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Author Topic:   Claims of God Being Omnipotent in the Bible
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 9 of 381 (174435)
01-06-2005 12:49 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by crashfrog
01-06-2005 12:31 PM


Not when they ate it. And they were going to die anyway, eventually.
Actually, in the story, the reason they got thrown out of the Garden was not because they ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (whew) but out of a fear that they might eat from the tree of life.
I never really understood why GOD didn't just take the tree of life away or stick the gardian angel that he put at the gates of eden on duty at the said tree.
The whole story is yet another example that indicates why the Bible should not be taken literally.
From Genesis 3
22: And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
23: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
24: So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
So the whole expulsion from the Garden of Eden was not over the fruit that was eaten but that which remained to be eaten in the future.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 11 of 381 (174478)
01-06-2005 3:51 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by Christian7
01-06-2005 3:42 PM


Well Guidosoft, over the years I've read the Bible, beginning to end, word by word about twenty or more times. That does not include the Lessons on Sundays or references when looking up a particular passage or quote.
Even if you were to assume that GOD was speaking of a spiritual as opposed to literal death, your assertion does not hold up. There is no indication that Adam or Eve ever died a spiritual death. In fact, much of the rest of the Bible goes on to show that spiritual death is neither a certainty or even likely.
If you read the bible from the begining to end witch all fits together perfectly without contradiction though some people may think otherwise, this will be made quite clear.
As I said, I have read the Bible from beginning to end and it is filled with contradiction, from Genesis straight through to Revelations.
The Map is not the Territory.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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Replies to this message:
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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 19 of 381 (175019)
01-08-2005 11:07 AM
Reply to: Message 18 by Brian
01-08-2005 9:23 AM


Re: Yahweh speaks with forked tongue
Do Biblical literalists ever read the Bible?

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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 Message 18 by Brian, posted 01-08-2005 9:23 AM Brian has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 32 by Phat, posted 01-09-2005 4:42 AM jar has replied
 Message 34 by arachnophilia, posted 01-09-2005 7:18 AM jar has not replied
 Message 36 by Brian, posted 01-09-2005 2:07 PM jar has replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 35 of 381 (175217)
01-09-2005 12:25 PM
Reply to: Message 32 by Phat
01-09-2005 4:42 AM


Re: Yahweh speaks with forked tongue
I know that you are a reasonable old country boy, jar, so I really don't expect you to agree with a literalist view.
It'snot so much a matter of disagreeing as that I find them to be totally inconsistent in their actions. Whenerver a literal problem comes up they resort to interpretation.
You must admit, however, that once a literal Spiritual reality apart from our daily experience is considered, ALL things truly do become possible.
Not really. If you accept a literal spirtitual reality apart from our daily experience, that still does not exempt people or books from some form of honesty or consistency.
For example, several of the folk here have suggested that the death GOD was speaking of was a Spiritual Death. But there is no indication in the Bible that Adam or Eve died spiritually. In fact there are indications that when they did die physically, they went to heaven.
So to make any sense from the tale in Genesis if taken literally, GOD lied. So far no literalist has been able to address that except to say that folk are not interpreting the Bible correctly.
If they are interpreting the Bible they are not taking it Literally.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 37 of 381 (175244)
01-09-2005 2:15 PM
Reply to: Message 36 by Brian
01-09-2005 2:07 PM


Re: Literal part timers
I agree. In particular I've noticed that often they quote a single line when the very next line either contradicts what they have quoted or expands on it changing the meaning.
I think that they read the Bible, but they do not think about the words for themselves. They appear to accept what they have been told references mean rather than deciding for themselves.
Absolutely true. But perhaps it is simply that they do not understand what literal means?
Even reading just one book a day, or two or three of the shorter books, it would only take a couple of months.
Well, there is a schedule included in the BCP which can act as a guide. It presents a schedule that takes about three years to cover the whole Bible but also breaks things down into very small and related chuncks. So even using the slowest method you can read the Bible in an organized fashion completely over a three year period.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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Replies to this message:
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 Message 41 by truthlover, posted 01-09-2005 5:51 PM jar has replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 44 of 381 (175307)
01-09-2005 6:36 PM
Reply to: Message 39 by Phat
01-09-2005 3:28 PM


Re: Literal part timers
What is the literal source of the wisdom? Who wrote the book? Obviously humans did. Who inspired them, however?
Valid questions but what does that have to do with the subject? If one line is taken literally, how can the next line be interpreted? Once you start interpreting what the Bible says, even if you only interpret one verse, you no longer take the Bible literally.
To one who does not personally know or relate to God, the Bible IS meaningless except through the interpretation of the reader.
I'm sorry but I don't understand that at all. I'm pretty dense as you know so can you try explaining that for me?

