Part 38 of Post Your Tough Questions Regarding Christianity

Well not surprising for a former Christian preacher now turned agnostic to not often agree with me but this time you do agree with me...well good for you and me. Who knows, maybe someday you will return to your roots.

Yeah, I should have pointed that out just a tad more thoroughly because what you're describing is exactly what the Israelites did with these captive women. They eventually became wives of the Israelite men who captured them which I did mention in my post.

Well I know you don't know better than God, nobody does. When God commanded the Israelites to battle He had justifiable reasons behind those orders, it was done for punishment of sins by the offending tribes/groups/nations. So with God's backing the Israelites were justified in carrying out their missions.

It is not happening with Christians behind them because God does not command anyone in today's world to carry out what He commanded the Israelites to do during OT Biblical times.

Well again, when the Israelites conquered nations it was at the command of God. And you already know why God gave the Israelites those commands to conquer. Now about this opinion of yours of introducing new blood into an introverted nation/tribe I have no idea if your opinion/speculation is true. And what is your reasoning for calling them an introverted nation?

A good example of how the sins of rape and murder has bad consequences, (or any other sins for that matter) it also effects others besides the rapist, the victim, and the murderer of the rapist.

King David's inaction of dealing with his son Absalom who murdered his half-brother Amnon did lead to King David's problems and so yes I agree with you here.
But at the end of this sad story, King David got his kingdom restored back to him and his son Absalom got killed by King David's General Joab.

So the effected lives of some gets restored back to normalcy but in the process due to the consequences of sin it shattered people's lives along the way.

This story is a good example of why Almighty God the Creator does not want us to disobey Him by breaking His commandments He gave to us. It shatters lives, causes misery and heartaches for the people involved.

We Read in Scripture:

25 “But if the man meets the engaged woman out in the country, and he rapes her, then only the man must die. 26 Do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no crime worthy of death. She is as innocent as a murder victim. Deuteronomy 22:25-26 NLT (Carried out under the Mosaic Law)

13 "You must not murder." Exodus 20:13 NLT

6 “You must never have sexual relations with a close relative, for I am the Lord. Leviticus 18:6 NLT

9 “Do not have sexual relations with your sister or half sister, whether she is your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether she was born into your household or someone else’s. Leviticus 18:9 NLT

 

OK,so why not use his original name instead of an alias? BTW, is he a Hebrew character or a Greek one? After all, the Greeks had a herd of assorted deities so what is one more?

When will you produce a Hebrew or Greek Bible from the Second Century? I'm sure that I will have ice cream on the Sun before that happens.

Do you also believe that grass and trees were created before the Sun and the moon and all of the stars?

 

I am of the belief that YHWH had already created prototypes of grass and suns and moons and squirrels and fish and serpents long before Genesis chapter one. Once we got to Genesis chapter one....... creating any of these things was piece of cake for YHWH...... much like workers at a museum taking creatures in from another location and producing a specific type of environment behind glass at the Smithsonian or any other museum with the bucks to finance doing this.



https://www.near-death.com/experiences/exceptional/mellen-thomas-benedict.html#a05

 

Everyone has some kind of faith in something. Obviously you are not understanding the word "faith".

Faith can be defined as firm belief in something for which there is no proof.

You have no proof in what you believe is true. You believe there is no God, but you cannot prove this to be true so you must faith to believe there is no God.

An atheist may come to his atheism by intuition or after careful deliberation. In the end, he has faith that God does not exist because he trusts either his instincts or his investigation and commits himself to live in a way that is consistent with his beliefs.

Contrary to the claims of the new atheists, everyone has some kind of faith....everyone trusts something. It is impossible to live without trusting in something, even if it is only in the reliability of our five senses. The object of our faith is what makes all the difference.

 

How far did the destruction of the Library at Alexandria actually put us back?

I have heard that the destruction of the library at alexandria put us so far back technologically that we could have been going to space during the 1500s had it not been burned down. Is there any truth to this?

Not really. In overall terms it didn't really set European culture back at all: it was a single incident in a very large world, and there were many other good libraries around the Roman world. You'll notice the Roman Empire went on expanding for another few centuries afterwards.

It'd be a bit like destroying all the copyright libraries in the UK. It would be a catastrophic loss in cultural terms, and purely economic terms; but only a minority of material would be lost for good. A lot of material would be irreplaceable, to be sure, but that's mainly antiquarian material, not treatises on cutting-edge technology. The loss to British cultural history would be profound, but the rail system and the WWW wouldn't suddenly stop working.

