lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

My statement would include having to address these other tendencies, too, though. People have not typically been attributing such sympathies to Moses and Joshua, which is why I addressed myself to the opposite concerns.

And murderers do not think they are really eliminating a person? Surely they aren't considering these people meeting them on the shore, when they first arrive, the next moment after death.

Nor would I expect that Stalin considered that the millions that he killed, he might meet again.

"And if we then consume our lives
Unmindful of the hidden toil
Of souls that vanish comfortless
Without a thought, without redress,
Burned roots, bruised seeds beneath the soil,"

"Then when we also take that slope
Perhaps in weakness, blindness, bare,
Then with the One who forms each life
Perhaps they meet us on the shore
Perhaps with strength, remembrance, sight,
Perhaps they will be there."

So you are saying that I would agree that Moses and Joshua had cause to put them to death?

People do try and put their words in my mouth here...

Now you must show how this example does not support my conclusion, though.

They were killed, but they were not murdered, that is my position, and Scripture does not command murder, any more than it commands lying, stealing, or adultery.

"To kill is the most general term, meaning to cause the death of a person, animal, or plant, with no automatic implication of a method or cause."

So then a recipe for a vegetable dish also involves murder? That is said to be one meaning of killing, in this description.

I present myself as exhibit A, having made just this transition myself, children first observe the sun revolves, and then they are told it doesn't.

Well, it's both! I believe what I see, provisionally, until, say, I read a caption saying "These balls are really the same size, only they don't look to be, it's an optical illusion." Then I don't mind adjusting my view, and the sky (or sun) doesn't fall.

No, just that we should be willing to consider that there might be mass hallucinations, and evaluate that probability, in a given instance, and then make our decision from there.

Well, another try, saying "the wind stopped" is apparent language, that doesn't mean that winds travel around like tumbleweeds, and speed up and slow down, and stop, and then start up again, like motorcars.

Yes, the sun stopped, the wind stopped, and we understand, and the people then would have understood the apparent language in the second statement, even then.

My response is that Hitler certainly had an ill intent, and God does not, and Hitler did not have the prerogative to determine the time and manner of even one person's death, much less of a whole race of people.

Which implicates God in every death, I think.

Would anyone be willing to defend the premise that infinite life here on earth would be best?

Regards,
Lee

Bob K

How do you know intents your god may/may not have?

Belief?

Knowledge?

Priviledged information—your god talks to you and tells you what is in his heart?

Let's face the facts: The words of the Bable prove that your god, if it existed/exists, was/is a horrible monster!!!

Gamut

Are you saying that they did not commit genocide?

genocide: The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.


You cannot differentiate between the death of a carrot and a person?

I wouldn't consider putting someone to death as a function of the state as murder, if it is the law that killing murderers is how they are punished AFTER each individual is found guilty or innocent.

That is a far cry from killing an entire race over differing ideals, religion, culture or "demon sex."

God's action cannot be defended.

My response is that God certainly has an ill intent, and Hitler did not, and God does not have the prerogative to determine the time and manner of even one person's death, much less of a whole race of people.



I would say yes...it does. A being with all power has ample ability to keep death from happening. Actually, it is more than that! Since He created death and is the cause of all death, He could have just not ever allowed it to be a possibility in the first place. The idea should be foreign to us.

Sure. I'll defend it using the same argument you would use to defend eternal life in Heaven. Eternal life is eternal life.

You have already said that you believe there will be physical bodies in Heaven. I am assuming those bodies would not age, get sick or decay.

Life on earth with bodies that do not age, get sick or decay would be just as good.

Eternally living beings would have long since found ways to travel at light speeds and inhabit other planets and such, so over crowding would not be a concern.

Gamut

Vengeance is not ill intent? Vengeance is honorable? :rolling:

avenge: naqam: a primitive root; to grudge, i.e. avenge or punish:--avenge(-r, self), punish, revenge (self), X surely, take vengeance.

Funny you should differentiate between God and Hitler....seeing as they both had vengeance as their motive. :thumbs:

John A. Broussard

Who's talking about infinite life. We're talking about Moses following god's order to kill babies.

You are now defending that order by saying the babies would eventually have died anyway.

Tell that to their mothers!

badger3k

That's because they show no sympathy. They are so filled with self-righteousness that genocide is considered good to them, as long as the victims are the enemy.

Nice attempt at a dodge, Lee. The point, as I thought I clearly stated for rational people, is that genocide=murder=killing=death. You made the claim that genocide was not killing, because the term "genocide" had to do with the extinction of the soul. Do you consider Stalin to have comitted genocide, sicne he only killed millions of bodies?
Perhaps that's because you never seem to say what you mean, but shift around like a worm on a hook. First you claim one thing, then you claim another. I would go back to the earlier posts you make, but after seeing how you operate, there's no point.

