Ion

You do:

Ipetrich's criticism is from doubting that Exodus happened.

My criticism, based on the archeologists' view, is that the Exodus didn't happen, so there is no doubting from me.

dk

1. dk: Yeh, the world owes secular Europe for the machinery of total warfare, communism, two world wars, scientific racism, and imperialism. Its not a record many people would hold up with pride. So tell me Dominus, what world problems has Europe’s elite secular scholars solved in the last 50 years.
   Dominus Paradoxum: This is known as the tu quoque fallacy. All those things may be true, but two wrongs don't making a right, and pointing out some bad things that atheists have done won't answer any of the questions I raised. If your God is so "loving", then why is the old testament filled with the most horrendous slaughter? Why did he command that disobediant children to be stoned to death? Why does he create souls in a state of origional sin when he could very well choose to create them in a state of grace, if he wanted them to be saved?
   dk: I haven’t heard anyone say two wrongs make a right. From an ethical perspective the choice between two evils allows for the lesser evil. This in no way implies its moral or ethical to do evil to reap some benefit, as in utilitarian models. The OT is about God’s Covenants and the Law, and the NT is about love, redemption and rebirth. If the Law of the OT were sufficient then the NT becomes unnecessary.
   .
   Ezekiel was a priest and a prophet when the Kingdom of Israel was imprisoned exiled from Jerusalem and subsequently fractionalized from 12 to 2 tribes, Joshua (from which the name Jew is derived) and Benjamin. The Book of Ezekiel starts with a rather bleak forecast, but after Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem Ezekiel’s message changes to one of salvation under the promise of a New Covenant. As for divorce, slavery, plunder and genocide here’s an article that explains the context and meaning, Salvation History: One Holy Nation Program 7 Transcripts .
   .
   The more corrupt the tribes of Israel become the more corrupt the Law became to regulate their conduct. Obviously a vicious community of liars, thieves, fornicators, murders and idolaters need more laws, and more sever deterrents than a virtuous community. The same reality holds true today, in the US and around the world. Prisons bulge with the evidence, the brutality with which the police and courts enforce the Law provide a daily reminder, and the 30 or more concurrent wars going on at any particular moment illustrate what happens when morality completely breaks down. The message remains the same, the law in and of itself remains insufficient, the same message the OT documented again, and again and again, one King worse than the previous. Its good you don’t like it Dominos, God didn’t create people for lawlessness but for love, honor and happiness. How people understand one another follows from the Law, and an immoral people have no regard for the Law, or themselves.
   .
   In fact Dominos I don’t expect you to like this type of analysis, but it is nonetheless substantive, verifiable, coherent and consistent. The lesson is simple, and repeats itself again and again. Its not wars that are important but what people become. In a just war people become more virtuous, and visa versa. Some people learn to profit by war and live by the sword, others learn to solve problems with life affirming solutions that honors family, neighbors and enemies. Vicious people learn to love war and perceive death and destruction as a solution. People that solve problems with corporal virtues grow and prosper on their willingness to sacrifice. It seems quite evident to me the future favors the latter kind of people, and in response the former adapt to use the Law as weapon. The difference gets weighted in the judgment of good and evil.
2. Dominus Paradoxum:I assume you don't think that dismemberment is an adequate punishment for name calling?
   Incidentally, you never did reply to my question about the massacres of Columbus and the pioneers.
   dk: I suspect European diseases killed more Native Americans than hostilities. To Native Americans Columbus was likely perceived as a odd looking stranger bearing gifts rather than a deadly threat. I have no idea how many Native Americans pioneers massacred, or visa versa. If the relatively sparse population of indigenous people in North Americas indicates anything its that they regularly massacred one another with some proficiently. As a matter of fact it was the brutality with which the Aztecs ruled that provided Cortez and his kinsmen many allies. I suspect the indigenous peoples of the Americas, like the Europeans, Asians, Africans and Australians honed the arts of war for centuries. The prosperity and population of Civilization in China, Africa and Europe testifies to the good will. To some degree Europeans were pushed off Continental Europe by the Nations of Islam. Western Europeans likes to wag the tail of discovery, but had the Islamic Empire taken up the quest to sail West instead of conquering Constantinople (15th Century) one can only guess how the world would map out today. Obviously indigenous Americans would have faired even more poorly against an Islamic jihad.
   .
   I’ve come to the conclusion that cultures, nations and civilizations (CNC) advance by solving problems with life affirming solutions. When a CNC encounters an insoluble problem they are ruined, and then no matter how great the CNC, it degenerates into “ruins”. Archaeologists have found several ruined CNC in the Americas.
   .
   When Cane murdered Abel God asked Cane, “Where’s your brother Abel?”. and Cane responded, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”. God didn’t answer Cane’s question. How would you answer Cane’s question Dominus.