Having said that, there's a lot of material that was apparently lost for good within two or three centuries afterwards. For example: the Archaic Epic Cycle was still being read in the 2nd century CE, but it's very hard to find good evidence of it being read after that date. Was it the victim of some library's destruction? Possibly: but not at Alexandria. The second and third centuries seem to be the time when information longeivty really started to suffer a severe decline. Why? Hard to pin down a single reason; my pick would be, probably partly for economic reasons, partly because there had been a wave of scholarship that saw itself as superseding older writings, and partly because of the shift from scrolls to codices in the 2nd to the 4th centuries.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistori...ow_far_did_the_destruction_of_the_library_at/

Sorry Alpha but I tend to agree with this explanation from reddit.com that the burning of the Library at Alexandria didn't really set us back at all.

You've been debunked.

Actually Christianity led to the rise in modern science. It was Christians who laid the foundations of modern science. Read the thorough explanation on link below.

https://www.equip.org/article/christianity-led-rise-modern-science/

You've been debunked again.

Nope, sorry but there was no combination of the 2nd with the 3rd. But yes the volcanic eruption mentioned had devastating effects on the entire world, so it did set us back.

Read links below for thorough explanation.

https://www.lanl.gov/orgs/ees/geodynamics/Wohletz/Krakatau_6th_Century.pdf
https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080311/full/news.2008.665.html

You've been debunked for attempting to combine your 2nd event with the 3rd.

Nope, there you go again blaming Christians, I have already debunked your claim of the 2nd event. But the plague was a very devastating world event no doubt about that but to claim that Christian leadership advocated prayer to cure those effected is utterly absurd.

Obviously what we have here is a person who is anti-Christian and biased to the core and that's a fact.

So the only two events that set us back was the volcanic eruption and the plague but I don't believe that it caused humanity to lose the relatively high level of science, mathematics and technology it had between the Greek and the fall of the Roman empire that you claimed. But those events they were certainly a setback but not to the extent you are claiming.

 

That's really a sage comment. The sources I rely on are highly trustworthy in my perspective. And so I do believe them. One of my sources is of course the Holy Bible. I believe everything I read in the Holy Bible. After all the Holy Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God and so I believe everything I read in it as being truthful.

I also subscribe to a few Christian websites that are remarkably excellent in the articles they publish regarding the various topics concerning the Christian religion. They keep in line with what is written in the Scriptures of the Holy Bible and so I believe the articles they publish that I read.

So what sources do you rely on now that you're no longer a Christian preacher who turned agnostic? Do you go to agnostic websites? I truly don't even know if they have them, I guess they do, I really don't know.

I know they have atheists websites all over the internet. Speaking about these atheists websites, now this is a place where I wouldn't believe everything I read from them, matter of fact I wouldn't believe a single word coming from them...lol

How so?

Such as? What makes you speculate that Matthew leaves out several names if any?

Hey trev, I will continue on later with the rest of your post. So I'll be back later, until then Vuelve a Dios! Oh and let me leave you with a few trustworthy verses from Scripture.

We Read in Scripture:

16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. 17 God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17

20 Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, 21 or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God. 2 Peter 1:20-21 NLT

 

Since you say that you believe everything you read in the biblical fairy tale you believe that grass and trees were created before the Sun and the moon and all of the stars in the universe. You believe that humans are worms. You believe that gentiles are spit and that Israelites/Hebrews/Jews are the owners of the planet and that pigeon poop makes a good meal.

 

There are 10 passages in Scripture that names Shealtiel as Zerubbabel's father. But yes there is one passage in Scripture that names Pedaiah as Zerubbabel's father. There are a few logical rational explanations to point out here. It could have been that Shealtiel was married but died before having a son.

Under Levirate marriage law, Shealtiel's brother Pedaiah might have taken Shealtiel's widow, making Pedaiah the biological father of Zerubbabel. Another possibility is that both brothers had sons named Zerubbabel. It is not uncommon for brothers to have sons with the same names as you well know.

Bottom line I wouldn't make too much of a fuss over this, I mean I don't believe at all that the Bible made a contradiction here, I presented logical rational explanations to solve any puzzlement here.

We Read in Scripture:

19 God is not a man, so he does not lie.

He is not human, so he does not change his mind.

Has he ever spoken and failed to act?

Has he ever promised and not carried it through? Numbers 23:19 NLT

 

The God character told numerous lies in the biblical fairy tale. Didn't we cover that before?

 

Explain the mechanics?...How would I know that being that I wasn't one of the writers/prophets/authors?...lol

They lived thousands of years ago and here I am living in today's world. So your question is absurd/ridiculous/incoherent.

Do you want me to tell you something like, "Inspiration is holding a pen in your hand then suddenly the pen begins to move and you start writing stuff down, you have no control of the pen, it's like someone is doing the writing for you. Then you hear a voice in your ear, it says, "Just be cool and continue holding the pen, I'm in control of what you're writing, this is Almighty God The Creator."...lol

However I can tell you that inspiration is the quality of being "God-breathed" meaning that God supernaturally guided the authors of the Bible to write exactly what He wanted to communicate.

