How can we be held responsible if we are not in a position (authority) to actually change anything. Making a noise may cause discomfort or even give notice of disagreement but it does not necessary cause change.
And we cannot change the mistakes made in history concerning other cultures or races who have been maligned or uprooted.
Which also applies to any sort of link to Adam. “I am not my brother’s keeper?” How can I be held responsible or condemned by the action of someone in history, even if it did actually happen?
Richard
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
102
So what if there weren’t? And of course the Bible is full of it. It all depends on ones filters. Human groups, starting with two, are synergistic entities with emergent properties. Including evil ones. That can’t exist in individuals. Our systems are principalities and powers.
No, God passes judgement on groups. Israel is declared disobedient as a group. But the sinning is still on an individual basis, its just that each one has done it. They are culpable for their own sin, only they have all committed the same one. In one way or another they disobeyed and forsook the Law and commitment of the Covenant with Abraham.
The occupants of Sodom were condemned on an individual basis, hence the “Dutch Auction” with Abraham. That was the whole point of it.
Richard
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
104
No. You don’t understand. Groups cybernetically do what individuals can’t. Which doesn’t justify God murdering whole cities or getting the Hebrews to.
Job is a book in the Old Testament. Near the end God admonishes Job for daring to question Him : because we do not have all the knowledge to do so.
In human laws we are supposed to be judged by our peers. Would you dare to level yourself with God?
Richard
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
110
Riiight. Happens to be the oldest and my favourite book of the OT. It doesn’t speak for God of course. It speaks of the C6th BCE genius who wrote it. So I can judge that and the God he made up. Who is not related to God as He is. I judge my God just fine.
God has no name. He is identified by His associations and achievements as in the God of Abraham Issac and Jacob, who brought the Israelites out of Egypt. Some people have tried to assign a name to God, such as Jehova, Or Allah, and so on. Whether the Hindu names refer to the only God is up for debate, since Modern Hinduism has tried to reduce the Pantheon to a single God and a host of demi Gods. Some primative cultures assigned areas of influence, such as Father Sky.
The whole point is that God cannot be pinned down but may well respond to those who seek Him in earnest and ]humility.
It is only humans who insist that their understanding, name or approach must be the only one.
Richard
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
116
So the true, one and only God, is the one of the legendary Jewish patriarchs and their legendary descendants?