Baidarka

I must say that I find Amos’ posts to be strange and difficult but quite interesting. He does not claim to be a biblical literalist, and he does not claim that Biblical truth is higher than other religious or mythical truths. He only claims that these are truths that are meaningful to him. I really don’t see any reason to object to his poetic vision. I think that he is right in that myths can have deep meanings and can teach us great lessons.
Biblical literalists don’t see the metaphors and they can’t read deeper meanings into these texts.
I think that Amos has put himself into a position that is outside of the arguments that we are having here, so it is sometimes a little annoying to be pulled into his poetic world while trying to argue about facts but it is also important to be reminded that we are dealing with Art and not necessarily facts.

Ion

In other threads in the past, I was giving credit to the Bible in the sense of whatever philosophically works for each person, as long as nobody is harmed -since religions are notorious for abusing people and animals-.

As for factual claims of truth, the Bible lags behind plenty of books written by reasonable people.

[ October 15, 2002: Message edited by: Ion ]</p>

Butters

posed by Radorth

One would think sceptics would note when God does something to prevent slavery and injustice, but they never do for some reason. They only seem to note when he encourages it.

So lemme see if I can grasp the point. If there was a plane about to hit a building with 20,000 people in it, a Christian F-16 pilot should do what exactly?

It dosen't matter what a Christian would do what could God have done? He could have grabbed the plane and set it down safely, and everyone skeptics included would have bowed down and worshiped him, which is all he wants anyway.

God could have softened Pharoh's heart and spared the lives of many innocent Egyptians, instead of harding it, just to show his might.

Autonemesis

Curse Allah for being quicker on the draw than Jehovah?

Just a guess..

Radorth

Now wasn't that clever?

Anyway so we see there is no more contradiction in those verses than with what you would want the Christian pilot to do.

Of course I was not admitting there are contradictions, so much as pointing out how inconsistent and biased thinking affects judgement about what is REALLY a contradiction. I suppose we all do that, but I've already admitted some contradictions, while I have never heard a skeptic, in spite of glaring lapses of logic, once admit their own inconsistent or black and white thinking. Nor has any one to my knowledge admitted that, when read in context, some of these "contradictions" are no such thing.

To some extent even God has to put up with sin- either that or come down and start whacking people over the head. We'd hear about that wouldn't we?! "Wah! What the heck kind of God just comes down and whacks people for not toeing the party line!"

The point is you'd find fault whether he allowed the Egyptians to enslave the Jews, and you'd do the same if he didn't.


Radorth

"We played the flute for you and you did not dance. We mourned to you, and you did not lament...but wisdom is justified by her children."

[ October 15, 2002: Message edited by: Radorth ]</p>

Ion

Was it?
I thought and still think that the post about God stopping the terrorist airplane is more clever than your post.

Tell this to 'God'.
I still see contradictions in these verses, I don't know about the pilot, but I know that 'God' didn't work that day.
In fact, in history, 'God' never worked, come to think of it.
Unfortunately for you Radorth, all the rest of this post falls with 'God' contradictions shown in this thread.

Jack the Bodiless

Vanderzyden:
Correction: you lost the argument and abandoned the thread.
Third possibility: the authors of the Bible had their own varying ideas about "what it means to be saved". Your failure to list this as a possibility indicates that you have not given the subject serious thought.

leonarde

If there's one thing I've learned of late here it's that one of the few people here to give things serious thought is.....Vanderzyden.

Cheers!

Jack the Bodiless

Well, he hasn't yet given the issues being discussed serious thought.

So far, he's been reciting lame creationist/apologetic answers and then giving serious thought to evading discussion of the problems that arise. No response yet to my long post on page 2, for instance.

leonarde

Jack the B,
This may have slipped your attention but on most
of these threads Vanderzyden is heavily outnumbered by his opponents. That necessitates that he pick and choose his spots. Ergo he doesn't
always answer everyone.

Cheers!