quote: SOP. Unless specified otherwise. In any case, you had claimed earlier that we hadn't wiped out the Canaanites, and these were Midianites.
SOP? I am not familiar with that abbreviation.
quote: Hey, now. Slow down. Some men did that. It was hardly "the Israelites" as a group.
Oh in some circumstance I WOULD go so far to say they did it as a group.
"14 And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away. 15 And the LORD said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when thou comest, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria: 16 And Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel: and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room. 17 And it shall come to pass, that him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay: and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay. 18 Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him." (emphasis added)
7000 out of all of Israel? Can you agree that is most likely not a majority?
quote:You've been reading too much Lynn Austin. But yes, they were bad news.
I've never heard of her, I gleaned all my comments of my own study of the scriptures and from supplementary material. At least we agree they were bad news.
quote: He's judging it as though a group of people today were to do the same thing, when God operates in a more hidden way.
"he" as in BlackBlade? I was not sure who you were addressing. Why should God be more subtle now and unable to act openly now as in ancient times? I see the Jews in Israel now to be the fulfillment of many scriptures that predicted this very pattern of events. I expect subsequent events to follow the pattern laid out already.
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quote:I believe the God of the OT and NT still accomplished far more good.
What good does the God of the Old Testament do that is not a cure for something He did in the first place?
Well first define what you mean by "He did in the first place?" For example assuming we accept everything in the scriptures as true are you saying everything that exists as it does in YOUR life is God's will? If I robbed you would that be God's will? Is he responsible for allowing it to happen? Or are you talking about what God does directly? If its directly well theres,
1: Creating humanity 2: Giving humanity its agency 3: Instructing the first humans as to what was right and wrong. As well as teaching them a system of speech and written language. 4: Allowed human beings to reject those teachings and learn for themselves what the results of their decisions are. 5: Provided a way for ALL mankind to overcome the ill effects of sinful behavior. 6: Systematically manifested himself to those who would listen thus preserving these teachings. (The value of this is hard to overstate) 7: Saved the ancient patriarchs are their children from famine. 8: Delivered the patriarchs descendants when their hosts the Egyptians plunged them into slavery 9: Accepted their stubborn and rebellious natures and provided a law wherewith they could be tempered and become a wonderful people.
I have not even covered the entire OT and I still have many other books that all discuss what great things God has done for mankind.
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Yeah, but the universe is a place full of injustice and suffering. Hardly a home run for benevolence.
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1: Creating humanity - This is an unasked-for boon. Would you say that children should be grateful to their parents for the mere fact of their existence?
2: Giving humanity its agency - Humanity wasn't given agency. Humanity stole it and was punished for it. Most charitably, it can be said that humanity paid for agency.
3: Instructing the first humans as to what was right and wrong. As well as teaching them a system of speech and written language. - God enumerates what is "right" and "wrong" with no explanation, and goes to some lengths to keep further knowledge from His children. Additionally, He later sees fit to obfuscate speech and written language once mankind gets too uppity. Indian giver.
4: Allowed human beings to reject those teachings and learn for themselves what the results of their decisions are. - I think you're restating #2, here.
5: Provided a way for ALL mankind to overcome the ill effects of sinful behavior. - Only after He decided what the ill effects of sinful behavior would be, and then declared what would be sinful behavior -- with full knowledge, mind you, of how many people would commit sinful behavior by His definition and be punished according to His punishments.
6: Systematically manifested himself to those who would listen thus preserving these teachings. - But not so systematically that even all the various Judeo-Christian sects agree on them.
7: Saved the ancient patriarchs are their children from famine. - After sending the famine as punishment.
8: Delivered the patriarchs descendants when their hosts the Egyptians plunged them into slavery - After sending them into slavery.
9: Accepted their stubborn and rebellious natures and provided a law wherewith they could be tempered and become a wonderful people. - You think God "accepted" the stubborn rebellion of mankind and "tempered" them into wonderfulness? Or are you speaking purely of the Jews as a chosen people? Bear in mind that we're discussing the Old Testament God, who the last we see of Him is busy driving the Jews out of Israel as punishment for their stubborn rebelliousness.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: The truth does indeed make us better people, but intentional rebellion to that truth makes us the same monsters the devil is, why do we then always blame religion when some of the people we find within it turn out to be terrible people? I expect I'd find the worst humanity has to offer next door to some of the best. Judas was one of Jesus' inner sanctum of 12 followers, Cain was the son of Adam just like Abel. The men who worked the hardest to see Joseph Smith murdered were former members of the church. Satan himself had a very high position, else why would be called, "Son of the Morning?" And yet he turned against God and now seeks to make us all as miserable as he is.