Everything we read in Scripture is there because that is what God desired to say to us. No prophecy in Scripture came from the prophet's own understanding, or from human initiative. The prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.

God's Message for Today (From the NLT Bible Second Edition 2004 Version)

In 2 Timothy 3:16-17, the apostle Paul reminded his student, Timothy, that "All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every work."

This is still true today, even though the Bible was written hundreds of years ago. Its message is timeless, personal, and powerful because it comes from God.
Millions have discovered that the Bible speaks to their deepest needs, and people from all over the world turn to God's word daily for words of comfort, encouragement, hope, inspiration, and guidance. There they find satisfying answers to life's most perplexing questions and difficult problems.

The Bible, however, is more than just an answer book for life's problems. It is also made up of exciting adventures, inspiring stories, beautiful poetry, convicting messages, and the hope-giving life story of Jesus Christ.

We Read in Scripture:

20 Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, 21 or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God. 2 Peter 1:20-21 NLT

16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. 17 God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 NLT

 

Because I don't speak Hebrew or Greek. I speak English.

Are you an English character?

The Bible didn't always exist as a Bible.

Yes.

 

Yes. This is not an impossibility, dude.

I'm sure what Bible you are referring here because none of this is stated in The Bible that I have read through.

 

Reviewing your comments I see the following:

1. You believe in an imaginary character.
2. You think that only English characters are real.
3. Sure, there were various tattered scrolls of bits and pieces of the fairy tale but the Bible did not exist as a comprehensive book until the committee wrote three master copies in Latin in the 680s-early 690s.
4. You believe that grass and trees on Earth were created before the Sun and the moon and all of the stars in the universe. You also believe that billions of those stars will fall to the Earth.
5. I hope that you don't have a critical job that affects people's lives and safety.

 

Job 25:6 (CEV) = "So how can we humans, when we are merely worms?"

2 Esdras 6:55-59 (CEB)
55 “I have said all these things before you, Lord, because you have said that you created the oldest age for our sake. 56 You have said that the other nations born of Adam are nothing, that they are like spit, and you have compared their abundance to a drop from a pitcher. 57 But look now, Lord! These nations that are valued as nothing rule over us and devour us, 58 while we, your people, whom you have called your oldest offspring, your one and only child, those who are zealous for you, your dearest ones, are handed over to them. 59 If the world was created for our sake, why don’t we possess our world as an inheritance? How long will this situation last?”

 

Well, the Holy Bible is certainly evidence but of course not the kind of evidence that an unbeliever like yourself will accept, so it's denied by unbelievers, look you're quoted saying it's not evidence!

But nevertheless for a believer in Almighty God The Creator, it is certainly evidence. The Holy Bible besides being a revelation from God, is an historical document that took centuries to complete.

The Holy Bible may look like one book, but it is actually sixty-six books rolled into one. Thirty-nine books make up the Old Testament, and twenty-seven make up the New Testament. Almighty God the Creator used as many as forty authors over a time period of many centuries to write the sixty-six books of the Holy Bible. So there is a lot of history in this highly impactful Holy Book, and so I will categorize it and call it exhibit 1A evidence.

Then there is exhibit 1B evidence which are the Four Gospels of the New Testament written by Matthew, Luke, Mark, John. These Four Gospels were/are essentially eye-witness accounts of the life of Our Lord Savior Jesus Christ.

The birth, the life, the teachings of His ministry, the miracles He performed, the death and resurrection of Our Lord Savior Jesus Christ are all depicted in these Four Gospels.

The word Gospel means Good News! Good News indeed!, for now we can receive forgiveness of our sins. Our Lord Savior Jesus Christ took our sin upon Himself and died in our place. He shed His innocent sinless blood on the cross for all of mankind.

God made Our Lord Savior Jesus Christ who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

Through faith in what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross, we can receive forgiveness.

We Read in Scripture:

6 He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone. This is the message God gave to the world at just the right time. 1 Timothy 2:6 NLT

21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:21 NLT

To continue on with the evidence, we also have exhibit 1C evidence which is the historicity of Our Lord Savior Jesus Christ.

Today the myth that Jesus is only a myth has received the equivalent of the death penalty in historical and scholarly circles (although various internet atheist haunts still try in vain to resurrect the charge).

As Princeton professor Bruce Metzger wrote decades ago, “Today no competent scholar denies the historicity of Jesus.

Then there is exhibit 1D evidence, which is the evidence of archaeological artifacts that authenticates the credibility of the Bible. A simple Google search will bring up all these archaeological artifact findings.

