[QUOTE="ATOMIC_TOAST"][QUOTE="C_Town_Soul"][QUOTE="ATOMIC_TOAST"]

[QUOTE="C_Town_Soul"]Keep the quote chains down please.C_Town_Soul

Hey, I've seen you and your signature before. I see you've altered the quote to remove a "he" so that the context implies God failed to do something. There is a "he" at the beginning of the bold part and the context of the rest of the verses around clearly means Judah failed to do something, not God. Pretty dishonet way to jump into the conversation here, to twist Scripture. You could at least quote it accurately.

Um, god was on his side, but he didn't help him?

You're missing the point of the book of Judges, which will always happen in any book of Scripture if you take it out of context. One of the main lessons God was trying to teach the Israelites and what the author of Judges was emphasizing with the histories complied there was to faithfully rely on God's ability to do anything and that he does everything for His own glory and his own name's sake. The climax of the Book of Judges is a battle where God tells thousands of the Israelites to go home because if they had as many people on the field as they had, then they might be tempted to think they won the victory all by themselves. Defeats in the Book of Judges are lessons intentionally wroght by God to the Israelites to stop their boasting in their own ability in battle and leadership and instead realize that everything they had comes from God. But if you don't read the whole book, that will be totally missed.

Don't know what to tell you except to read the whole book for yourself and realize that Jews teach theology with narratives, not with stereo instructions. That's what it sounds like your looking for, "Insert tab A into slot B" kind of propositions. The OT just simply doesn't have many statements like that in it. It takes patient study and you have to keep the bigger picture of the book in mind. Think about it. How many times did your parents tell you "do this" "dont do that" and you did it anyway? Now, how many times did they get tired of talking and just say "go ahead and see what happens"? God uses both ways to instruct and often times, letting us exerpience failure for ourselves is far better instruction than just spoon-feeding us all the right answers. That is what he did to teach the Jews certain lessons in the Book of Judges.

[QUOTE="ATOMIC_TOAST"]

[QUOTE="C_Town_Soul"]Keep the quote chains down please.C_Town_Soul

Hey, I've seen you and your signature before. I see you've altered the quote to remove a "he" so that the context implies God failed to do something. There is a "he" at the beginning of the bold part and the context of the rest of the verses around clearly means Judah failed to do something, not God. Pretty dishonet way to jump into the conversation here, to twist Scripture. You could at least quote it accurately.

Um, god was on his side, but he didn't help him?

You're missing the point of the book of Judges, which will always happen in any book of Scripture if you take it out of context. One of the main lessons God was trying to teach the Israelites and what the author of Judges was emphasizing with the histories complied there was to faithfully rely on God's ability to do anything and that he does everything for His own glory and his own name's sake. The climax of the Book of Judges is a battle where God tells thousands of the Israelites to go home because if they had as many people on the field as they had, then they might be tempted to think they won the victory all by themselves. Defeats in the Book of Judges are lessons intentionally wroght by God to the Israelites to stop their boasting in their own ability in battle and leadership and instead realize that everything they had comes from God. But if you don't read the whole book, that will be totally missed.

[QUOTE="ATOMIC_TOAST"]

[QUOTE="C_Town_Soul"]Keep the quote chains down please.Funky_Llama

Hey, I've seen you and your signature before. I see you've altered the quote to remove a "he" so that the context implies God failed to do something. There is a "he" at the beginning of the bold part and the context of the rest of the verses around clearly means Judah failed to do something, not God. Pretty dishonet way to jump into the conversation here, to twist Scripture. You could at least quote it accurately.

Ha ha... like scripture's accurate in the first place.

Well, yeah. Isn't that what we are debating in this topic?

Keep the quote chains down please.C_Town_Soul

Hey, I've seen you and your signature before. I see you've altered the quote to remove a "he" so that the context implies God failed to do something. There is a "he" at the beginning of the bold part and the context of the rest of the verses around clearly means Judah failed to do something, not God. Pretty dishonet way to jump into the conversation here, to twist Scripture. You could at least quote it accurately.

