Fall of Man

[redflameent]

I am not an anti semite and never said I was and I alo never said that the Jews were Kenites. Also Semite isn't even in the bible. They aren't even t part of the 12 tribes.

[Drewsov]

I am not an anti semite and never said I was and I alo never said that the Jews were Kenites. Also Semite isn't even in the bible. They aren't even t part of the 12 tribes.

Okay.

Let's break this down.

Semites refers to children of Shem. Shem was a son of Noah. One of Shem's sons was Lud. Another was Arpachshad... the father of Abraham. I'm going to assume that we don't need to mention what God called Abraham (then Abram) to do, but God did tell him that he would be the father of a multitude. One of his sons was Ishmael - the progenitor of Islam. The other was Isaac - one of the three patriarchs of the Hebrews.

So to say that the Semites weren't one of the twelve tribes is grossly inaccurate; the Semites were the twelve tribes, because Shem fathered those that led to those tribes.

I'm going to ask very nicely: please do your research on stuff like this before responding. It does two things. It calms you down so you don't post a poorly spelled rant, and it allows you to at least act like you know some of the stuff you're talking about.

Now, as for the whole "Kenites" thing... You presented the "Serpent's Seed" doctrine as something you were curious about, but it seemed that there was more to it than that. Maybe that you followed Murray, maybe that you were perhaps toying with the idea of embracing such a doctrine. That's not really my call. But the thing about this doctrine is, it essentially says that the Jews are devil-worshippers. Cain - the hybrid son of Satan - was cast out into the land by God and had children. And these children intermingled with the Hebrews and ended up in places of power. They were all Satan worshippers. These were, according to that doctrine, the Kenites.

What I'm saying is, one implies the other. My conclusion was reasonable, based on what you were saying. If it was incorrect or angering to you, I'm sorry, but this is why we need to choose what we say carefully, and moreso online.

[Kendrik]

Also Semite isn't even in the bible. They aren't even t part of the 12 tribes.

Sorry, but no.

Semitic = descendants of Shem, son of Noah. Just so happens that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are all direct descendants of Shem. So yeah, Semites are in the Bible. In fact, the Bible kinda revolves around them.

But you're right, they're not a part of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. That'd be impossible since they are a Semitic subset and not the other way around. Israel is a part of the Semitic superset of people.

Your claims on this are a little... counter-factual. I'd recommend checking such claims in the future before making them.

Edit: Looks like Drew beat me to the punch.

[redflameent]

Why does this have to be a "I know more than you, therefore I am better than you" contest? Why can't people express opinion without feeling like they are getting backed in a corner?

[Kendrik]

Why does this have to be a "I know more than you, therefore I am better than you" contest? Why can't people express opinion without feeling like they are getting backed in a corner?

It... doesn't?

You made a claim to historical fact that was false. It was corrected. That ain't personal, and I certainly wasn't trying to back you into a corner.

And, for that matter, nobody's claimed to be better than anyone else. You said you wanna gain understanding in the pursuit of truth. So do the rest of us. But the thing with that is calling falsehood as falsehood. If you state a falsehood and I call it out, that doesn't make me better in any way at all; it simply means I'm the one pointing out the misinformation.

If I made a claim about a historical fact and was wrong in it, I'd expect you'd do the same.

The last opinion (which would be more accurately called an interpretation) discussed was of Eve having sex with Satan. This more recent bit has been about defining terms and so on. That's not opinion, though. That's getting the facts straight.

Now, if you wanna get back to the discussion of Eve having sex with Satan, and all that follows, that's cool. That's much more in the realm of interpretation than fact, so there will likely be plenty of debate to go around, but have at it.

But let's back up for a moment and be fair here. Of this recent bit, initial claims to facts and desire for higher scholarship were made by you. If you are, or anyone else is, gonna talk in such a fashion, then others have grounds to do the same. You can't post something and expect others to go "oh yeaaaah... I get it!" and not post counter ideas. Or say that you like some scholars without others questioning those scholars and giving reasons for it or alternative scholars that they find superior. That's the nature of gaining understanding; it's not about who's better than whom.

[redflameent]

Would my belief in the Gap Theory be wrong as well?

[Kendrik]

Would my belief in the Gap Theory be wrong as well?

lol

Why not articulate on what the Gap Theory means? I don't have leanings that way (I tend to lean toward Day-Age theory, honestly), but I for one would love to hear more on Gap Theory and why you lean that way.

