So… I didn’t say this was the explanation of ALL polytheistic societies. I am well aware of counterexamples, such as the unlimited (perhaps even ordinal) polytheism of Japan (i.e with a very large number, maybe even infinite, number of gods).
You mean ancestor worship?
That has been a difficult question for many ex-hindu. Some have taken the attitude that the dot is a cultural habit and have continued to use it, others have been strongly against continuing a habit that is not according to the values of Christianity. At least some have continued to use the dot to gain access to the social circles where a ‘dotless’ (Christian or outcaste) could not enter - that may be needed if you want to discuss about spiritual matters with others.
Most Christians in India come from ‘dotless’ background (daliths = outcastes) and do not have to worry about the dot - they have other worries.
The dot is connected to Hindu religion, to the principle of karma, but reflects basically social division and hierarchy in the society of India (the caste system). Your social status and rights depend on your caste. ‘Official’ India downplays the importance of the caste system, has forbidden some bad practices related to the ancient social systems (for example, I guess the widows have not been burned with their dead husbands for decades) and tries to alleviate the conditions of the daliths by reserving part of jobs and schooling to those being dalith. In practise, the caste system still runs strong and has even been strengthened under the current regime - the previous regime tried to downplay it.
Although our societies are different than India, our cultures may have some habits that are in conflict with the teachings or values of Christianity. In those matters, we have to make our own decisions whether we continue to participate in the local customs or take a more unconditional attitude towards those practices. The unconditional attitude may have a negative impact on our social relationships.
I will deal with the above in reverse order…
let me also add:
- my understanding is that Ellen White did not claim herself to be a prophet
- I agree that the Adventist church has tended to make the claim she was a prophet
- I accept there are criticisms regarding plargerism…however, those are irrelevant to whether or not her writings contained biblical truth and were harmonious with scripture.
You have intentionally not included the texts of scripture that i apparently quoted that ONLY support MY views. Do you believe that internal biblical theology varies and conflicts with itself? Cross referencing does not allow for such claims to be true…so I’m sorry but that notion is easily dismissed given multiple texts are referenced across multiple books of the bible, across multiple generations.
Misdirecting??? If you are unable to make the connections and feel that someone linking your non biblical claims with actual bible references that highlight that you are wrong…then your claim here is nothing more than muddying the waters and ignoring the demonstrated error in your beliefs!
Instead of intentionally NOT including the actual bible texts I’ve referenced…id suggest you include them then actually use the bible itself to prove I’m wrong. You are not doing that here.
you quote CS Lewis fictional novel Narnia as support for bible theology? Are you mad? Thats ridiculous and i cannot believe someone would be so naive as to use fictional stories for determining the difference between sound and unsound bible belief. That is truly foolish.
that is not in the text…you are making that up and its not a theological position from which you can garnish any scholarly support without textual proof!
This isn’t relevant to your argument…its makes absolutely no difference to the point i made…your side claims God would kill anyone for sin…I have shown proof in both testaments of the Bible that God did kill…in this case, we are talking about a New Testament example!!!
Ananias and Saphira did not die because they kept money back for themselves…they died because they made a covenant to God, then broke that covenant and tried to cover it up by also lying to the Holy Spirit- God!!!
Im not sure what the point of the above comment actually is…it aligns with my statement and we both agree that they sinned and tried to cover it up.
these people are Jewish. Do you not agree that Jewish culture already understood that God was the Holy One given the Old Testament Tabernacle and Sanctuary had been practised for more than 1500 years previously?
That is indicative of the entire bible historical account…its not unique to the book of Acts!
This is a reasonable criticism Richard.
I defend that by suggesting that “Gods chosen people” the Israelites were not exclusive in terms of Salvation.
We find instances in the Old Testament where God attempted to call other people out of heathen practices. An example of this was the mixed multitude who travelled with the Israelites out of Egypt. These people were clearly not Jewish but God still allowed them to join the Exodus and travel to the “promised land”
I believe that the bible demonstrates that it was the Israelites who twisted the gospel into an exclusive group only notion. Part of my evidence support that belief is the statement that the Israelite leadership had made the law a burden to the people. Exclusivity often does that…our exclusivity becomes the very burden it aims to remove…in this case, that the wages of sin is death but that the gift of God was salvation through Christ (obviously in ancient O/T times that was future)
I do not deny that God may end the lives of people when He thinks it needs to be done.
