Are we in disagreement that man - as a whole has the insatiable ability to commit evil?

Where would Hollywood be without this obvious truth?

To compare Christ to this movie is to suggest that Christ is a completely inept idiot. Incapable of communicating to anyone.

Therein lies the problem. In order for this picture to hold you must assume that God is incapable of communicating with the objects of his creation.

You're trying to claim that people are infected by a disease that drives them insane and they can't think clearly.

Well, duh!

If that's the truth then they aren't evil people purposefully and knowingly choosing to reject God by their own sane free will. They would be desperately sick individuals who need help. If God refuses to help them then who's fault is that?

You can't have this God sending those people to hell and call that "righteous". That would be a totally inept God who had absolutely no control over anything. A God who would be unable to save his own creation even by the lame (and clearly desperate) attempt of having his Son nailed to a pole.

This is a picture of a God who has completely lost control over anything at all.

If it is to be claimed that people are choosing to reject God of their own free will knowledge. Then it must be so. But your scenario here suggests that the people are sick, and insane, and not thinking clearly. Obviously they are not choosing to reject God by their own free will knowledge, but rather they are being blinded to the truth through no fault of their own.

But that flies in the face of a righteous judgmental God and the idea that people are knowingly rejecting him.

So I'm afraid that your scenario here totally breaks down and cannot apply.

This suggests that totally innocent people are being sent to hell through no fault of their own, and certainly not by their own free will choice.

There is no way that you can even invent a scenario where non-believers are guilty of anything. The only way they could be guilty is if they fully understood and knew precisely what they were rejecting, and then rejected it. The idea that they are merely 'lost sheep' doesn't fly can can't apply because 'lost sheep' aren't guilty of anything but being lost. That's not the same as rejecting their owner.

Salvation cannot depend on believing in something. Especially when the "something" that needs to be believed in is so full of inconsistencies and absurdities (like this moot scenario that you just gave)

In order to believe that the Bible is the word of God, I must believe that God told people to stone each other to death. I must believe that God is a male-chuavanist. I must believe that God is very unwise and always solves problems using violent methods.

If I chose to believe that God would never stoop to such a sick demented actions, then I go to hell for thinking that God is good when in truth, God is not good.

Does that even make sense to you?

A person being rejected by God because that person thought God was better than he actually is? Is that a good reason to send someone to hell?

Clearly the Biblical stories cannot be about God. They were written by men who had sick demented minds. The stories are quite simply too stupid to be from an all-wise supreme being. I know this. But you are suggesting that I'll go to hell now because I can never believe that God is a crude demented fool.

All I can say is that if this is truth then the most compassionate and wise people who ever lived must be in hell.

The biblical picture simply cannot be true. It's impossible.

The biblical God would need to be completely inept, powerless, and very un-wise. He would also need to be sending perfectly wise and compassionate people to hell just because they couldn't blieve in the insanities described in the Bible.

Such a picture of God is not even close to being righteous. It's a picture of a totally inept God.

Ridiculous. If it were not for scripture you would not have ever heard of Jesus.

To compare Christ to this movie is to suggest that Christ is a completely inept idiot. Incapable of communicating to anyone.

Therein lies the problem. In order for this picture to hold you must assume that God is incapable of communicating with the objects of his creation.

You're trying to claim that people are infected by a disease that drives them insane and they can't think clearly.

Well, duh!

If that's the truth then they aren't evil people purposefully and knowingly choosing to reject God by their own sane free will. They would be desperately sick individuals who need help. If God refuses to help them then who's fault is that?

You can't have this God sending those people to hell and call that "righteous". That would be a totally inept God who had absolutely no control over anything. A God who would be unable to save his own creation even by the lame (and clearly desperate) attempt of having his Son nailed to a pole.

This is a picture of a God who has completely lost control over anything at all.

If it is to be claimed that people are choosing to reject God of their own free will knowledge. Then it must be so. But your scenario here suggests that the people are sick, and insane, and not thinking clearly. Obviously they are not choosing to reject God by their own free will knowledge, but rather they are being blinded to the truth through no fault of their own.

But that flies in the face of a righteous judgmental God and the idea that people are knowingly rejecting him.

So I'm afraid that your scenario here totally breaks down and cannot apply.

This suggests that totally innocent people are being sent to hell through no fault of their own, and certainly not by their own free will choice.

There is no way that you can even invent a scenario where non-believers are guilty of anything. The only way they could be guilty is if they fully understood and knew precisely what they were rejecting, and then rejected it. The idea that they are merely 'lost sheep' doesn't fly can can't apply because 'lost sheep' aren't guilty of anything but being lost. That's not the same as rejecting their owner.