Though I might suggest creating a new thread, "Thoughts on Creation" or something, since it doesn't really pertain to the Fall.

[wferwfer]

Sorry it took so long, but that's why I slapped that other post up there. I knew it'd take awhile because I wanted to study it more, perhaps talk to some folks.

Well this is coming to you like 3 weeks late anyway, but in my defense I have a job lol.

If free will doesn't exist, then how does punishing beings who are slaves to fate make any sense? If you're destined to screw up or succeed before you're even born that sounds like God making us His robots or whatever your previous analogy was.... Free Will is pretty important to your argument here.

If He’s all powerful, then He would have know what the apple would eventually end up doing, and hence would have expected it to become an orange. And yet for some reason He still holds that predicted and designed orange to the standards of an apple.

And if I may take it further, why a whole cosmic game for expression, why this obsession with some kind of complete expression?

If I’m being honest? I've been trying to use my logic to explain an infinite God, and that’s arrogant on my part. I’ve told you that that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, and then claim to be able to understand Him and His ways. The discontinuity is pretty clear there. Not that I’m using that as a cop out or trying to bail.

Accepting that God is God, is accepting the fact I can’t comprehend Him and that He’ll blow my mind a lot. Remember when I said “God’s not God if He fit’s into my mind”?

All that is to say this: I don't understand why God created the world this way, I don't understand how He did so. I can use logic to say that God knows everything, being omniscient, and that being omnipotent, there is no power greater than Him, and therefore He determined history to play out the way it did. Also using logic, if God knew every outcome of every choice we would make, and acted on those, then free will is null. But God offers us choices as well. How does that work?

I don't understand how it works. I'm willing to admit that there's stuff I haven't figured out. I hope you won't think less of me for it. I have reason for trusting God, and reason for trusting the bible. Especially when I don't understand stuff.

I’m fine with you not knowing stuff, my point is that if you don’t know certain things, then you shouldn’t claim that those things you don’t understand must be just, or make sense, etc. until you can come back with a firmer grasp on things. That’s all. We’re all limited, but if you’re going to believe that X is true, you should be able to give a good explanation of why you think that’s the case.

Then how can truth exist? If the entirety of our literary and scientific understanding is all subjective opinion, why is it accepted as true and why is it even worthwhile? Something has to be real, or testing and concluding is useless.

Truth exists. It's not an opinion. The bible is part of that truth (part of it, meaning it's truth, not pieces of an incomplete truth) and so I trust it. People come away from it with different things, but there's only one truth in it. It's a lot like the discussion going on in Christian posts, and the point trying to be made there: There is only one truth, one way, and one life. Regardless of how people feel or read into something, or change aspects, if it deviates from the truth, it's wrong.

I never said that truth doesn’t exist, my point is that no one has a monopoly on truth. No one’s peeled back all the curtains and seen it all. The point is that there is always a degree of uncertainty, that life and human experience are full of existential doubts and failings, we are not perfectly rational or all knowing, and hence no one can claim complete certainty. That other people won’t see things exactly the same is not just a practical fact of the universe, but makes complete sense. It’s not necessarily a diminution of their character if they don’t see the “truth.” Because we’re all imperfect. If truth exists, what it means to be truth, and what is truth, are all things we all grasp for, but can never claim to fully see. If something deviates from the truth it is wrong, but the question remains of what the truth is? Because of the above reasons, you can’t just state that Christianity is the truth and that’s that. Your reality is just as subjective as mine, and that’s something that needs to be argued with the understanding that you don’t have it all, that you may turn out to be wrong. To frame a discussion with the statement that X is truth, and other viewpoints are simply refusals to admit what is clear to all to be true, is to say nothing at all.

It's not just me that's sure though. I hate to pull the L word into this (not that L word. >_>) but logically, the Bible has to be true, or God doesn't exist. Because a God that can't get His message through the ages is weak. If man could tamper with that message, that God is also weak. If Satan could tamper with that message, it means there's two gods, one evil and one good. The bible has to be true. It's a hinge upon which Christianity rests. Jesus quoted the bile, as did many of the apostles. If it's untrue, they lied or were lied too, as well. And if Jesus couldn't even distinguish truth…

YES. The bible has to be true, otherwise the Christian God doesn’t exist!!!!! Unless….. The Christian God indeed doesn’t exist!!!! Your logic is so strange dude. Why yes, if the premises supporting a belief are shown to be flawed, then the belief is shown to be in potential error, and other, contrary beliefs can then be argued to be true. Nothing has to be true buddy. That showing the bible to be flawed would start to poke holes in the strength of Christianity’s argument is exactly why non-Christians go out and make such arguments.