Death is part of our current life and so every death can be seen as being part of the creation God made. Creator is indirectly partly responsible for all deaths and probably directly responsible for many deaths.
This comment assumes that death is not something that came because Adam screwed things a few thousands of years ago. Death has been present as long as life because death is not bad or good, it is just a necessary part of life with reproduction.
I wrote my comment mainly to remind that we need to consider the big picture behind the short stories and verses we read from biblical scriptures. Those short stories do not reveal much but by using our understanding (common sense) and knowledge we may see a wider picture of why things happened as they happened. A & S probably did not die just because they suddenly decided to tell a little lie to the apostles. There is much more involved in this case. I think we both agree on that.
I do not know about you but I am interested to hear answers to questions like what and why.
I fully understand that my reasoning is speculative when the story does not include all necessary details. That is not a problem for me because I have lived and worked with probabilities for decades - every act and conclusion in my life is based on probabilities, even when I do not think of the probabilities consciously.
Our interpretations are never 100% sure, there is always a possibility that we have misunderstood something. God and His thinking is beyond what we can understand and we have limited knowledge of what happened in the distant past. That does not prevent us to build our worldview and lives on what is our current understanding.
What it does demand is willingness to correct my interpretations if someone shows that my current interpretation is probably not true.
When discussing the difference between Hindu and Christian, the core issue is the incarnated Word of God. Jesus lived and died as a human to solve the problem of sin and to set us free. Without that we would not have Christianity or the claims that Jesus is the door, the way, the truth and the life, the only way to Father.
God is almighty. He could have solved the consequences of human rebellion in another way. He could have simply decided to say the words that would bring salvation to the humans. Instead, God chose the laborious and seemingly foolish way and sent Jesus to born as a human.
That is a strong message. It reveals something about God and how he wants to have a relationship with humans.
Jesus was just one person moving on a fairly small area. That necessarily constrained the original teaching to one small part of the globe. After Jesus died and resurrected, he sent his disciples to spread the word to the other parts of the world. The first apostles did what Jesus wanted and spread the word to a much larger area. Although there has been missionaries through all centuries, the spread of the good news started to slow down after the first generations and has left people in many areas and tribes ignorant about the good news. I do not know if we would have this discussion (Hindu and Christian) if the spread of the good news would not have been left on the shoulders of a small group of ‘specialists’. The majority of western ‘ordinary’ Christians seemed to concentrate on spreading the western cultures and economical and military power, hindering rather than spreading the good news.
Apostle Paul told in Athens that “So having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent” (Acts 17). This hints that there have been times when God have let people to live according to their own belief systems, because they have not known about God. That would mean that people are judged based on what they have known and what their heart (consciens) has told. These people were not free in the sense that they did not have available the revelation and presence of God that can release people from their guilt, shame and fears. God decides what their fate is but I assume that many who could have been released and guided to good life experienced the bad human life that leads to bad habits and decisions.
After the time of Jesus, times and rules have been changing. We do not live anymore in the times of ignorance or under the previous covenants. Who does not come to God through Jesus, does not have Father. Thomas the Apostle is told to have reached Kerala in India and established the local church. Since that time, the good news has not spread as it should have. I hope that will change in the near future, if we have compassion for the hundreds of millions of people in India.
Nope.
I didn’t quote him and I just said I agreed with him.
LOL LOL LOL LOL and I could keep on laughing for days.
This is exactly what you do with the book of Enoch and even the Bible by the time you are finished adding to and altering the stories in the Bible until they are fictional stories as well.
But your incredible hypocrisy aside, fictional stories are instructive. And the fact of the matter is that Jesus often used fictional stories to instruct. I definitely think the Bible uses fictional stories to instruct as well – certainly Job and probably Jonah also. Frankly only an atheist would display such contempt and I think that is what you really are with your implicit contempt for Jesus’ use of fictional stories – someone who is simply using the Bible and Christianity for power and gain.
I simply take the text at what it says and conveys through a normal reading of language. I agree that we cannot read in the original language, or that we have the original autograph.
However,
the fact we do not have the original autograph,
that we have dozens of different unrelated sources for the manuscripts that we do have,
that all these dozens of copies of manuscripts that agree with each other
that scholars universally accept about 9/10ths of what is written is consistent and that the internal biblical errors are mostly grammatical and spelling issues
the none of the errors in the bible have any bearing on theology or doctrine
and given I believe in Christ and His Word and take my world view from those writings…
I do not believe i should attempt to add to the text information that simply isn’t there nor is it implied as being there without other biblical sources talking about the same events who do fill in such gaps as that you speak of.