That's circumstantial evidence. It is not proof, and it is not irrefutable. Besides, there are other explanations, just as ridiculous as yours. Maybe the Jews are superhuman. That's no more ridiculous than your claim that God exists. It does not follow that God exists, simply because the Jews have resisted cultural assimilation.

Funky_Llama

Well then, what is your criteria for a miracle? I could drop an egg and it smash on the floor, it could then suddenly get cold by all its atoms lining up together to lower its entropy and free up energy, so then as to jump back up, putting that energy back into gravitational energy, and bonding energy by reassemble itself in my hand. Its not impossible and if it were to happen, no law of physics would have been broken. However, the event is obviously obsurd because the probability of it happening is so small, you would much more likely look around for the camera and see who's playing a trick on you (i.e. intelligence somehow at work). You would not dismiss it as a statistical super-fluke. You would call it a miracle and you would look for an intelligent actor somewhere invovled.

You are honesly suggesting that it would be reasonable to do that?

And bail is not comparable. What would be comparable is you suffering to get the other guy off the hook. Say, for example, you taking a prison sentence to get someone else set free. Hardly reasonable, is it?

Also, as for that little sins ruin the whole person thing... it's rubbish. If I give a good life and make one mistake, I am almost entirely a good person.

Furthermore, are you denying the existence of altruism altogether? Are you claiming that no human has ever performed a good deed without some selfish element, ever? Ridiculous.

Funky_Llama

Well, all philosophies are prefaced on assumptions. You make a set of assumptions that you think is reasonable and then you chase down all their logical conclusions. For all of the points you've mentioned above, the Bible has basic principles that answer to all of them as I have stated before. It's not a matter of who's philosophy is based on assumptions and who's isn't, its asimply a matter of which ones you adopt. No statement can be absolutely founded on logic because all logical operators have to have starting assumptions to "act" upon to begin with. You must always assume something is true without proof before you can begin a proof of the truthood of anything else. That is a fundamental limit to the usefulness of logic and there is no way around it. One of your assumptions is that God doesn't exist. Another seems to be that all people are fundamentally good (but I could be wrong on that). I don't know where you get your assumptions from but mine are taken from the Bible. I don't write it, I'm just reading it. The only thing you've demonstrated with your objections so far though is that you are uncomfortable with the ones in the Bible.

Oh, and stop avoiding the proof thing. Either would work for me. I'm waiting, still.

Funky_Llama

Alright, alright, I just wanted to play ball on your terms that all. Give you the home-field advantage :).

I'll start with the first: "any factual evidence that helps to establish the truth of something"

For one piece of evidence take the people of Israel themselves. God has promised since Abraham and over again to all his offspring that he would make Abraham a "father of many nations", that he would have offspring "like the stars of the sky" and the "sand of the seashore" and that God would preserve a remnant of the Jewish people forever, to miniser his praises before Him.

Now, it is historical fact that no ethnic group of people, in course of the whole of human history, has ever withstood being either genetically or culturally assimilated if they are conquered and taken in total slavery, even for more than a few generations. Now, consider the fact that the Jews, despite the best efforts of the Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Crusaders, and the Nazis still to this day have more than 10 million of their people on Earth. A remnant, just as God has promised. Not only have they gone into total defeat and slavery, not once but three times, they have often spent hundreds or even thousands of years (not a few generations) with no homeland, mingled with other races and other languages. And yet, they remain and in 1948, again as God promised, they have returned to their land. It would be one thing if this were just a slight, statistically outling fluke of history. But it is so far above and beyond what any other people on earth has endured that it strains all credibility to say "its just luck". No, God's outstreched arm cannot be resisted, His purpose for His people cannot be thwarted and His promises cannot be undone.

[QUOTE="ATOMIC_TOAST"]

Really? Whats the reason? Lay it out for me. I can't pay to bail my friend out of jail? Thats not an acceptable practice anymore?

Deity_Slapper

Oh theyll let you do that. They're generating revenue. But they absolutely WILL NOT allow you to SERVE THE TIME, a.k.a. the PUNISHMENT for your friend. Got it now?

Ok, sure. But you could pass an amendmant to the state or U.S. Constitution and change that so that you can. I think what Funky_Llama is impling is that its somehow fundmentally immoral or illogical, not simply unpracticable for because of a technicality.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=define%3Aproof&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

Something along those lines. I'm waiting for the proof!