Also, what evidence is there against the bible? I'm not committing intellectual suicide, and I try to avoid being dishonest.

You are commiting such a suicide if you insist that something has to be true.

Believing in something contradictory to evidence isna intellectual suicide. It just means you’re not willing to accept what others say because you don’t believe it’s true, and/or you believe proof will be found.

That’s the definition of intellectual suicide, dogmatism, and simple foolishness. If I prove the earth is round mathematically, and you still insist it’s flat, well, that’s just baffling.

What jumps to mind at the moment is the ye olde astronomers who used math to prove astronomic facts, but had no real proof. They denied what the mainstream said, and believed something else. Turned out they were right. Despite evidence to the contrary at the time. Would you consider that intellectual suicide? It’s considered not drinking the Kool-Aid.

Well your example doesn’t make any sense. How can you prove something, yet have no proof???? Believing something without any good reason, and eventually turning out to be correct, is simple luck, like guessing the winning number of the lottery. It doesn’t make believing something without good reason intellectually justifiable.

I see the irony that it was, in fact, the Catholic church that did a good portion of the denial, but that’s not part of the point. XD

If you’re referencing Galileo, that’s ironic on so many levels. Galileo’s trial is often misunderstood. It was ironically the Church that took Galileo to court for claiming to have figured things out without sufficient proof in his books. They were giving him a hard time for exactly what I’m criticizing you for. Galileo turned out to be right, but when he asserted stuff without the evidence he was just being arrogant and foolish.

(Of course, the Church still deserves a bad rap for the incident, because they shouldn’t have the power to censor and imprison people.)

But God was not created. Right, wrong, and the concept of what sin is always existed within Him. He didn't pull a note pad up and start writing out what He thought was wrong one day. Justice is a part of him, like love. Not something He created.

I wasn’t trying to say that God was created, but trying to explore the many, many paradox that pop up when you have a concept of an infinite God. You still haven’t helped me unravel those concerns, you just stated what I was responding to in the first place.

But God's laws are a part of Him, not just something He created for us to follow. In example, He did not create love, He is love. It's a part of Him. It's always existed. It's the same way with His justice.

So then evil and hate are part of Him too? Or are the bad things created? If God’s infinitely powerful etc., then the nature of something like love is something He determines, because to suggest otherwise makes Him finite.

If consequences for breaking the rules makes someone a tyrant, then the current government , your mom and dad, and nature, are all foul tyrants. Everlasting consequences are, I think, a result of the fact that a soul is everlasting. Think about this, if you speed and break the law, and get a ticket, does that mean the policeman is evil or that you broke a law and get punished?

Well, I would hold an all powerful benevolent God to higher standards than people, what we do here on earth is tyrannical in the sense that it’s not perfect justice. Everlasting punishment seems to be a bigger version of our view down here of justice that’s been in practice since the first dude sharpened a spear. That cop is pulling me to the side of the road for speeding and blowing my brains out. I would hope for something grander, better, from the absolute truth of the universe.

Again, I can't really answer this and I have doubts you'll accept a paradox. Speaking of which, I looked up a definition:

1. a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth.

God's sovereignty plays a big role everything yeah but if God is God, and cannot be wrong, then it compares to taking a ruler who is never wrong, is perfect in entirety, then ask him to make laws and choose his servants. Who am I to question this man? I’m imperfect, I booger up a lot. So yeah, it’ll appear as though the superman is janking up, but since he can’t, it’s not an issue. It's trust.

Because of the reasons above, you can’t just state to me that something must be right and end it at that. You haven’t proved to me that God cannot be wrong. If you saw superman punch an innocent citizen of Metropolis in the face, but insisted that He’s still a hero because He’s superman, and superman wouldn’t do that (just because apparently, as you haven’t justified it) you would be in a serious state of denial. I just showed you how I think your example of God being just is actually and example of Him being unjust, and all you’ve done in response is stuck your fingers in your ears and closed your eyes.

But everyone is completely evil. We're not slipping down a cliff gradually, hanging on to edges here and there, fallen. We're screaming like a little girl as we plummet into a void, fallen. That’s why salvation matters, and not just meeting God after death. Evil/good are not gray areas in the eyes of God, but black and white. Otherwise, the fall wouldn't have been a big deal, because Adam could have done something good to make himself not evil anymore. Salvation would be something we could achieve ourselves.