St Roymond regularly critiques us over inserting things into the text that are not there.
Now your last statement " that they probably did not die…because they told a little lie"… scaling does not resolve anything.
What you are supporting in doing that is the notion that was offered as a solution to the initiation of the big bang by secularists. In an attempt to reconcile the problem “How can matter and energy come from nothing?” A mathematician offered the solution that if something appears for a tiny amount of time, it essentially remains nothing. A ridiculous claim that is so stupid i cannot believe a highly intelligent man decided to spend a great deal of time trying to prove it mathematically and that his entire hypothesis was to simply minimalise the dilemma so much that if he cant see it anymore, it essentially isn’t there!
The fact is, the bible tells us that the apostle Peter confronted the both of them separately and the result of that confrontation was both individuals ending up being struck down dead . When rumour of those deaths got out, it scared the ■■■■ out of anyone else who heard the story! People realised, God isn’t mucking around!
BTW way, this isn’t the only reference…consider Nadab and Abihu. In a drunken stated they lit the golden censor and went into the tabernacle and offered strange fire in the presence of God. Fire flashed out from the MHP and killed them where they stood in the sanctuary!
So when God offers His criticisms of the 7 churches in the book of Revelation, he makes it quite clear that compromising for the sake of humanities version of morality, he wont accept that. Its the same criticism that He made of king Saul through the prophet Samuel…“what is that lowing of sheep and cattle i hear?”. “To Obey is better than to Sacrifice”!
Yes and God killed someone for staedying the ark less it should fall.
Hmm
Richard
100% he did. He did that because again, human moral reasoning even when it is perceived as being for good…that reasoning is deeply deficient.
As i just added to post above…
A similar judgement was ordained by Samuel to King Saul
“what is that lowing of sheep and cattle i hear?”
After listening to Sauls human reasoned response, Samuel states…
“To obey is better than to sacrifice”
In your referenced story, the unfortunate individual died because of two things (well at least two), the first of which i think we can agree was the king’s fault!
UPDATE
I actually like your post the Richard, it begs the question which I’m intrigued by…
would the man who died trying to steady the Ark be saved at the Second Coming of Christ or enter judgement?
SO was He talking to those who claimed to be followers of=r thse who ignired or failed to recognise Him?
IOW was this a criticism of humanity or the church?
Who did Pau address his writing to? Genties? Non=beleivers?
or was it Beleivers!
Thin carefully about who Scripture was aimed at, and who is expected to read it. Think very carefully before you impose it onto those for whom it was not written. Why , in Romans 14 does Paul not enforce the Sabbath?
When the Prophets claimed that all had sinned, who were they talknig to? When God makes your recious Tabernacle, who it is for?
When Paul opens up Christianity (Christ) to non Jews, ae they beleivers?
THink , instead of assume!
Did God create humanity to worship Him? or did he give them a choice? And if they say No is that a valid choice?
if you offer someone a gift and they refuse it do you kill them or torture them for eternity?
Think what you actually beleive.
ANd think what those beleifs say about God.
His love is lost (void) if the alternative is eternal dmanation.
Richard
No, I mean that kings were considered to be divine. In the ANE this was associated with the idea that kingship as an institution came from heaven, so ‘logically’ kings must be (at least part) divine. It had nothing to do with ancestors except that there are chronicles purporting to trace royal genealogies back to various deities.
Articles demonstrating this have been posted previously on this forum.
You missed the point: the bits you quoted don’t support your views except in your own imagination, thus demonstrating that the point was correct – you are only interested in your opinion.
Yes, misdirecting. You regularly ignore or misrepresent what people have actually written and throw out a list of Bible verses that don’t actually have anything to do with what was said. It’s tiresome, and it’s insulting to everyone here.
There you go demonstrating that mitchell was correct: you equate your opinions with “bible theology”.
A number of us here cannot believe that anyone claiming to be a Christian would be so blatant in lying about others, misrepresenting or ignoring what other have written, and repeating this behavior despite being called on it . . . which you do monotonously regularly.
“Textual proof” does not equal “scholarly support”. That you think it does shows a total lack of comprehension of what scholarship is.
Some of the best biblical scholarship in the world is done without quoting any texts at all.
That’s speculation just as much as what knor wrote, except that his was thoughtful and rational whereas yours is . . . not.