Salvation cannot depend on believing in something. Especially when the "something" that needs to be believed in is so full of inconsistencies and absurdities (like this moot scenario that you just gave)

In order to believe that the Bible is the word of God, I must believe that God told people to stone each other to death. I must believe that God is a male-chuavanist. I must believe that God is very unwise and always solves problems using violent methods.

If I chose to believe that God would never stoop to such a sick demented actions, then I go to hell for thinking that God is good when in truth, God is not good.

Does that even make sense to you?

A person being rejected by God because that person thought God was better than he actually is? Is that a good reason to send someone to hell?

Clearly the Biblical stories cannot be about God. They were written by men who had sick demented minds. The stories are quite simply too stupid to be from an all-wise supreme being. I know this. But you are suggesting that I'll go to hell now because I can never believe that God is a crude demented fool.

All I can say is that if this is truth then the most compassionate and wise people who ever lived must be in hell.

The biblical picture simply cannot be true. It's impossible.

The biblical God would need to be completely inept, powerless, and very un-wise. He would also need to be sending perfectly wise and compassionate people to hell just because they couldn't blieve in the insanities described in the Bible.

Such a picture of God is not even close to being righteous. It's a picture of a totally inept God.

Ridiculous. If it were not for scripture you would not have ever heard of Jesus.

If it were not for the teaching of Christianity from the New Testament you would never have heard of Jesus.

If it were not for the plagiarized writings of a master con man and his fictional the New Testament, you would not have ever been exposed to the dogma that is Christianity and you would never have heard of or believed in Jesus as Lord.

Your entire belief system teeters precariously on whether the writings of the New Testament were true or not. But you, along with many others, refuse to question the authorship and motive of those gospels because you fear the wrath of the Lord and others.

Rome had motive and opportunity. They had captured the Jewish general, they may have simply used him to forge the history of the Jewish war alleged to have been written by Flavius Josephus, a fictional pen name.

Rome wanted a new religion of passive obedient followers. They hated the Jews, just as Hitler did. Rome created Christianity, Hitler used it to slaughter Jews and to escape his fate.

JB

"As to the idea of two creations - I point you to Genesis 2:1 "Thus the heavens and earth were complete in all their vast array."

I can't see how Genesis 2 is now a creation story, as opposed to the account - in a little more detail (or close-up) if you will of Genesis 1. Two creations would be a direct contradiction to this verse - even if attempting to take it allegorically instead of literally." Eljay

Eljay you do realize that the idea that two contradictory versions of Genesis appear is not some random observation but actually addressed by biblical scholars and theologians alike? I wasn't certain just based on some of your assertions you are attempting to make here:

Genesis has been subjected to any number of interpretations, none of them satisfactory to the modern mind. Though the intent of the story is clear, as a narrative it lacks sense. Even the literalists who want to read it as straight fact find themselves following pretzel-like paths of explanation.

Apart from such knotty and awkward questions as from whence came evil in a new world God proclaimed as "good," and the incestuous situation which must have prevailed for the human race to continue (by whom did Cain father children?), a fundamental problem is the fact that the story has two different accounts of the creation of man.

The first is told briefly in Genesis 1:27: God "created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."

The term "man" in this instance is to be understood in the collective sense as meaning mankind. This plural or inclusive use of the word "man" is made clear in Genesis 5:2 where it is again stated that "Male and female he created them and blessed them and called their name man on the day of their creation." The passage therefore may be interpreted to mean that men and women were created in one act, both sexes together, equally and at the same time.

The second, much lengthier account is given in Genesis 2 and 3. Instead of simultaneous creation, the story tells first of God forming man out of the dust, breathing life into his nostrils, and setting him down in the garden of Eden.

Only after the first act of creation does the story go on to recount the making of a woman from the man's rib, the story of the serpent's temptation of the woman, and the subsequent expulsion of the man and the woman from the garden into our world.

Biblical scholars currently believe that the first account given in Genesis 1:27 was written much later than the second story, having been composed according to the "P" source or "Priestly Code" (so called because of its cultic interests and regulations for priests) probably by Jewish theologians around 500-400 BCE.

The longer second story, related more in the language of folklore, is derived from the "J" or "Yahwist" source (so called because it used the name Yahweh [Jehovah] for God) and was probably written down by members of Hebrew tribes around 1000-900 BCE during the time of King Solomon.

If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be: if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all.