Hello, my name is DevilDreamt, and I am a monster. BB, you have views on the Devil, but I wonder how well you have thought them out?
How certain are you that you know the nature of his fall from grace?
How certain are you that he is a separate entity from God?
How certain are you that he has the freewill to disobey God?
You speak of the Morning Star like he’s some suffering depressed teenager trying to force his twisted view of justice onto innocent humans, lashing out to inflict misery so others will feel the pain he feels and he won’t be so alone.
What are your views based on? The Bible? Look up everything the Word of God has to say about the Devil, and see if you can’t find a different motive for his actions.
Does the Devil fit God’s plan?
Does the Devil alone, in all of existence, have the power to defy God with any real results?
If the Devil does have the power to challenge God, are you so certain you want your God to win? What if the Devil is the only opportunity we’ll ever have to kill God? Are you willing to throw that away?
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Oh, wow! A Golden Compass Satanist! It's cute!
*pats head*
There's something charming about buying into an entire foundational myth and then deliberately choosing the losing side.
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1: Creating humanity - This is an unasked-for boon. Would you say that children should be grateful to their parents for the mere fact of their existence?[/quote]
Yes, they should. I, for one, am grateful both to them and God.
quote:2: Giving humanity its agency - Humanity wasn't given agency. Humanity stole it and was punished for it. Most charitably, it can be said that humanity paid for agency.
You contradict yourself here. Humanity couldn't steal anything if it didn't already have agency.
quote:3: Instructing the first humans as to what was right and wrong. As well as teaching them a system of speech and written language. - God enumerates what is "right" and "wrong" with no explanation, and goes to some lengths to keep further knowledge from His children. Additionally, He later sees fit to obfuscate speech and written language once mankind gets too uppity. Indian giver.
But he still left us speech.
quote:5: Provided a way for ALL mankind to overcome the ill effects of sinful behavior. - Only after He decided what the ill effects of sinful behavior would be, and then declared what would be sinful behavior -- with full knowledge, mind you, of how many people would commit sinful behavior by His definition and be punished according to His punishments.
You slipped from "effects of sinful behavior" to "punishment" here. Makes a big difference.
quote:6: Systematically manifested himself to those who would listen thus preserving these teachings. - But not so systematically that even all the various Judeo-Christian sects agree on them.
Your complaints seem to have a common theme - "God didn't give us everything I think he could have."
quote:7: Saved the ancient patriarchs are their children from famine. - After sending the famine as punishment.
After withholding the grace which was always his to withhold.
quote:8: Delivered the patriarchs descendants when their hosts the Egyptians plunged them into slavery - After sending them into slavery.
After not interfering with free agency and allowing the Egyptians to make them slaves, you mean.
quote:9: Accepted their stubborn and rebellious natures and provided a law wherewith they could be tempered and become a wonderful people. - You think God "accepted" the stubborn rebellion of mankind and "tempered" them into wonderfulness? Or are you speaking purely of the Jews as a chosen people? Bear in mind that we're discussing the Old Testament God, who the last we see of Him is busy driving the Jews out of Israel as punishment for their stubborn rebelliousness.
As opposed to simply allowing them to be destroyed.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: 18 Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him." (emphasis added)
7000 out of all of Israel? Can you agree that is most likely not a majority?
We know that the northern kingdom, having divorced themselves from Jerusalem and the Temple, drifted away from Torah observance. Syncretism (worshipping other deities along with God) was common there.
Most of the words of most of the prophets, when they talk about that kind of sin, are talking about the southern kingdom of Judah, where the numbers were nothing like that.
Also, you were referring to what happened in the desert. You can't use stuff that happened 7 centuries later for that.
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote: He's judging it as though a group of people today were to do the same thing, when God operates in a more hidden way.
"he" as in BlackBlade?
He as in Tom Davidson.
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I was not sure who you were addressing. Why should God be more subtle now and unable to act openly now as in ancient times?
Whoa. "Unable"? God stated Himself that as part of the exile, He would "hide His face" from us. We live in a time of hester panim ("hidden face"), where God operates behind the scenes.