But, since it seems clear that you deny that they had cause to put those people to death, then they must not have had cause. So, how does your faith justify that? They said they acted in God's name, which seems to be a justification for you, but since I am putting words in your mouth, I must be saying the opposite of what you believe. By rather simple logic, then, you must believe they had no justification for their actions. Does that mean they lied about doing God's Business?

Nope, really, you have to support yours, for once.

So, a child is a vegetable to you? Really?

The same from Mark:
So, with weasel words you try to claim that "die the death" does not mean death, nor did the traditional punishment from Exodus involve killing a human being?

For some people, eating vegetables is murder, but we are not talking about murder, Lee, we are talking about killing. If I take a drug that cures me of a bacterial infection, guess what - it means KILLING. DEATH.

When I eat a hamburger, guess what - a cow was KILLED. Blood was shed. A life ended.

So, when you claim that to gut a child with a blunted bronze sword, pulling his intestines into an agonizing tangle while his little limbs twitched, that is not killing, then you need a reality check. Didn't you even read what you quoted? "To cause the death of a person...with no automatic implication of a method or a cause". Do you have any idea what that means?

Cool, so, when you were living in ancient Israel...oh, wait a minute, you weren't, were you? Proof that people AT THAT TIME thought that way is different than what people think today. Big difference. Show me proof that the PEOPLE AT THE TIME THE TEXT WAS WRITTEN knew that it was not literal. Show me what historians and archaeologists attempt to do all the time. That shouldn't be hard.

One of the first things we learn about history is that you cannot use your own beliefs and knoweldge when trying to understand what the people of the past thought or believed. We're too different culturally and conceptually. The ancient people of the mid/near-east were not just like us but in robes.

So, when did you see the sun stand still for, what was it, a day? Half-a-day? When did your eyes show you that it was possible?

That's a start. We also have to consider that the whole story was metaphorical for other issues, such as the triumph of the Israelites god over the gods of their opponents. We have to consider that the possibility that the whole story was completely made up and that Joshua never existed, that the battle never occurred. A lot of possibilities to consider, especially when you look at th evidence, or lack thereof.

Except, all you are doing is assuming based on what you want to read into it. Give some evidence that the literary conventions of the time had such constructions, and that people used them. The addition of this concept, if they did use such metaphors and other descriptive/decorative phrases, then why do you believe that certain ones are literally true while this part is not?

Which brings us back to how you can prove that. Does the US Government have the right to kill someone who betrays their country? Does the government have the right to kill a mass murderer? Do you have the right to kill (ie - the perogative to determine the time and manner of one person's death) a man who is trying to kill you?

Well, if you believe that he set up the world, then, yes, he is responsible for every death. For anyone to declare otherwise means that he isn't responsible for his own creation.
Life has never been permanent, and nothing is infinite. All things will end, even the universe. There is no relation to that, and making a carpet of baby bodies, despite your far-fetched rationalizations. Maybe one day you'll understand that.

John A. Broussard

All-in-all a very good answer to lee. It isn't easy to do that, nor can you expect that he'll stay down. Like that health club mannikin that you punch, it tips backwards and then comes right back again. The harder you hit, the harder it comes back.

Lee will be back again, let me assure you. Ask him about prohecies, next time. Babylon, as described in the bible, is the key to all prophecies according to lee. Fascinating view.

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

I would point to a cross...

John 19:4 Pilate went out again and said to them, "See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no fault in him."

And can we point to a cross associated with Hitler? All I can think of in this shape, is a swastika.

And we must say that God does not know enough to determine the time and manner of a person's death, though if he exists, he most probably knows what happens after death, and if he can predict the future, that indicates he knows the future, and ultimate outcomes, even after death, which does indicate that he has this prerogative.

Not with the connotations of senselessness that people associate with this word.

My point here was that all killing is not murder, which it seems was what was being said.

Demons (if they exist) are not inherently evil? People who involve themselves with demons (if this is possible) are not inherently affected by them?

Yes, that can be justice, I would say these could all be examples of a valid prerogative here.

Well, let's grant that. Now the problem goes deeper than that, if there is any probability of ill will towards each other, then in an infinite life, any bad incident that a person might plan for another, would certainly happen to each person, eventually, which doesn't sound very blissful.

Not every meaning of a word applies in every usage, let us again state that all killing is not murder, and all vengeance is not vengeful.

No, I'm saying death is not the primary evil.

They did actually spare Rahab and her family, though.

He must have thought he really and finally eliminated them, though, as Hitler did, in his "final solution," which he would not have named that way, if he expected to meet them again, perhaps at the moment of his arrival, after his own death.