Since we are discussing the biblical concept of the creation of man - than we are surely limited to the references of scripture to establish our premises. I know of no reference in scripture to "Lilith" so where does she fit into the biblical account. So too with the idea that there was ever a period of time known as "Neolithic" as accounted for in Pagan accounts - as they were not in existance at the time of Genesis. You are taking later non-biblical accounts and interjecting them into your pretext of explaining the account of Genesis 1 and 2. These premises are unacceptable to explain what is written in Genesis. If you wish to introduce this as an alternative theory to Genesis - that is a topic for another thread - but the issue here is whether or not the bible is describing two distinctly different accounts of the creation of man. You are ignoring the issue of Genesis 2:1 as a contradiction of your interpretation.

As to the idea of simultanious creation of man and woman - you are interjecting this on the sentence because they appear to have occured together. If I say that I left work and went to the store and home yesterday - you would be telling me that I did these two things simultaniously. You could subjectively believe this - but you'd be hard pressed to convince anyone that I did these things at the same time. I could - however have done both within the time frame of one day - as is evident of the account in Genesis 1 and the account in Genesis 2. Where I could draw the analogy of having left work - went to the store and bought a few things. Went to my car, took a shot nap and went home. These are two different accounts of the same events in time.

So your pretext of having proved there were two accounts are not born out to be representative of the truth until you can justify the interpretation of Genesis 2:1 in light of your claim.

Ridiculous. If it were not for scripture you would not have ever heard of Jesus.

If it were not for the teaching of Christianity from the New Testament you would never have heard of Jesus.

If it were not for the plagiarized writings of a master con man and his fictional the New Testament, you would not have ever been exposed to the dogma that is Christianity and you would never have heard of or believed in Jesus as Lord.

Your entire belief system teeters precariously on whether the writings of the New Testament were true or not. But you, along with many others, refuse to question the authorship and motive of those gospels because you fear the wrath of the Lord and others.

Rome had motive and opportunity. They had captured the Jewish general, they may have simply used him to forge the history of the Jewish war alleged to have been written by Flavius Josephus, a fictional pen name.

Rome wanted a new religion of passive obedient followers. They hated the Jews, just as Hitler did. Rome created Christianity, Hitler used it to slaughter Jews and to escape his fate.

JB

If you genuinely believe that, then you truly are still living in the Dark Ages.

What you just said above isn't even close to being remotely true. Today evolution has been proven as well as anything we know. To believe otherwise is to live in a world of pretense.



Again, this is entirely moot. It doesn't matter what Hitler might have actually believed. The fact is that he referred to Christianity in his speeches to inspire Christian followers.

He "used" the sheep mentality of Christianity to his advantage.

Whether he believed in it himself is totally irrelevant.

well, guesses are what they are.

only a little better than your assumptions about Jesus being heard about from scriptures or from words on the tongue found in the heart and given verbal expression.

Still, Jesus Christ must be known to be, and knowing that comes from seeking God and his righteousness which includes being born again of spirit, as Jesus said, in any case.

Few know.

most do not.

All believe something, even if it is just a disbelief in anothers belief. Belief is suspended in and of itself. What one believes is still hazarding guesses.

Knowledge of God comes from God alone.

I respect your belief.

I do not share it.

I used to, before I knew the truth.

now I know.

Believe what you will.

it is your choice.

Asssume what you will ; there is no difference between that which you believe and that which you assume, as far as I am concerned. You are guessing in any case and cannot know for certain due to the limitations placed on beliefs.

I merely took a statement of yours and substituted Evolution for Christianity. If it is easy for you to ignore the eyewitness testimony of man - why can't I? This is "modern thought" Abra - not dark ages. Else how could you so easily dismiss scripture, and decide for the masses that this must be some made up story?

Science once told me pluto was a planet - now it's not. It's the "new age" of thinking. Else I would have swallowed the myth of Evolution as an origin of the species like you have.

I merely took a statement of yours and substituted Evolution for Christianity. If it is easy for you to ignore the eyewitness testimony of man - why can't I? This is "modern thought" Abra - not dark ages. Else how could you so easily dismiss scripture, and decide for the masses that this must be some made up story?

Science once told me pluto was a planet - now it's not. It's the "new age" of thinking. Else I would have swallowed the myth of Evolution as an origin of the species like you have.

I certainly won't agree with this. As far as I'm concerned the overwhelming population of the earth are good people, not bad people. In fact, violent criminals are extremely rare relative to the population at at large.

There is a truth in the idea that people generally need to see some type of danger being overcome in order to be attracted to watching a movie.

But that is not always the case. There are romance movies, human interest movies, and comedy movies that have done quite well without the need for any 'evil' behavior.

In fact, "A Beautiful Mind" is one such movie. The "villian" in that movie was mental illness. Certainly not something that mankind could be held responsible for.

There was nothing in that movie that could even remotely be considered 'evil' other than perhaps mental illness itself. But once you start calling things like that 'evil' then the very concept of 'evil' loses it's religious meaning.