It isn't that God isn't able to act openly now. It's that He has chosen not to. That's a temporary thing.
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I see the Jews in Israel now to be the fulfillment of many scriptures that predicted this very pattern of events. I expect subsequent events to follow the pattern laid out already.
Me too. I suspect we may be talking about different patterns, though.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: 2: Giving humanity its agency - Humanity wasn't given agency. Humanity stole it and was punished for it. Most charitably, it can be said that humanity paid for agency.
That doesn't make any sense. We were created with free will. We didn't "steal" it. Hell, it took free will to eat that fruit. We just used it incorrectly in that case.
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quote:Yes, they should. I, for one, am grateful both to them and God.
I am not grateful to my parents for having sex. I'm grateful to them for raising me. The mere act of creation isn't that impressive.
quote:Humanity couldn't steal anything if it didn't already have agency.
If free will is not the ability to act contrary to the desires of God, what is it? The first time it was exercised, all of mankind was punished for it. You're saying that we should be grateful to God for giving us a "gift" that actually results in all the sorrow in the world, and is directly responsible for any personal damnation. It's a dollar bill with a string on it, and the string's tied to a scorpion.
quote:But he still left us speech.
Which language do you think we owe to God?
quote:You slipped from "effects of sinful behavior" to "punishment" here. Makes a big difference.
What "effects of sinful behavior" are not direct or indirect consequences of God's condemnation of sin, from a Catholic POV?
quote:Your complaints seem to have a common theme - "God didn't give us everything I think he could have."
No kidding. He's God. He created the Universe, or so it's said. If He's no more useful to your average person than a hypothetical dotty, wealthy uncle living under an assumed name in Monte Carlo, I think it's reasonable to ask why. Heck, some of the authors of Psalms agree with me. *grin*
quote:After withholding the grace which was always his to withhold....After not interfering with free agency and allowing the Egyptians to make them slaves, you mean.
Well, no. But if you're going to call "sending a famine" "withholding grace that was His to withhold," I'm not sure that we'll find a common perspective on that one. Were the floodwaters of Heaven His to hold back?
quote:As opposed to simply allowing them to be destroyed.
You're saying that was God's only other option?
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quote:I am not grateful to my parents for having sex. I'm grateful to them for raising me. The mere act of creation isn't that impressive.
This actually explains a lot about our differing worldviews.
quote:If free will is not the ability to act contrary to the desires of God, what is it? The first time it was exercised, all of mankind was punished for it.
You think the only exercise of agency was eating the fruit? I'd like to know what you base the unstated premise that nothing done prior to the fall was by the conscious choice of the people involved.
quote:Which language do you think we owe to God?
All of them.
quote:What "effects of sinful behavior" are not direct or indirect consequences of God's condemnation of sin, from a Catholic POV?
Too much to go into right now in detail, and from past experience it won't be fruitful, anyway. But the key is separation from God. Adam and Eve didn't hide from God because they were afraid of punishment. They hid because they were ashamed. They voluntarily separated themselves from God after eating the fruit.
To paraphrase Chesterton, the question isn't why did we have to refrain from eating the fruit to stay in the garden. The question is why did we get to be in the garden at all.
quote:No kidding. He's God. He created the Universe, or so it's said. If He's no more useful to your average person than a hypothetical dotty, wealthy uncle living under an assumed name in Monte Carlo, I think it's reasonable to ask why. Heck, some of the authors of Psalms agree with me. *grin*
"No more useful"? When's the last time a wealthy uncle gave you life, the capacity for speech, the ability to reason, the ability to love.
quote:Well, no. But if you're going to call "sending a famine" "withholding grace that was His to withhold," I'm not sure that we'll find a common perspective on that one.
Can you cite the passage in reference to the famine? You're getting into specifics, and that won't work if I don't know where you're getting the specifics from - precisely.
quote:You're saying that was God's only other option?
No, and you know perfectly well I didn't say anything to suggest that.
I'm saying you are acting under the assumption that God should give you more than he has if he is to be considered good or just. Yet you haven't said why, exactly. Israel had God's special protection. It was withdrawn, to an extent. That's different than "driving them out." Yet even in the course of all this, God has preserved the Jewish people.
