say about it?

Robert, I thought you said (in another post) that children who die all go to heaven. Or were you referring only to unborn babies?

juergen

Re-reading the story again, a few odd things stand out.

There are "some" boys.
Of this group of "some boys" 42 get mauled.
There are 2 bears, each one has to maul through 21 kids.
Unless these bears are Matrix-style Ninja Bears, it seems strange that after the first, say, 4 kids, the rest of them wouldn't run off home as quickly as possible. I'm not an expert on bears though.
Elisha sure was insecure about his balding head.

sugarhitman

This question has been raised many times, and has brought many accusations against God. Ive noticed that the nations the Jews completely wiped out were those nations who were descendants of the Giants. When Caleb sent out spies to spy out the promised land they reported back with a frightning account of the land:


"The land, through which we have gone to search, is a land that eats up the inhabitants there (canabalism?) and all the people that we saw in it are men OF GREAT STATURE. And there we saw THE GIANTS, and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight. And all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried; and the people wept all night (due to great fear).

The Jews were so afraid of the people of this land that they cried to return to Egypt, even rose to stone Moses. They must have been absolutely histerical. In Joshua we read of many accounts of wars with these beings with the Jews completely destroying them.


Many people say why did God destroy Sodom? We read that Sodom was so wicked that the men tried to break down Lot's door to rape his guests. All of them was lined up at Lot's door ready to rape these people like some predatory homosexual prison rapist. God destroyed that whole nation with fire.


Those nations the Jews destroyed were wicked beyond imagination. From rape, to murders, child sacrifice, viscious homosexuals, incest, vampirasim the list of devilish deeds go on and on. Some people accuse God for destroying these nations for only having "a different culture" nah uh, these nations were blood-thirsty savages. People would continue to accuse God until some rapists break their door down looking to rape them. People would blame God until some child sacrificing nut kidnaps their child and sacrifice them to some blood-thirsty diety. If a nation was composed of entirely of these kind of people with world power in their hands, wreaking havoc everywhere every last one of you would be crying for a savior.


Even their children were killed. I mean what were the Jews to do? Should they allow such a nation to exist in their midst when it is well known that the descendants of previous nations will not only most likely return to ways of their fathers, but they will seek revenge.


People of today fall into this false visionlization of seeing these barbaric satanic nations and compare them to our own. The fact is they were nothing like our nations of today which are civil (this is decreasing however because todays people want to return to this state, which is why there is an explosion of Satanic witchcraft cults today). People should stop seeing them this way and see them for what they trully were...evil. I wonder if these nations were allowed to exist and world power fell into thier hands would critics still be questioning Gods motives. Indeed they would change their tune and blame God for allowing this.


Even though children will die in this world (God involved or not) they will not experience what true death is...Hell.



Note: It amazes me that critics accuse God of murdering children, but yet support abortion which has surpass 50 million in america. This reveals their psuedo quest of righteousness. But like Homosexuality, they employ this as another means to attack God. :wave:

Darklighter

First of all I'm not a "Miss," you should know it's a taboo to assume someones gender in an online forum. No big though, I got a laugh out of it. I'm curious what made you assume female though.

Anyway, I did equate those "evil forces" with Satan (from a scriptural perspective), which apparently we agree on. BUT as has been pointed out, that is not what the scripture says. He specifically called down evil "in the name of the LORD." Thus I understand why you're performing these various mental gymnastics to get around that point. So, to say he was "being used by" rather than "using" these powers is a cop-out.

But your logic has another gaping hole in it: If things are as you say they are, then Elisha would have to have KNOWN where this power was coming from! Thus making him guilty of witchcraft! You can't imbue him with ignorance. He was trained by Elija for pitys sake. Jesus said at Luke 12:48:
Elisha was given great power AND athority. Would he not have been expected to use that power wisely? Or do Spider-Man comic books have a higher moral code than the Bible? With great power comes great responsibility.

Darklighter

I appreciate you discussing this issue with me, btw.


'Big people' DO NOT = Nephilum. The account doesn't say that. If that's what you're indeed implying. Genesis says they were all destroyed in the flood any way. The Bible doesn't say they had any descendents that survived, which was the whole point of the global flood.

And they were severly punished for being 'hysterical' about this.

Lest we forget Lot offered his virgin daughters to the mob, then God turned their mother into salt because she would miss the town because it had a 'Starbucks'. And then those daughters got their 'righteous' father to commit incest with them (I would NEVER be that drunk).

Yes thats horrible. The babies. Were the babies doing those things?

I wouldn't blame God and never have. The points that I'm making are that the Bible is not a moral athority, and that it itself provides evidence for disbelief in, maybe not any god, but at least the Christian God.

Maybe so, but I wouldn't dilude myself into thinking it will come from a supernatural source. Although I would kill in order to protect myself and my family (and only if it came to that), I would avoid it WHEREVER POSSIBLE, thus I wouldn't kill the defenseless children of such people. But all that is pure hypothetical conjecture.

That's a good point. But children can be brought out of a bad situation and be raised to be perfectly normal human beings. It makes no sense to kill them all, especially the babies.


Most of that is opinion, and more hypothetical situations not relevant to the point. History shows that chaotic, barbaric, primitive societies usually implode on themselves. Numerous Christian groups throught history have diplayed their own brand of, yet equally barbaric, tendencies. And God allowed it. This is all beside the point though.

That's comforting.


I don't discuss abortion, but suffice it to say, I don't support it. IMO, human life is sacred (to be respected), with or without God, and thats all I'll say about my personal views on it. But I've noticed an unfair stereotype that fundies give athiests that makes them out to be gung-ho abortionists, as if they LOVE it or something. As for homosexuality... meh... to each his own.

I think you've made as good case that can be made, but I still find the explanation insufficient to justify the issues raised in my OP.

Darklighter

+1

I thought about that too, but that is friggin hilarious the way you put it. But thats also what gives this account an air of incredulity. One issue at a time... :grin: