Wayne Delia

Huggins beat me to the punch when he explained that any silly-ass assertion could be speculated with that line of reasoning. I do like the possibility of Moses "editing out" Adam's bestiality before Eve came along.

Are you still clinging to this claim that Adam was the actual author, and Moses simply edited what Adam wrote? There is an allegedly huge, significant event separating the two guys - the Great Flood. Any media that Adam was capable of writing on (such as a primitive papyrus, or engravable rock, or etchings in a cave wall) would have been completely, utterly destroyed in the Flood. The chance of any documents at all surviving would be virtually zero. Following the Flood, and given the events of Moses's life, the probability that Moses would end up with the surviving copy of Adam's narration while nobody else ever noticed it would be similarly infinitesimal. Moses had no need for this sort of waterlogged source material, since he and God were interfacing and talking on a regular basis. If anyone needs a practical reason to dismiss your claim, this is more than enough, but I'm not sure anyone actually takes you seriously on this point.

In a world that had just been created, EVERYTHING would be uncommon.

How lucky we are to have you here to explain what the real deal is.

WMD

rhutchin

We need to take God’s power into account. Because God has the ability and power to intervene into every event that occurs and affect the outcome of that event, God can be said to accomplish something even when He takes no action (does nothing).

One example is the Book of Job. Satan asked God to remove the limitations He had placed on Satan that prevented him doing anything to Job. God removed His protection and Satan was able to act. We can apply this to Pharaoh and say that God restrained Satan and what Satan could get Pharaoh to do. When God removed those constraints on Satan, Satan worked on Pharaoh with the result that Pharaoh hardened his heart against the Israelites.

Even if Satan were not involved, the implication is that God was constraining Pharaoh so that Pharaoh could not do all the evil that he wanted. When God said that He would harden Pharaoh’s heart, it only required that He release those constraints and allow Pharaoh to do that which he desired.

I don’t think that God had to “change� Pharaoh in any way in order to cause the “hardening� of Pharaoh’s heart. Pharaoh’s heart was already inclined to hardness (as is the heart of any person), so God had only to give Pharaoh the freedom to do that which he desired in order to affect a hardening of Pharaoh’s heart.

rhutchin

I agree. However, if people always do that which they desire, then those desires are said to determine or cause the person to choose one option over another. A deterministic system is not LFW. The LFW crowd claims that the choices people make are not determined by their desires.

Wayne Delia

So then there would be no reason for God to have to harden Pharoah's heart. There are six verses in Exodus which indicate God did exactly that. Why would God have to do anything if it wasn't necessary, since it was already in that state?

God intervened to harden Pharoah's heart, though. Why was that included in Exodus?

Then the six verses in Exodus that indicated God actually intervened by hardening Pharoah's heart were lies, or exaggerations?

References available on request, of course, but they're relatively easy to locate at http://bible.gospelcom.net with the keyword search "God hardened pharoah heart."

The reason given for God hardening Pharoah's heart was that Pharoah had already decided to relent, and release the Hebrew hostages - but God was not yet done showing off, so God coerced the situation.

That pretty much undermines the entire Calvinist doctrine you hold to. Isn't that decision already made, and there's nothing anyone can do to change it? Remember back when you used to be a Christian, before you disqualified yourself by the criteria for a True Christian you posted yourself, back in the "No True Christian" thread in GRD?

Assuming all of that as true, God is despicable, and is not deserving of worship from anyone.

WMD

rhutchin

OK. The issue, then, is what does this mean in terms of the process that occurred. Did God have to "do" something to Pharaoh that made Pharaoh's heart "hard" or was Pharaoh's heart already hard but unable to express itself under the constraints imposed by God and only able to express itself (and harden itself) as those constraints are released?

Wayne Delia

Part of that verse is the motto of my alma mater, Clarkson College of Technology (now Clarkson University).

What I have noticed, though, is that over the past month or more, you've depended on a lot of stuff not even in the Bible for your arguments (like right now), you've misrepresented what is in the Bible (remember John 10:10?) and you've ignored Biblical references which contradict your own position.

WMD

rhutchin

Again, I don’t think the Hebrew text requires the conclusion that immediate death was the punishment. The Hebrew boys are going to have to sort this out.

I agree. We can expand the causal chain to this.

1. Adam/Eve disobeyed God making them subject to death.
2. They were subsequently banished from the garden.
3. Without access to the Tree of Life, they both died.

We seem to have a couple things happening. First was the disobedience by Adam/Eve which resulted in the initiation of the process of death in their bodies, pain in childbirth, and more work to grow crops. That punishment did not include banishment from the garden. So, to the extent that Adam/Eve ate from the Tree of Life, they would presumably live forever (they would not have to eat from that tree). However, as a consequence of their new knowledge, God then banishes them from the garden thus ensuring their eventual death.

Or the further explanation of what the events of the past really meant.

rhutchin

This site describes these writings--

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocryp...hristian_usage

The Catholic Bible contains only a few of the many Apocryphal books that exist (or are thought to exist).

Wayne Delia

If the Bible is to be believed, Adam's death occurred about eight centuries later. It's a little ridiculous to classify death as an "outcome" of eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil, any more than I can say a piece of fruit I ate as an 8-year-old resulted in the outcome of my death, say, 80 years later.

Adam and Eve were not immortal. God banished them from the Garden of Eden because He was afraid they would eat from the Tree of Life, and thus become immortal, so clearly they didn't have immortality. They were going to die sooner or later anyway.