I actually meant this as postulating you saying what agreed with my position, as people seem to put words in my mouth that agree with theirs. My position is that Moses and Joshua did have cause to carry out a sentence of death here.

I agree that there was a real death sentence here, and that people were put to death for disobeying this.

This indeed would be killing, and also these details are not in the passage.

People in those times did recognize the use of "apparent language":

Exodus 23:33 Do not let them live in your land, or they will cause you to sin against me, because the worship of their gods will certainly be a snare to you.

This is apparent language, for these gods were also said to not be really gods:

Leviticus 19:4 Do not turn to idols or make gods of cast metal for yourselves.

"Make gods" implies they are not real gods, as does this verse:

Deuteronomy 7:5 This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire.

And as we read here:

2 Kings 19:18 and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed.

Quite so, and then we have to evaluate all these possibilities.

Yes, I agree, God is responsible, and in control, for a good purpose, he sees farther than we do, and shows that he cares by bearing pain, as shown by a cross. If we see "a carpet of baby bodies"...

"And somebody behind you whispered, 'Where is God?'"

"A voice in me said, 'God is there.'" (Elie Wiesel)

Blessings,
Lee

Gamut

:banghead::banghead::banghead:
It is utterly amazing, frightening and frustrating to me that you can say that genocide could possibly be commited sensibly!

Did they commit genocide? "Yes, but it made perfect sense to do so."

I am trying very hard not to degrade this into a tyrade of insults.

Ok, lets answer this question with "No, they are not inherently evil."

Let's talk about that and see where it leads.

1) Define evil.
2) Where is this definition derived?
3) How do you know it is accurate?

I've had many bad things happen to me in my lifetime. Some I wish had not happened. Mostly, I'm glad for them. They shape me as a person. They make me better.

The thought of living here forever exites me. There is so much to learn and do. So many things to see. Most importantly, so much to accomplish and so much room left for me to grow. Most importantly, never being seperated from my loved ones by death.

I used to feel the whole "this life is nothing compared to the next" bullshit. Now that I know this life is the only thing I know I have for sure, I enjoy it so much.

I see mostly old religious people say "I've lived a good life, I'm ready to go." While many, many older people who are not religious, fight to stay alive and healthy because they love life.

As I have said before, it is impossible to fully appreciate life if you are always comparing it to some fairy tale afterlife.


Explain to me how all vengeance is not vengeful. That is the very meaning of the word, to which I say:

All browness is not brown.


Sweet. So blame rests squarely on the God that created it.


Big freakin deal. I kill all insects inside my house with predjudice. It is fully within my power to wage war on every insect in my yard but I do not. Can you interpret this as benevolence toward insects?

So they did spare Rahab and her family, can you demonstrate that there could be no other motive besides the goodness of their heart? Maybe it was matter of convenience. Maybe she had a really nice ass? Maybe they thought they'd be able to get a good price for them?


Ridiculous. You do stretch to try to maintain your position. Beyond reason, you attempt to reach into the mind of a dead, insane megalomaniac and tell us what he thought about the afterlife in the last months of the war. A point at which he segregated himself from nearly everyone and was more and more mentally unstable.


The cause? God told them to. I certainly hope God never instructs you to kill your demon worshipping, possessed neighbors. The mental institutions are full of people who think like you.


One could only hope that such a bastard God would be laying dead under that carpet of baby bodies.

This is despicable. The thought is repulsive. That mindset is repulsive and sub-human.

Anyone who finds a good purpose in a carpet of dead babies and believes that God is control of it and STILL follows a God like that......damn, not gonna say it.

Bob K

Quote:
Lee: My response is that Hitler certainly had an ill intent, and God does not, and Hitler did not have the prerogative...

You answer by pointing to a cross? Which is a symbol of a person who may not have existed, and of an event which may not have happened?

You answer by quoting the Bable, a book loaded with contradictions and non-scientific claims and which therefore is non-credible?

You answer by quoting from an individual who existed words inre an individual who may not have existed?

Who cares if J = JC = God/Godman/Godghost is considered by Pilate to have no faults inre the accusations made against him/it [no 'her' allowed!!!] by other mortals? Pilate, theoretically, since there are no court/official records of Pilate's involvement with J, was ruling on the innocence or guilt of J inre those specific accusations, and not inre the overall intents of the God/Godman/Godghost.

Who do you 'know' what you claim you know? What physical evidence do you have that reveals the intents of your God/Godman/Godghost?

We have OT Bablical words that testify unambiguously that the God/Godman/Godghost of the OT was a babykiller, and we have no NT words refuting the character of the OT God/Godman/Godghost, so the conclusion is your God/Godman/Godghost is a babykiller, and by his instructions to Moses, regardless of his 'only following orders,' Moses is a babykiller.