However, people do need plots where there is something to 'overcome'. Even if it's just trying to fall in love with someone who isn't orignially interested in you.

There must be an obstacle to overcome. Otherwise there's nothing to strive for, and therefore no plot.

How can something be accomplished if nothing needs to be accomplished?

Just like the movie Apollo 13. It was made into a movie because there was problem that needed to be overcome. No one would want to bother going to see a movie of a space mission that went along without a hitch.

Well, think about it Eljay!

What's the difference between movies and life?

Who wants to live a life that goes along without hitch? It would be boring as hell. It's the very existence of problems to overcome that make it exciting and give us a sense of accomplishment when we overcome them.

Life without problems would be like a movie without a plot. No one would be interested in living it!

Yet, that's what heaven is supposed to be like. An existence without a plot. No problems to overcome, and therefore no achievement possible. For how can you triumph over obstacles that don't even exist?

Clearly there's a huge problem with the idea of a perfect heaven in the first place.

Moreover, if heaven was supposedly so perfect, then why did 1/3 of the angels rebel against God and follow Satan?

Clearly there are extreme problems with this whole mythological picture.

You answer is evasive. I am not guessing. I state a fact when I say that you would not know anything about Jesus if it were not for the writing of scripture.

You say "few know"

I will say that no one knows. They only believe in scripture and they believe their own delusions.

You say:
"I respect your belief.

I do not share it.

I used to, before I knew the truth.

now I know."

That is a lie from your lips. You can not say that you "use to share my belief" because you don't have a clue what my believe is.

That is a common ploy of people in discussions. They say: "I was once in your shoes..." I once believed as you do..." Then "...until I found the truth..."

I'm not impressed with tactics like that Wouldee.

Of course you don't "share" my belief, we both know that.

To say: "now I know.." Well, that's the biggest lie of all because you lie to yourself.

As you said, guesses is what they are.

guesses, that is all.

JB

God must be sought directly to know the truth.

everything else about belief alone is guesses up to that point.

One can know that Jesus is the LORD.

Or just believe it without doing what the LORD gave us to which is to be born again.

That is the only truth to be known.

All beliefs stopping short of the personal responsibility given man to know is but guesses and conjecture.

In English, Hebrew or Greek or any other language, the truth can be known or it can be suspended in belief which in fact is supension of belief if faith is not applied from the heart to be inviting of the truth through a revelation of truth which only comes one way, and that way is through Jesus Christ alone by way of being born of His Spirit only.

So what's your point? Is math bad because we learn it from a book? Are you kiddin' me???? laugh laugh laugh

If it weren't for Richard Matheson - would we have any clue about Flying saucers and alien beings?

Lilith IS in fact mentioned in the actual scripture. You claim to have read the bible ear to ear is that not correct? Does that mean ONLY the parts that interested you or in fact all of it? She is mentioned in the Book of Isaiah 34:14 This passage refers to God’s day of vengeance, when the land will be transformed into desolate wilderness. Thus, Lilith was known in ancient Israel of the 8th century BC. The fact that she found a place of rest in the desert from this passage seems to allude to the Sumerian Gilgamesh incident, after Lilith fled into the desert, she apparently found repose there. Here is a visual depiction of her:

http://www.wotanstochter.de/blog/2005/lilith.jpg

There was indeed a Neolithic period. Even if you choose not to believe in this era of substantial human development, you can not project that naivety onto others. The OP deserves to receive the FULL account of these early peoples. You can not merely dismiss them as a figment of the imagination. The Neolithic or "New" Stone Age was a period in the development of human technology beginning about 10,000 B.C. in the Middle East that is traditionally the last part of the Stone Age. The Neolithic era follows the terminal Holocene Epipalaeolithic periods, beginning with the rise of farming, which produced the "Neolithic Revolution" and ending when metal tools became widespread in the Copper Age (chalcolithic) or Bronze Age or developing directly into the Iron Age, depending on geographical region.

Well you continuously insist the earth is only 6000 years old which is sheer madness. You won’t accept that the Neolithic period is authentic even with ALL of the physical evidence and excavations supporting its existence. You don’t even accept that the ancient Egyptians, a vastly powerful and advanced people were on the face of the earth prior to the flood in 2343BC. I’ve got news. There was no one cataclysmic flood event. Where would the Egyptians have gone then if they were simply washed away? 40 days and 40 nights of rain raised the ocean levels by 29,000 feet to cover the Earth. How could anyone survive a 30 foot an hour deluge? Approximately 6 inches every minute! Maybe God provided Noah and his family with snorkels? Do the math for christ sake.