LP675

Sorry for the delay, I had my end of semester Constitutional Law exam I needed to study for.
Sure. If I had signed up for a debate on “should we believe the Acts 5 story� or “is it more plausible that Peter killed these people to make money� then it would be a different story. I joined this thread simply to point out that the story actually says these people were killed for lying, not for not paying enough money.

So I was arguing about the meaning of the words of the text, not if the words should be believed.

So the debate I entered is over, and it seems the opposition has conceded defeat.

Sure. Many stories could, and I have personally witnessed it done.
No.
Well I suppose it depends what you mean. If we accept the presuppositions you have agreed to above, I think you would have a hard time making that case. I doubt any scholarly commentary you read will hold that view.

This is another separate question.
It was a pretty serious ‘moment of weakness’.
But yes, there are some fairly serious warnings in the bible about things such as blaspheming the holy spirit, Heb6:6 talks about it being impossible for a Christian who turns away “if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance�, and so forth. I don’t feel that any apology has to be made for these warnings.

No I don’t think it would necessarily entail that. They knew what they were doing was wrong, the fact they didn’t know the consequence I think is probably irrelevant.
As it is often said (in what I hope will be my future profession), “ignorance of the law is no excuse�. Just because I don’t know that standing with a bunch of people who are robbing someone else (they are the ones doing he punching / threatening /stealing) is technically ‘robbery in company’, and has just as serious penalties as robbery, doesn’t mean when I am found guilty of it justice demands I have some lesser penalty. If you do the wrong thing you are punished, it doesn’t matter if you know what the penalty is.

I am not sure it matters.
Free will.
(and please, no ranting about how ‘free-will covers a multitude of sins’)

I am not familiar with ‘Don Corleone’, I am assuming he is a gangster of some type. So the first difference might be the gangster kills people for crossing him, God punishes people for transgressing moral standards.

If we agree as you say that every clause of the story is true, it is true in an absolute sense. All these events happened. The story doesn’t assert God will strike dead all those who lie to him.

Lol, I like that kind of argument. I saw it myself, but decided to post my argument anyway.
No, if his decision was fair, regardless of their eternal destination you can’t protest it is unjust. The point I made though was if it turns out this ‘punishment’ was a boon for them, who would say there is any grounds for complaint?(A bit like if you check your bank account, and find there is a million dollars there, but you didn’t do anything to deserve it, it was a bank mistake (and for some reason you can keep the money), you wouldn’t complain about the injustice of getting one million dollars.)

Interesting article. Americans have more of these false ‘prosperity teachers’ than we have here in Australia. Again, I agree that many stories can be used wrongly to do some ‘profiteering’.

LP675

This saddens me. I will of course not presume to say you were not a Christian. But it seems you didn’t fully understand Christianity (you were an ‘ignorant Christian’ in that sense), because a proper understanding relieves that kind of fear.
True and complete Christianity looks more like this;

Phil 4:6-7 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

LP675

In their being killed.

It is human nature to fear death, and to be afraid when people are dying. David did in the story I keep referring to. Perhaps in theory they shouldn’t have been seized with fear, in which case all that is proved is they are not perfect. It may not have lasted long.
As has been oft repeated by all, we don’t know that.

“Murder�? I don’t think it could be called that. Murder is a crime. If this is just punishment how could it be called murder? Is the government of America guilty of murder when they execute criminals?

Not only does our Heavenly Father know best, but he has made it clear “the wages of sin is death�. If this is so, it is no wonder various people are killed as punishment for various sins.

Sven

If a government would execute people because of lying, I'd call this "murder", yes.

LP675

Greetings Sven!
The point of course was for something to be 'murder' the killing has to be unlawful (according to Section 18 (2)(a) of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) anyway, and I suspect every other statute concerning murder). You would have to prove the killing of these people (which was for lying to God) was ‘unlawful’, to distinguish it from the USA government executing criminals.

Dargo

Especially, if they executed two people for telling a lie which harmed no one, and did absolutely nothing to punish criminals who had done far worse things or told lies which did severe harm to others. How come your god never strikes lying TV evangelists dead, LP? I'm sure some Chrisitians have lost their faith due to the lies told by those greedy scum.

Baidarka

I'm having a basic problem with the direction that this discussion is going.
LP675 Please document a single incident in which God/ Yaweh/Allah/ Zeus/Humbaba/ Mickey Mouse, killed/executed, anybody for any crime.
People die of real causes, heart attacks, deceases, murders(stabbing/clubbing/poisoning).
You are making the extraordinary claim that a fictitious character executed two people for transgressing it's arbitrary laws.
You seem to believe in a demonic/voodoo God.

Magdlyn

Don Corleone is the protagonist of the movie trilogy, The Godfather. A cultural icon.

LP675

Thanks. I keep meaning to see it, but I miss it every time it comes around on TV. Might have to hire it out.

LP675

I am not sure, perhaps he occasionally does strike false teachers dead (I vaguely recall hearing stories in biographies of pastors teaching falsely who died mysteriously, the insinuation being they were struck dead). The bible talks fairly strongly about such false teachers. Teachers of religion (pastors etc) will be punished severely for misleading people, to the point Paul speaks a number of times of such people being ‘eternally condemned’.