That's because the "second result" was already in place. Adam and Eve were not immortal, so they were destined to die sooner or later anyway. They ate the fruit, and Adam still managed to live about eight times longer than average humans live today.

You would do well to avoid using any kind of analogy keyed by the words "Sorta like..." The ones you use are always invalid.

Here's why your conclusion is wrong. Adam and Eve disobeyed God at a time when they could not discern right from wrong. You've admitted as much yourself: you said the first outcome from eating the fruit was knowledge [of right and wrong]. Thus, before they ate that fruit, they could not discriminate right from wrong. If someone robbed a bank had that same inability, the most likely verdict would be "Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity." The defendant would most likely go to a mental hospital, not jail.

Which, I suppose, is the basis for any relationship with a terrorist: obey him or get killed.

That argument's already been refuted. God banished them from the Garden of Eden for the exact specific reason that He was jealous that they acquired the knowledge, and He was afraid they'd acquire the immortality.

Immortality, incidentally, is something that is not revokable. Assume someone is immortal. If at any time in the future that immortality can be (or is) revoked, then the person becomes mortal. That contradicts the premise that the person was immortal, resulting in a "reductio ad absurdem" argument which compels one (or both) of the following conclusions:
1) There is no such thing as immortality, or
2) Immortality, once conveyed, is irrevokable.

As established by my argument above, if they were going to die after they ate the fruit, they were never immortal to begin with.

That's "Strong's" concordance.

WMD

Equinox

rhutchin wrote
Hold on. I though you wanted to go by what the Bible says. The Bible is quite clear that the baby was born first. For instance, the child is born a whole chapter earlier, in chapter 11:

Back in chap. 11 we have :27:

Even if that wasn’t clear enough, the Bible makes it clear in chapter 12 that is happening after birth:

12:18 The trend we see over and over is that a Christian makes some clearly incorrect claim about their own Bible, then doesn’t bother to support it with proof, then it is up to us (who didn’t even make the silly claim) to do all the work for them for discussion. Deja vue!

Doesn’t it feel a bit odd to you, rhutchin, that you claim the Bible to be a guide to life, yet willfully pretend the Bible says something other than what it says? (this is also clear in the whole "did or did not God harden pharaoh’s heart discussion) Is the Bible really guiding your life, or are you playing some funny game where you make up what you’d like the Bible to say, and then follow that, and still claim that the Bible guides your life? Or worse, are you just trying to fit the non-biblical doctrines some people taught you into the Bible, which says the opposite?

Or am I just plain wrong, since earlier you had made an argument that the Bible is just a bunch of stories written by humans, and therefore could be wrong (or do you still feel that way?).

Speaking of that:
rhutchin wroteAgain, are you sure you want to say that? First you say that humans wrote the Bible so their stories are fallible, now you add to that the idea that the translations don’t reflect even the potentially incorrect things that those people wrote! And this book should be used to guide one’s life? Why not just dictate driving directions to a 4 year old, take his scrawlings and tear out a few patches, then give the "map" to a person who’ll be tortured for all eternity if he doesn’t get to the right destination? Oh yeah, and be sure to call that process moral and just.

I know how it is - I used to do that too. It was embarrassing at times like this - the raw feeling of shame and guilt was present often. To defend the Bible I had to fake it - to hide the real doubts resulting from the logic in my own mind. I got tired of faking it - I finally had the courage to admit that the Bible was only causing me grief and to walk away from it. It was like turning off a loud fan in the room - things were clearer, and I was finally able to be open with everyone. If I made a mistake, I simply admitted it and moved on without shame. It’s hard to describe in words. Sorry about the tangent - back to David’s son’s death.

Even though your explaination disagrees with what the Bible says, the fact remains that whether or not the disease started before or after birth is completely irrelevant. Suppose that the Bible said something different than it does, such as saying that God struck the child sick before birth as you claimed. Would that be any different? Did not David still sin, and God tortured and killed an innocent baby due to someone else’s sin? Think of that in real life - it's Saddam's trial. Saddam's found guilty, so Dick Cheney finds a baby to shoot in the head. OK, case closed.

rhutchin wrote:
Um, make hell, and then send people there. That’s pretty obvious.

Who made Hell? God (the Bible is quite clear about this). Who determines whether or not someone will go to Hell? God (doesn’t everything happen according to God’s plan?).

Saying that God didn’t kill David’s child or torture people in hell, just didn’t prevent it, is like saying that if I were to dig a pit outside my infant son’s bedroom door, fill it with water, and then watch when he came out and drowned in it, that I’d somehow not be guilty of his murder. You’ve got to be kidding. Imagine standing there, watching the infant choke and sputter just as you knew would happen, waiting as his kicks became more frantic. Simply sickening. It’s even more sickening to hear someone defend this kind of behavior as "not his fault".

How many babies do you estimate drowned (like the boy in my example) in the flood? Please, rhutchin, a number, just a guess. What about when God destroyed the entire city and surrounding valley of Sodom and Gomorrah? How many babies in a whole city? There are tons of other examples, if you continue to maintain that God doesn’t kill babies and torture people, we can get into them.


Maybe it’s a good idea not to just swallow what people tell you. Those books include important doctrinal differences (well, important to Christians), like praying to the saints and the doctrine of purgatory. That’s why the protestants had to take them out of the Bible if they were going to object to prayer to the saints.

I'm sorry if I sounded harsh. I know what it is like, I just have to respond strongly to things that are so morally abhorrent, things that I hope you agree are morally abhorrent (like purposefully drowning a toddler, etc.).

Enjoy this day-

-Equinox