It’s called “rational discussion/exploration of the text”.
Given many of the things that Jesus said to the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes, no – I don’t agree at all. To use a modern idiom, they talked the talk but didn’t walk the walk.
Indeed the major point of the Prophets is that Israel failed to learn what the Mosaic Covenant was about, to the point that God announced through them that He didn’t want sacrifices, He didn’t want feast days!
Are you a jew or a gentile?
Are you claiming there that any Christian who is of Jewish descent cannot adhear to the apostle Pauls writings?
Of course not!
So you can see why that notion is problematic and in this case the reason why quite logical. We dont even really need to quote scripture to demonstrate why.
The New Testament wasnt written for only for those who lived at the time…God is eternal, His revelation of Himself is universal and is recorded in a manner in which anyone in any nation, kindrid and tongue, can read it and know “One God” (not thousands of false ones)!
Revelation 14:6
ESV
Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people
I believe the bible story (if you like), in its original form is as relevant today as its always been. Its history is histpry…nothing changes that anymore than we expect of own modern world history record of world wars 1 and 2 for instance.
We should make a difference between what is really said and what is speculation. As you wrote, we should not add something to the biblical scriptures and claim that the scripture tells it.
Trying to understand the background of the context involves some amount of speculation when all details have not been told. That is ok as long as we separate the facts and the speculation. Maybe you have noted that I use quite often words like ‘probably’ and ‘possibly’. Possibly tells that something is possible but there is no certainty (speculation). Probably tells that the possibility is probable but again, there is no certainty.
Someone may ask why to speculate on matters where we cannot say something with certainty but I think that we should try to understand the context and the reasons (why?) behind what is told in the scriptures. It involves logical inference, ‘If A and B, then C’. We just need to separate what are the facts and what is logical inference.
Parroting what has been written may be safe but even there we may try to use what is written to prove an interpretation that is not true. Also in this approach, we should separate what are the facts and what is interpretation.
Amen.
I’m not at all convinced of that. Human rebellion broke something about Creation and the only way to fix it was for a human to “un-break” it.
The Incarnation would have happened either way, but the human choice to rebel determined that the Incarnation would result in death, and that very death would repair what was wrong.
It also reveals how deep the connection was in the first place: a light connection would not have required such a heavy-duty repair.
Which means that your claim to rely on “a normal reading of language” is false: the normal reading applies to the original language.
Which, don’t forget, some of us can do.
But that sums up the entire YEC enterprise! Adding to the text is the only way YEC can function!
This shows that despite your use of the word, you are not interested in scholarship. Without sources other than the Bible we couldn’t even read it.
You assume a neutral ground that scripture does not recognize. Such an assumption requires thinking that a human is equal to God. It is in fact the very same error made in the Garden: choosing what to call good and what to judge as evil for one’s self rather than listening to the One Who made us.
Only in a shallow reading of scripture that elevates man to the level of God.
When your house is surrounded by a flaming forest and the roof is already starting to burn, the fire fighter who knocks on your door is not evil for saying you must get out! But you call God evil for wanting to rescue us.
no it does not apply to original language…i don’t know how you can make that up…normal reading of language defines that normal people can read God’s revelation to us and pass on that knowledge to others. It has nothing to do with the argument of textual criticism about whether or not we have the original autographs.
You are confusing two different arguments there.
I quote actual bible passages, your response is this without any biblical support? Given you claim to have been trained as an academic in the past, I’m surprised that you would be so foolish as to even consider such an excuse (because without evidence its not a useable statement of claim)!
St Roymond what is on display there is the notion that you have little actual evidence to support your view on the biblical story history. You make claims that do not use the bible for support.
Most of your evidence comes from similar like minded proponents who rely on other similar minded proponents, who at some point in the past have conjured up a deeply problematic biblical theology that aligns with what they perceive is accurate science. The trouble is, that science was given to them by atheists!
All of the above reinforces my criticism that we are divided because of two fundamental positions:
Creationist: Bible + science = worldview
Evolutionist: Science = worldview
Evolutionary Theist: Science + reinterpreted bible = worldview (this is proven by the undeniable fact that you refuse to accept the literal bible historical account as its written)
BTW…have you compared the mitocondrial DNA history with the bible timeline?
Its interesting that according to Dr Kurt Wise, the two correlate very closely ie that the bible historical account of 6500 years is illustrated in the scientific mitochondrial DNA map (creation model on the Left…actual model on the right)
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