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 47 of 381 (175313)
01-09-2005 7:11 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by truthlover
01-09-2005 5:51 PM


Re: Literal part timers
I'm thinking I remember you saying that you are a Christian, though a non-literalist. Knowing that Paul is very prone to quoting a single line out of context, I'm curious how you view Paul or the Bible.
I'm not asking you to give a general dissertation on the subject. I'm asking specifically about the literalist issue and taking quotes out of context.
Great question. Thanks. And it goes back to an area of great interest to me. I was sent off to a small Episcopal Boys Boarding School around the start of middle school IIRC. It was called St. Paul's, so as you might expect, we spent a fair amount of time examining the Pauline writings.
Remember that the Pauline texts were not written to the general audience. They were specific correspondence between a teacher/priest and his contemporaries. As such, and as we all do when talking between friends, he often took shortcuts and made assuptions based on prior discussion with the folk. He spoke in an idiomatic manner and often used a minor reference to jog their memories about a more extensive discussion that they had in the past.
We tend to forget that the Pauline texts were letters writen to specific churches. They may well be applicable beyond the original context but only when we also remember just what that context was. Paul was not writing to a general audience.
We also tend to take Paul himself out of context. At the time Paul was active he was completely convinced that the end-times were at hand and that drove much of his moral behavior system. His apparent opposition to marriage and family may well have been determined by the fact that he thought there was insufficient time left to even raise a child.
Paul was also busy building a franchise. He was changing the very nature of Christianity and bringing it in line with the Hellenistic audience he was preaching to. And because that very audience went on to become the State Religion of the Roman Empire, we have more of Paul's writings than we do of Thomas, or Mary, or Simon the Zealot, or James, or Philip, or Matthias, or James the Lessor or Thaddaeus, or Bartholomew, or Andrew or the 50 new Apostles.
I count Paul and those in his churches as my spiritual forefathers, and it was a doctrine of theirs (this gleaned from reading the church fathers) that the inspiration of the Scriptures meant that it was quite okay to pull sentences out of context, because God dropped them in there as prophecy.
There are many that would agree with you. My question would be if the very next line contradicts or modifies the quoted one, why was it not also dropped in there as prophecy?

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 63 of 381 (175823)
01-11-2005 10:54 AM
Reply to: Message 61 by truthlover
01-11-2005 12:35 AM


Re: Literal part timers
The early church shook the Roman empire.
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that "Because the Roman Empire TOOK the Christian Church, Christianity thrived?"
It was Constantine's co-option of Christianity as a State tool and religion that led to its rapid spread and adoption.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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Replies to this message:
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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 72 of 381 (175926)
01-11-2005 4:32 PM
Reply to: Message 71 by Phat
01-11-2005 4:13 PM


Great example of GOD lying Phat, thanks.
Actually, your first quote:
Phatboy writes:
Lets look at these scriptures:
Deut 13:1-4= If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, "Let us follow other gods" (gods you have not known) "and let us worship them," you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Here is an example of GOD sending a prophet with true prophecy but that is attributed to someone other than the Hebrew GOD. Yet according to the passage, the prophet is sent by GOD as a test. GOD is lying to the people.
A far more resonable explanation is that prophecy is simply unreliable. That passage is simply an out to explain that any prophet from any GOD is as likely to be right as one sent from the Hebrew GOD.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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Replies to this message:
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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 341 of 381 (738999)
10-19-2014 8:59 AM
Reply to: Message 339 by MikeManea
10-19-2014 6:18 AM


