WVIncagold

Great point and worthy of another thread taking place here as well. Seams christians are all for giving the jewish people other peoples land but not so keen on giving them there own. If we can bring the original london bridge to arizon the wailing wall should be not problemetic. After all is it all gods dirt? what makes the dirt in jeruslem any better than the dirt in Texas? Because Jewish blood was lost there? Hey then poland and germany and russia would prove equaly as sacred matter of fact most of europe at one time or another? The fact of the matter is the Jewish people did not deserve the ground since they could not hold it and were driven off just as they did with those that held it before them. So given the factor of trying to accomodate them as a "race" (as they claim) any land would suffice. And what may I ask defines land as Holy?

Darklighter

Yeppers. I've often wondered about these issues myself. The world was sparsely populated at the time (compared to today), so why not guide the Israelites to a land that wasn't already inhabited, or at least one that didn't require the slaughter of countless thousands? (I guess all the good seats were taken) Or perhaps transform previously unhospitable land into one "flowing with milk and honey"? Or create a fresh chunk of land just for them?

But what Jayco said makes sense that their concept of "world" was pretty miniscule, thus those stories reflect that mentality.

But, I guess if people are really bad it's OK to take something of theirs that you want. My neighbor is a jerk-off so I'm going to take his TV because I know God would prefer that I have it rather than him. I learned that in Sunday school. :devil:

Darklighter

Oh thats easy. Lots and lots of senseless killing.

Thats what scripture and history shows anyway.

Wedge

Ouch.

WVIncagold

Unfortunately your correct lots and lots of senseless killing for "righteous" reason i would add.
As with Johnny skeptic who has a problem with hurricanes i think my main problem with the Bgod is the lack of a world view. It is more like the Bgod is relegated to just a mear sparse patch of earth that does not even register if you look at the earth and its total mass.

lpetrich

The possibility of Kansas as the Promised Land makes me think of how North America might have looked from someone from the Mediterranean Basin of 3000 - 2000 years ago, something that I'd mentioned briefly earlier. I will now go into more detail:

• Vast herds of wild oxen with the manes of lions; they lived in a central
  grassland that was drained by many rivers which flow into one as big as
  the Nile.
• Crocodiles inhabiting swamps at the southeastern coast.
• Black badgers with a white stripe down their backs and big bushy tails -- and
  which squirt a nasty smell at anyone who bothers them.
• Some other badgers that like to wash their food; they have black-masked faces and black-and-white ringed tails.
• Marmots with quills for hair.
• Vipers with rattles on their tails.
• Maneless lions in the mountains.
• Big deer with huge antlers in the north.
• Big white bears far to the north.
• Huge cedar trees in the western mountains whose trunks are more than 40 paces around.
• A big desert in the southwest with lots of plants that look like thick spiny stems and leaves.

Why don't we ever get stuff like that in prophecies?

Or in descriptions of some putative promised land?

I think that this "Promised Land" business came about in the Babylonian Exile from the exiled Israelites' nostalgia for their old home; consider Psalm 137.

WVIncagold

lets not forget small birds that seam to hang in mid air and have no wings but dance about flowers while making a humming sound possibly singing praise to god?
It is funny that on several other posts here that the religious spend much time defending prophesy but yet NOTHING in the religious books they love to hold up as "sacred" knowledge new nothing about the rest of the world.

I knew when starting this it was mostly mental gymnastics but its a hard question to be answered. think about it pull up google earth and look at the diminutive area we are talking about. Now think about the fact that it took them 40 years to find the promise land. to put it in perspective the average life span according to wikipedia was 18. I am now 44 i would of been 4 years old when the trip began and just gotten there. sooner or later i would notice the same tree being passed and asked for the frickin map! Average age of 18 that would mean most would die and there grand children would of reached the "promised land" which contained no milk or honey as prophesied.
Needles to say the Jewish do not have great mystique as does the American natives for being great trailblazers. It also call into question if they were so bad a directions or reading any "sign" like what trail to take, how did they survive? They had to hunt it is imagined i doubt the rulers of the time welcomed this horde crossing their land and that the Egyptians allowed them to leave with provisions.
http://www.bibleorigins.net/ExodusRouteMapsVarious.html is a great read and i think it shows allot of the fabrications and how silly they really are.
Never the less the premise is what if it was Kansas of the OP. So given the stringent belief in the ark story by those adhering to the religious doctrine we surmise that big nautical boats were not out of the realm of possibility for the Jews even if they had no boat wright experience. God would of provided the skill as he did Noah beside they being slaves would have had craftsman skills among them in all likelihood. So why not just march up to the Mediterranean and build them a sailing vessel?
The other important part of this trip would be provisions but we can forgo that since god provides mana so no worries there about food i am sure he could of made it land right there on the stern to be caught.
There is another way to get to Kansas though. Moses just had to part the Mediterranean and then the Atlantic and they could of walked there. It may of taken a bit but again less than 40 years to accomplish.
So it has to be asked when MIRACLES are allowed why are they never really miraculous. Kind of like all the healing Jesus did nobody ever grew back an arm or a leg they had lost. Why then did the Jews not leave behind a land where they were technologically inferior or equal and not travel to where those technologies would of proved vastly superior and provided for a much safer existence?

WVIncagold

How does the song go "do it in the name of heaven you can justify it in the end"
Very good point though why not just pop a brand new property in the middle of the Mediterranean that they could easily defend and make it possible to be the trading center for Europe and Africa? hmmmmm
True i picked Kansas due the the xtian occupation of the united states but also because it was attainable without gods, miracles, or help. It could of been accomplished, not easily but it is within the realm of probability. This could of been accomplished with the technologies available to them even without Yahweh help.