Funky_Llama

Which one do you mean, either "any factual evidence that helps to establish the truth of something; "if you have any proof for what you say, now is the time to produce it"

or "a formal series of statements showing that if one thing is true something else necessarily follows from it"

or both?

Also, God sounds like a complete **** to me, from your description. Doing good won't save me from his wrath? Wow, God really does know how to encourage morality, doesn't he!

Funky_Llama

I don't think you're seeing what I'm trying to say. Your good deeds, a nice and as good as they may be, no matter how hard you try, they will always be tainted with some small motivation on your part to get a reward, to be praised or thought highly of by others. And worse than that, they will always be performed by you, who like me and everyone else, is sinful, imperfect and tainted. As Jesus often said, "a little leaven works its way through the who lump of dough" e.g. a little sin ruins the whole person. It doesn't mean you should do good deeds or that God is telling you that you shouldn't. As I said, the second part of the summation of the Law is "love your neighbor as yourself". All I'm saying is is that the Bible and God are clear, your good deeds will not justify you to be saved. They are still good and wonderful but because they are tainted and flawed, even in the slightest, they are no sufficient to save you from judgement.

And if you still had any capacity for independent thought, you'd have noticed by now that the concept of someone else suffering for someone's sins has long ago been rejected, and quite reasonably too. If I go out and shoplift, might I sacrifice a fattened calf to atone? Heh. The very idea is ridiculous.

Funky_Llama

Really? Whats the reason? Lay it out for me. I can't pay to bail my friend out of jail? Thats not an acceptable practice anymore?

Okay, number one, I bet you couldn't prove that God exists, and thus, what you've just said is undermined, and two, why should it follow that the holier the person against whom I commit an offence, the worse the punishment? Are you suggesting that stealing from a priest should be punished more?

Also, for someone who's meant to love all of us, "casting you out of his presense and into the Lake of Fire on Judgement Day" isn't particularly loving or forgiving, is it? It seems that God and Jesus have different moral standards. Jesus forgives; God punishes brutally.

Furthermore, have you considered that infinite suffering is disproportionately punishing for a finite sin?

Funky_Llama

Well, maybe I can. Tell me what you consider proof and I tell you if I can or not.

And no, I'm not suggesting stealing from a priest should be punished more because the holiness of a priest is same as everyone else: zero.

Well, you cn never unsdertand God's love until you understand his holiness. There are lots of people who say "God is love" and that is certainly true. But they rip that statement out of its context in 1 John. The only superlative every applied to describe God in the Bible is "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts!" (check my blog for a short post about it there) Three times repeated like that in Hebrew means "as most holy as is imaginable". God's love is that he sent his Son to live a perfect life and die unjustly to pay the price of your sin as a substitute. God's love is that He did, as Paul says in Romans, "while you were still a sinner" meaning He didn't do it to reward you for what a good person you are but because of his own good pleasure to show you mercy. God is so holy that he will not tolerate boasting and self-righteousness before him so in His love he has given his Son as a substitutionary atonement and worked your entire salvation for you so that you have nothing to proud of yourself about. His love and forebearance is meant to lead you to repentance and faith in Jesus not as an excuse to go and do whatever you like then say at the end, "Hey God, I thought you were nice and loving." All you'll get in reply is, "Yes, I killed my Son to justify you in my sight and I filled the world with people telling you to just believe in Him and be saved and all you did is scoff at them."

Finite sin and infinite punishment are disproportionate yes, but infinite punishment and inifinite holiness are not. You must be infinitely holy to come into God's presense. God has made a way for you to do that and has done so by his Son on the Cross completely on your behalf so that all you have to do is humble yourself and admit that you're own good deeds are never going to be pure and holy enough to save yourself from God's wrath. The only trouble is that people like to brag and boast and do things to get praise for themselves. The self-righteous brag that they are better people because they go to church or whatever. The atheists brag that they don't need emotional crutches and are smarter than everybody. True believers realize God has done it all on their behalf and they have no reason to praise anyone but God. Its not intellectual suicide, salvation is egotistical suicide.