FWIW, “חוּג” (khoog) can mean “horizon”, including everything within the horizon. It inherently indicates that everything is included, so that “the vault of the earth” means everything within a round horizon, and that the earth is only what is inside that horizon.
Also anti-intellectualism in that masquerade.
That or sapphire.
Amen.
Double Amen.
Seems YEC has mangled the meaning of “literal” as well!
This is actually addressed in at least one episode of The Chosen: why did Jesus restore Lazarus to life but not others? An answer is provided, but it takes careful attention.
It’s an ancient theological question, “Cur alii, alii non?” in Latin: Why some, (but) not others? That it is still debated sort of suggests that there’s no good answer. In the ultimate sense it refers to why some are saved while others aren’t, but it also covers why some are granted miracles and others aren’t.
There’s a Latin phrase for this conundrum also, but it escapes me at the moment. The root question (Aquinas addresses it, but I don’t recall what he had to say) is this: do we call God “good” on the basis of an external standard, or do we define “good” as what God is? The problem is that if there is an external standard, then God is demoted to second place and thus is by definition not God.
I.e. one (Amazonian, IIRC) culture held that subtle betrayal is to be admired and complex betrayal is more so – which made Judas the hero in the Gospel story.
And in one African culture, trapping someone in a situation where they have no choice but death was admired – whereas direct murder was condemned.
Without going into details, starting with “every person has self-ownership” (“You own yourself”) the Golden Rule emerges logically. That (libertarian) moral foundation is the only rational one I’ve come across.
The one weakness is that it assumes “enlightened self-interest”, i.e. every person wants the best for himself/herself, which makes it reduce to a matter of what each person considers “best”, at least on the fringes; the core is solid (don’t harm others, don’t steal, etc.).
You do not have the authority to make your claim.
Nor do I expect you to understand why it leads to a dilemma.
That’s also true of Christian cultures, so neatly skewers your own view.
God is good by definition.
There is no dilemma
God AKA Good,
Evil AKA Devil
Simple as that.
Besides if you do not believe He is there at all, why should you care?
Richard
Does anyone remember the ministry of Oral Roberts?
All of us here, including @T_aquaticus are people that the Psalmist invites to “taste and see that the Lord is good!” It’s almost as if we’re made in the image of God, and even fallen and sinful though we are, we’re expected to still be perceptive enough to recognize evil and have a conscience about it when we do it!
You can’t do that if you cannot see or identify Him. So the only place wher God can be judge is Scripture. The Old Testament view of God , iis of a angry tyrant. Even Paul implies a God of wrath who punishes anyne who does not conform to his wishes.
I hope you are being sarcastic.
A Christian description I am claiming is an exageration or hyperbola
Technically true but not in the way it is promoted or implies.
But, like i said, we do not perceive or recognize the hand of God (easily)
I am sorry, but we are not in a valid position to Judge God. e cannot see what He sees, we do not know the consequences of actions beyond the immediate.
I know that it is a thing of mine but Q in Star Trek illustrates the way we humans can judge omnipotence wrongly. Q is nether good nor evill, I would place him as amoral in human terms, But we criticise him for not acting with compassion that we perceive, in the here and now, without understanding the concequences to the future if he acts.
We cannot truly judge God because we do not have the knowledge and understanding He does, hence why His ways are not our ways
Richard
What is a Christian culture or society?
In most cases, a ‘Christian’ culture is formed as a mixture of Christian teachings and other cultural elements, and the rules of the society are established on the mixture of the cultural elements. The Christian teachings may be interpreted in ways that do not have strong support in the biblical scriptures. Often some part of a so called ‘Christian’ country is formed by people who are not believers themselves. Even if a church would have much political power in the society, I would not call the country ‘Christian’.
If such a society behaves as a society of humans usually does, it does not tell that the good that God has informed us has changed.
I am not sure that claim holds. “You own yourself” is a strong claim and could be questioned.
Even if that assumption would be true, it does not necessarily lead to the principally Christian teaching that ‘do to the others what you want that the others would do to you’.
If we forget Christian teachings,
why would it be wrong to act in a selfish way?
what is wrong in trying to ensure maximal resources for me and my relatives/friends?
why would it be wrong that a strong one takes from a weak one by force?
If we want to stress that others have also value, why limit ourselves to humans?
There are millions of life forms on Earth and one species (humans) is altering the globe in a destructive way and threatening the existence of the other species. There are people who think that it would be morally correct to eliminate the dangerous threat to life (humans) or at least reduce the population size of that pest species to a level that the biosphere can tolerate, with violence if necessary (it would be necessary, people do not just disappear or make mass suicide fast enough). Why would this moral opinion be wrong?
As expected, you don’t understand why that leads to a dilemma.
Simple, but wrong.
Because religion is a pack of inconsistent self-serving falsehoods that has been consistently detrimental to those societies that most embrace it, and has been used throughout history to justify and cover up everything from racism to racketeering to slavery to child abuse to genocide.
A contradiction that should be obvious to anyone who examines those two statements rather than taking them on blind unthinking faith.
Religions (including Christiainity) certainly have been all those things. And still are. But they are more than that too. You might benefit from considering this interview with Jonathan Rauch - who used to feel as you do, but has expanded his perspective now, and remains an atheist. .
So values that don’t change are due to Christian teachings, and values that do change are due to influence from non-believers?
By attributing societal changes in predominantly Christian societies to non-Christian influences, you’ve just rendered your claim unfalsifiable, and hence also unverifiable.
Sure, they have sometimes been useful. But the bad often outweighs the good, and I think we’d be better off basing society on reality.
Agreed. And I put forward that healthy religions (or the healthier expressions of themselves) already agree with you there too. How human beings work together (or not) - what motivates them or sustains them in spirit (or psychologically or whatever word you would replace ‘spiritually’ with) as well as bodily - those are part of this big package we call reality as well. I think Mr. Rauch does a decent job expanding on some of that in the linked interview.
I was recently discussing this with a friend after we watched some classic Sagan video (his eloquent ‘pale blue dot’ speech). And that spurred me to concoct something like the Venn Diagrams I’ll paste below that give visual commentary on some of the possible relationships between science and religion. I’ll share it here to see what sort of reactions / corrections / additions it might provoke.
No. Believers are as capable to mess the societies as non-believers. The mess is perhaps leaned towards different values than when non-believers are messing things but messing anyway.
One problem is that few believers are willing to put lots of time and effort to studying what is truly the will of God or the teaching of the biblical scriptures. The ‘normal’ way is to listen to what respected persons teach and adopt it. If the opinions of the influencial persons are skewed, then that spreads.
Also, many believers are willing to adapt to the surrounding opinions, at least to some extent. If the values and opinions around them changes, it would demand much courage to stand against the changing opinions. Especially if the values are mixed with emotional political ideologies, such as in the US, adapting or keeping the mouth closed is easier than loosing an important part of the social network.
The strength of the Christian teaching is that we have the biblical scriptures as a fixed measure in matters of faith. When (not if) the interpretations and prevailing opinions drift away from the teaching in the biblical scriptures, there is always a possibility to return to the scriptures and check if they support the prevailing opinions. If necessary, there is a possiblity to turn around and return to the original teaching (reformation).
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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