Then we have exhibit 1E evidence, which comes from our brilliant scientists. Not too long ago they theorized that the universe had a beginning.

Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity means that the universe had a beginning and was not eternal as he had previously believed (Einstein was originally a pantheist). His theory proved that the universe is not a cause, but instead one big effect—something brought it into existence.

Einstein disliked his end result so much that he introduced a “fudge factor” into his theory that allowed for an eternal universe. But there was only one problem. His fudge factor required a division by zero in his calculations—a mathematical error any good math student knows not to make. When discovered by other mathematicians, Einstein admitted his error calling it “the greatest blunder of my life.”

After his acknowledgment, and upon confirming further research that showed the universe expanding just as his theory of relativity predicted, Einstein bowed to the fact that the universe is not eternal and said, "I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details."

And so for his own sake, hopefully before his death he converted over to Christianity, if he was wise enough to do that.

We already know he was a brilliant physicist but being brilliant does not necessarily equate to being wise as well.

Then he could ask God face to face the question that has baffled his brilliant mind from the day he learned the universe had a beginning and it was not a cause and not eternal as he once believed it to be but it was one big effect that was brought into existence.

Of course God's explanation is going to be way over Einstein's mind to comprehend.

He'll probably say to the Lord, "That's ok you don't need to explain it to me, by the way I really like the accommodations here."...lol

We Read in Scripture:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1 NLT

Then we have exhibit 1F evidence which is a philosophical explanation. This evidence is based on a logical, rational, reasonable thought process that gives it credibility.
This evidence is called the First Cause Argument. I posted it on pg. 29 #706 of this thread if anyone is interested in reading it.

To sum up everything, evidence can be defined as: That tends to prove; ground for belief.

So all these evidence I have presented here are evidence that tends to prove and are a ground for belief.

So based on the evidence I have presented it's very logical, rational, reasonable to believe in Almighty God The Creator!, The Eternal One!

We Read in Scripture:

20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. Romans 1:20 NLT

 

There is only one true God and no other and He is The Christian God, The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit!

We Read in Scripture:

3 God created everything through him,

and nothing was created except through him. John 1:3 NLT

 

I should have said that the snake/serpent was used by Satan to lie to Eve and lead her into disobedience to be more precise/accurate and so I shouldn't have said, "The snake was the devil" it was just stated incorrectly...my bad!

 

That verse in Genesis is referring to The Christian God, the Triune God or the Trinity, consisting of The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit. I usually just refer to the Christian God as Almighty God The Creator.

But anyway let me explain the Trinity.

God is not three entities, nor three beings. God is a trinity of persons consisting of one substance and one essence. God is numerically one. Yet, within the single divine essence are three individual subsistence that we call persons.

The Trinity can be a difficult concept to grasp. But this does not necessitate an argument against its validity. So don't feel bad if you don't grasp it at first.

So there are no other Gods but just one God, the Christian God, the Triune God or the Trinity consisting of the Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit.
Again though I repeat, I usually just refer to the Christian God as Almighty God the Creator.

 

What?...the people wrote Genesis? Genesis was written by Moses...one person. Anyway God told Moses what to write.

And God has always consisted of The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit.

Or you can refer to God as the Trinity, or the Triune, I myself just like to refer to God as Almighty God the Creator.

What is your religion gift if you don't mind me asking?

 

Well not Christians, we believe in only one God, the Christian God, The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit.

 

Satan got booted out of heaven and got sent down here on earth...didn't you get the memo on that? I have no idea what Bible you're reading, it's certainly not the Holy Bible I read.

Satan is going to end up in a hellish place eventually. Right now he is roaming the earth causing havoc and mayhem. He is seeking people to tempt into sin and thus separate from God.

We Read in Scripture:

8 Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8 NLT

 

Mitt, will you please learn some Bible history? You are embarrassing yourself with your silly statements.

The 66 book Bible is only about 140 years old. A couple of English bigots, Westcott & Hort, led the movement to delete 14 books in their English Revised Version (ERV). The Protestants bought into it but the Catholics told them to shove it and kept the original version with 80 books. You are reading the Reader's Digest version.

 

Right - and according to the Bible - the Name of this God is El - God of Abraham.

 

No actually - the verse is referring to the Divine Pantheon -- the council of El referred to in Psalm 82

T

 

The story in Genesis was around long before Moses .. so Even if Moses did pen a new version - it was just a new version of a much older story.

What ever Moses did or did not write w/r to Genesis - was lost - "As we read in Scripture" Presumably the book of the Law was re-discovered during the time of Hosiah around 600 BC .. just prior to the end of the Israel.

Later on under Persia was then the OT Bible was written - and for Genesis they used the story that everyone in the near east believed.

I am a follower of Christ .. what about you ?