A term like “evil” only has meaning relative to good. If there is no good in people, evil is the norm, the standard, then they’re not really evil, they just are. Of course I would argue that there is some good, or that we should move beyond framing this discussion in terms of good and evil. (beyond good and evil maybe? Nietzse reference.

That's not quite the way it is. I get the belief thing, but you're not hitting the scope of God here. To put it simply, God is a blinding white light shone into your eye. Belief wouldn't matter, ETC, the reality is that the light is painful. It's undeniable.

How do you know the light would be painful? Who’s to say an all powerful God couldn’t make the light of truth available to everyone without making their heads explode? If it’s undeniable, well that’s a good thing, because then everyone would be a Christian, and salvation would be completely up to personal choice.

God came to earth in the form of Jesus, who showed through His actions that He was God, and still people deny Him. And really, there wasn't doubt in the matter. He raised the dead, healed every sickness, and controlled the weather. He even died, then resurrected. He was the ultimate witness for God, and people still den(y)ied Him.

Yes people deny Him, because we’re not perfectly rational, understanding, or knowing. It’s less denial, and more doubt. Unless you were there when Jesus rose from the dead, there’s ample room for doubt, because you heard about this all from a very old book and from other fallible people.

This is a problem. You're taking analogies too literally, when their purpose to explain a more complicated point in a simple fashion. The definition is:

Similarity in some respects between things that are otherwise dissimilar.

It’s a comparison, not a duplicate. Besides the fact that God is demonstratively not human.

I didn’t take it too literally, you said that God could be multiple entities yet still one entity. Which is contradictory. Your analogy was also contradictory. So it failed to shed light on the original, similar yet not completely similar, contradiction.

Right. And for being sinful our due is death. The problem is, we can’t pay that due. Only Jesus could, having no debt himself. The only aternative is eternal punishment, which God didn’t want. The thing about God’s justice is that it’s incontrovertible and unbreakable, because it's a part of Him. Another thing about it is that His love is greater than His justice, though it doesn't break it.

Jesus’ death was exactly mercy on us, the criminals, and cruelty on Him, the innocent. God did it because of His LOVE for us. It’s the case of the loving father paying for the son's crimes out of his own pocket. The reason you’re looking for to as to why the guilty person would stay out of jail? Love. LOVE is the reason. God’s justice can’t be broken, because that’d show Him unjust. Like a judge who acquits the guilty. Which is why He can’t simply flick His hands and do away with sin. But His love is huge. Far more than justice. So, though the judge can’t just dismiss our crimes, He was willing to pay for them himself.

Sorry I can't answer your questions though.

The point here is that justice and mercy conflict with each other. Saying that God is both merciful, and just, is kind of a contradiction. So because God is just, he holds us accountable for a crime, but because he is merciful, he makes a lophole in his justice so that he can be merciful towards us? My point with Jesus is that God is not being consistent. Mercy is contrary to justice, so to show mercy, no matter how it is done, is to break with justice, even if it’s your own justice. Absolute mercy and justice coexisting is a clear paradox. Also, when you factor in the fact that God’s mercy is required in the first place to save humanity because of how His justice and manner in which He made everything damns us to death, well, the whole story seems to loose a sense of design and becomes arbitrary.

[Chozon1]

Weekend trip. ^_^ I'll get back to you, though.

[ArcticFox]

Why does this have to be a "I know more than you, therefore I am better than you" contest? Why can't people express opinion without feeling like they are getting backed in a corner?

Ego.

[wferwfer]

like that time Drew kept telling me over and over than I need to read some books an get educated before talking about stuff, and I wanted to ram my head through a wall.

[Orodrist]

like that time Drew kept telling me over and over than I need to read some books an get educated before talking about stuff, and I wanted to ram my head through a wall.

Because it's just awesome to talk about things we're clueless about.

Seriously.

That would be like me talking bra comfort.

[Drewsov]

And wfer, you did. And I've consistently been impressed by your posts.

Arctic - Calling someone out on Biblical inaccuracy isn't ego. If you're going to comment, leave your personal issues out of it.

[ccgr]

I think Arctic was sharing more of a personal opinion than an issue. Everyone has an opinion....

[wferwfer]

And wfer, you did. And I've consistently been impressed by your posts.

Yeah, well, intellectual growth is a constant thing. I still think shooting me down was obnoxious, I wasn't completely ignorant back then or something.