dk

I rebuffed that question Ion, read below....

Ion

I already rebuffed this answer, when February 4 I wrote this:

dk

Do you understand what "no academic consensus" means. It took 4 decades for scientists to put Piltdown under a microscope to expose an obvious fraud. It took 5 decades to debunk Mead. It took 3 decades to debunk Kenyon (Jericho). I don't know what else to say except there is no academic consensus on Exodus. Be patient.

Ion

I posted this February 4:
Also, I posted this February 4:
You got the academic consensus appearing in my two posts of February 4, which is to say that the "...Exodus was produced for theological reasons: to give an origin and history to a people and distinguish them from others, by claiming a divine destiny.".

That's the academic consensus on the Exodus from the Bible.

The consensus on the UN Code of Human Rights, is that it gives modern human rights to all people.

Thus, the UN Code of Human Rights has a better justification than the Bible.

dk

Ion

1) "We only know that...":

Gee, dk, you claim that you know more than the archaeologists do know.

Tell them what you know, and if you pass their examination, I will give you credence.

Until then, you are a nobody.

2) "The statement is redundant and needs to be developed...":

Your "The statement is redundant and needs to be developed...", is redundant and needs to be developed, dk.

3) "Say 10 times or...":

have you articulated anything after my rebuttal of Exodus based on archaeology, dk?
can you?

Dominus Paradoxum

"If the Law of the OT were sufficent then the Law of the NT becomes unnecessary"

I'm not saying that the the Old Testament laws are "deficient" in some way, I'm saying that some of them were downright
evil in and of themselves.

Take the the following, for example:

18 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." 21 Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.-Deuteronomy 21:18-21

The question is, then, do you believe that disobedient children deserve to be stoned to death? Or do you believe that it was perfectly moral at the time the commandment was given? How about a passage that was mentioned earlier in this thread, which said those who tempted the Israelites into idolatry should be soned to death? Was that commandment moral at the time that it was given? And you have evaded, twice now, something which does concern the New Testament, namely "Why does [God] create souls in a state of origional sin when he could very well choose to create them in a state of grace, if he wanted them to be saved?" Have you any answer to this question? Because if you do, I would very much like to know what it is. And I already know, as you are probably going to say, that there is nothing we could do to 'earn' grace. Very well. But assuming that God wants all to be saved, and that he has the means to do so by a free gift of grace, then why, if he be a rational agent, does he consciously withold this gift from the vast majority of his children, when he knows very well that this will probably result in their eternal perdition, when he could so eaisly prevent it? You will probably say it is a "mystery", something our finite human intellects cannot comprehend. That just means that your god is by any just standard irrational, because he cannot be expected to act in the way that a rational agent would. And if he is not irrational, then he is malicious, because he chooses to damn the majority of mankind.

Dominus Paradoxum

By the way, if you want some substantation for those claims about Columbus, I (and I'm sure some other users here) would be very happy to scour the internet looking for sources. They were very bountiful the last time I checked.