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Author | Topic: Can God lie? | |||||||||||||||||||
arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Usually I find there are no contradictions you like proverbs? i do. here's a good one, often quoted:
quote: here's its less quoted brother:
quote: please note that these two verse are consecutive, and most certainly contradictory.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Why would God create a source (the Bible) that portrays Himself as a liar ? what is your fascination with god writing the bible? it doesn't even make this claim in the bible. your circular logic won't even work here, you're just making it up. the evidence in the text is that the bible comes from multiple sources. it is inconsistant, contradictory, and serves a number of different functions. moreover, it was written over a vast expanse of time, by many differen people, in differen places. god did not the write the bible -- the only thing god wrote, according to the bible, is the two tablets of the covenant.
If the claim is true that the Bible is the word of God then anything written therein that is interpreted to say God is lying would be ridiculous. and yet the text says god lies. so one or all of your assumptions MUST be wrong. the post above the one i'm replying cite's first kings 22:22-23 where god says he will lie to someone. genesis 2 and 3 has god telling adam that he'll die the same day he eats of the tree of knowledge, yet adam lived another 930 years.
If the claim is untrue (Bible not the word of God) then anyone cannot use the claim momentarily to accuse God of lying. which are you more attached to, the bible being the word of god, or god not lying? no, you can't have both. personally, i'm not attached to either. if god wants to lie, who am i to judge god?
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Further, where do you get the idea that Satan is not a Biblical reality? he is, but not in the sense we think of him. he's one of god's angels, possibly a son of god (see job). he serves the will of god by testing mankind. it's an absolutely wrong reading to assume that god is good and satan is evil, the two being in opposition. god is both, and neither. personally, i have faith that everything serves a greater purpose, even apparent evils. and so i have no problem with god lying for our own good. like i said, who am i to judge god? but the text is simply contradictory. genesis is filled with evidence of god changing his mind too. look at sodom or the flood. numbers and samuel may say he doesn't do it, but genesis says he does.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
OK..I can respect that YOU respect God without acknowledging the Bible...but without the Bible, how do you even know if you are acknowledging the right God? how do you know with the bible? i don't see how it makes any difference. i've read my share of religious texts, and if i just based it on the literature, i'd have been a buddhist a long time ago. the bible is a good perspective on god, but the bible is not god.
If you believe that God can lie, and can do whatever He wants to do i'm not totally sure i do. i don't care much either way, but i'm leaning towards him being mostly omnipotent and being able to lie.
how do you know that the inner voice that you hear is God? i don't know. it's called faith.
I believe that the Book was given as a standard...so that we would know who the real God is. but there is nothing standard about the book. there is no one canon, and no one book by one author. it is a collection of collections, all by different authors, different sources, and at different times. it is very inconsistent. but on some level, your statement may be true.
Seeing as how the early Believers had no book, the only other method of validation is to gather in prayer/fellowship with likeminded belivers. Likeminded means "of the same Spirit". please research the history of the early christian church. there was no unification until about 300 ad, when a canon was compiled. but they all had books, and all congregations of likeminded believers. some of those churches were systematically removed and executed for heresy.
Obviously, the Holy Spirit is the right one and the only one with any real power. How do you tell Him apart from the other ones? that's not so obvious, my friend. i used to go to pentacostal churches. people would get "drunk" with the holy spirit, roll around on the floor, talk gibberish, and see stuff. they would tell me that god had promised things, but they never came true. is that holy spirit at work, or are they being duped?
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
me too.
but how would I know if it was not merely mass hypnosis? i'm positive it was. because, try as i might, i could never be a part of it. similarly, i don't find alcohol or drugs fun, and the placebo effect fails miserably on me. i just have a rational analytical mind that doesn't allow blips of schizophrenia.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
and all I did was sit there and observe this insane display of mimicing behavior. i have to agree in part with amlodhi's post in response to this. such displays made me question my faith for a long time.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
michaelrobin writes: As a Christian who has now studied the word of God in great depth I can assure you there are no contradictions whatsoever. Frankly, "studied in great depth" and "no contradictions" is itself a contradiction. Either you've studied it in depth, or you've found no contradictions. It's impossible to do both, as the contradictions are rather plainly evident. Now, I realize they do this thing called "Bible Study" in church, in which people read passage from the Bible, talk about their morals, and pretend to understand what it all means. But exercises in apologetics, misrepresentation, and distortion are not studying the Bible in great depth. Indeed, they are very shallow and vain pursuits, and will never get you any closer to understanding the Divine. Rather, all you will ever understand is what your church tells you to believe.
michaelrobin writes: However, I certainly understand how there appear to be many contradictions. The truth is you will come to understand the apparent contradicitions once your understanding increases. The bible is a spiritual book and you will only understand certain things as you grow spiritually. Since spiritual growth is a like lot natural growth it may take you quite some time before you come to understand what I am speaking about here. Just be patient trust in God and not your own understanding and one day you may come to understand as you ought to understand. I whole-heartedly reject the "decoder ring" school of theology. The Bible is not a secretive text; it says what it means. If I were to need God to personally hold my hand through it, I would not need the Bible as I would have God personally holding my hand. Any interpretation that begins "we have the secret true meaning" must be wrong because it betrays its own source material. Why bother with the Bible at all? Now, as for contradictions. Since you have replied to a post that was six years old, I will respond with a post i made six years ago:
quote: It remains unaddressed at the time of this post. If you can understand why both of those verses are simultaneously true, yet contradictory, and why both are present in the Bible (one right after the other, I might add), then you will have greatly increased your understanding of the Bible, its function, and its origin. However, any attempt to rectify the two verses such that they do not contradict will also detract from the truth of at least one of the two verses. Enjoy.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
purpledawn writes: Of course the question of the thread is: which of these is right? can He or can He not lie? to be fair, this question was answered six and a half years ago, by brian, in the second post of this thread, which i shall reproduce here in its entirety:
quote: discussion over, right? according to the bible, god can and does lie. the question then becomes what to do with the verses that appear to say otherwise... and your post addresses that quite well.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
purpledawn writes: The writer has God threaten to kill A&E if they eat from the tree, when they actually eat from the tree he decides not to kill them. Instead he gives an alternative punishment. Is it considered a lie when someone gives a lesser punishment than the one threatened? this might be a good way to read it. but then again, it might not. the implication in the text is that the tree will cause death, not that god will punish them for disobedience. but this is a really subtle point, and certainly debatable. perhaps god just likes to phrase things in incredibly indirect ways.
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