Re: How to Debate Atheists
Welcome home. Pull up a stump and set a spell.
You really do need to spin this off into a new topic but there are some major problems with your approach right from the beginning. First, why debate the existence of a god when there can never be any real proof, at least as long as a person is living.
Second, and perhaps a bigger issue is that there is no "Christian GodTM". Speaking as a Christian. the God that Calvinists try to market is vile, evil, unworthy of worship. The God marketed by the Christian Cult of Ignorance such as seen in the Chick Tracts is just pitiful and laughable.
And even if there were a "Christian GodTM", GOD, if GOD exists is hardly likely to be anything like any of the various gods mankind has created over the centuries.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

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 Message 339 by MikeManea, posted 10-19-2014 6:18 AM MikeManea has not replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 347 of 381 (739007)
10-19-2014 1:09 PM
Reply to: Message 344 by Phat
10-19-2014 11:04 AM


Re: Back To Debate With Theists
Did you read the whole paragraph?
quote:
Second, and perhaps a bigger issue is that there is no "Christian GodTM". Speaking as a Christian. the God that Calvinists try to market is vile, evil, unworthy of worship. The God marketed by the Christian Cult of Ignorance such as seen in the Chick Tracts is just pitiful and laughable.
Almost every chapter of Club Christian markets another and quite different god.
Phat writes:
2) Is it reasonable to assume that GOD is whom Jesus called His Father?
But that has no meaning and tells us nothing.
Phat writes:
Is it reasonable to assume that there can be an agreement or consensus of a Christian GodTM through the study of whom Jesus believed GOD to be?
Perhaps if you bring in that object and place it on the table to be examined but the evidence so far says "No it is not possible". The Calvinists market a vile, evil Christian god that elects who will be saved. The CCoI markets a not very bright conman Christian god who fakes all the evidence so the earth looks old and humans look like just more primates. Many Christians claim the Christian god they market is the real god but the ones Jews (they market their fair share of different gods) or Muslims market are not GOD.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

This message is a reply to:
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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 354 of 381 (739249)
10-22-2014 9:29 AM
Reply to: Message 353 by Phat
10-22-2014 9:14 AM


Re: Unable to meet God due to detached observer status
FYI I don't agree with the philosophy that we are to correct God....at least not the One we have now.
But what does the Bible say?
In the Bible (all Canons) God struggles with the issue that morality, right & wrong, are seldom clear and concrete and that mankind has the say capabilities of questioning right and wrong as God does.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

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 Message 353 by Phat, posted 10-22-2014 9:14 AM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 366 of 381 (739467)
10-24-2014 9:39 AM
Reply to: Message 363 by Phat
10-23-2014 1:46 PM


Re: Many Are Cold And Few Are Frozen
Jesus is a leader who tells everyone under His charge that they don't have to deny themselves if they don't have a heart for it.
Chapter and verse please.
He even lets everyone know beforehand that only a minority of them will graduate training.
Chapter and verse please.
He is a good leader, however, in that He took the bullet for everyone in the class...even the dropouts who chose not to hang. I hardly call that autocratic. You people seem to assume that there is a better outfit to become involved with...one that has no leaders, mass consensus, and individual liberty rather than groupthink. We are living in times like that now. Time will tell which philosophy is the better one.
Chapter and verse please. Remember it must be verses where Jesus says, not John.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

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 Message 363 by Phat, posted 10-23-2014 1:46 PM Phat has replied

Replies to this message:
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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


(1)
Message 381 of 381 (820727)
09-25-2017 4:23 PM


Back towards the topic of Claims of God Being Omnipotent in the Bible
One of the strengths of the Bible is that it is filled with inconsistencies and out right contradictions. God is portrayed as Just and as Unjust, Omnipotent and Limited, Sure and Unsure, All Knowing and Uncertain, Competent and Incompetent, Godly and Human, Perfect and Flawed.
The various authors that wrote the stories created the God of their milieu, their ethos, their mythos, their society, their era, their tribe. The God hey create is unique to the plot of the story they are telling. It is NOT a book or even an anthology but rather an anthology of anthologies.
The stories that are collected into the different Bible Canons reflect the variety and evolution of the Gods over time and behave as characters in a limited narrative. The God of Genesis 1 is not the God of Genesis 2&3. When people try to pretend that the Bible is a single narrative or reflects a single belief system totally miss one of the most important lessons to be learned; the fact that both Judaism and Christianity are examples of evolving systems reflecting and intrinsic to the period and customs of the authors.

My Sister's Website: Rose Hill Studios My Website: My Website

  
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