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quote:You think the only exercise of agency was eating the fruit? I'd like to know what you base the unstated premise that nothing done prior to the fall was by the conscious choice of the people involved.
Are you confusing consciousness with agency? Angels are supposedly conscious. The ability to think is not the ability to act independently; that independence only has value insofar as it is used contrary to the will of God.
quote: "Which language do you think we owe to God?" All of them.
I'm assuming you also think that all animals capable of speech or learning speech -- like, say, Koko -- have also received this from God?
You basically go on to give God credit for all the fruits of the human mind: love, reason, etc. As far as I'm concerned, this is part and parcel of the "creation" bit: if you made us, fine. Big whoop. But if you then slap us down and withdraw those gifts -- life, language, etc. -- whenever we act in the fashion we were made, but contrary to your own desires, you've done us no measurable favor. What you're ultimately saying, from my perspective, is that existence is always preferable to the alternative, regardless of the quality of that existence, and that the mere fact of existence justifies infinite gratitude. I suspect you respect your parents considerably more than I respect mine.
quote:I'm saying you are acting under the assumption that God should give you more than he has if he is to be considered good or just.
Absolutely. You've got to earn the title "good" from me. You can't spend six days in the metaphorical closet with Eve from Marketing and then declare that it's not only your right but an essential good to beat the crap out of any resulting children.
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quote:Are you confusing consciousness with agency? Angels are supposedly conscious. The ability to think is not the ability to act independently; that independence only has value insofar as it is used contrary to the will of God.
OK, by that strained and basically useless (to this discussion) definition, there was no exercise of agency until the fall. You've defined yourself into correctness.
Agency absolutely exists within the will of God.
quote:You basically go on to give God credit for all the fruits of the human mind: love, reason, etc. As far as I'm concerned, this is part and parcel of the "creation" bit: if you made us, fine. Big whoop. But if you then slap us down and withdraw those gifts -- life, language, etc. -- whenever we act in the fashion we were made, but contrary to your own desires, you've done us no measurable favor.
You've done no favors for Sophie when you haven't let her eat whatever she wants? That's not a sustainable premise at all.
You are owed nothing. You, in fact, were nothing. Until the very moment of your creation. Now you have many things - all essentially gifts, either directly given or achieved by you by gifts that you had no part in making.
quote:What you're ultimately saying, from my perspective, is that existence is always preferable to the alternative, regardless of the quality of that existence, and that the mere fact of existence justifies infinite gratitude.
I didn't say "infinite gratitude" nor did I say that existence is preferable to non-existence. I do believe that existence only becomes preferable to non-existence through choice made by the existee.
quote:Absolutely. You've got to earn the title "good" from me. You can't spend six days in the metaphorical closet with Eve from Marketing and then declare that it's not only your right but an essential good to beat the crap out of any resulting children.
No, I can't. I'm not God. Beyond that, any creation I participate in is secondary - that is, derived from things given to me and not earned - and incomplete. It's entirely different from someone who literally gave you every single thing you have, have ever had, or will have.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Genocide is an extremely misleading word in this instance. They left the virginal women alive did they not? They didn't target this group of people BECAUSE of their ethnicity, they targeted their religion. If anything it should be called theocide, as they burned all their idols too. The rationale for killing the non virginal women was that they as a group invited Israelites to participate in their fertility rites, and this included having sex in the presence of idols.
On the contrary, genocide is the most fitting word for it. Consider the internationally recognized definition of it: link
quote: ...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
How could such an act not be classified as genocide? AFAIK, they qualify as a religious group and the Israelite war criminals inflicted all of a) through d).
Cruelly ironic considering that the convention was coined as a response to the Holocaust, a genocide targeted at the descendants of the Israelites.
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quote:You basically go on to give God credit for all the fruits of the human mind: love, reason, etc. As far as I'm concerned, this is part and parcel of the "creation" bit: if you made us, fine. Big whoop. But if you then slap us down and withdraw those gifts -- life, language, etc. -- whenever we act in the fashion we were made, but contrary to your own desires, you've done us no measurable favor.
You've done no favors for Sophie when you haven't let her eat whatever she wants? That's not a sustainable premise at all.
You are owed nothing. You, in fact, were nothing. Until the very moment of your creation. Now you have many things - all essentially gifts, either directly given or achieved by you by gifts that you had no part in making.
Wow. So God is like the ultimate deadbeat dad. Most deadbeat fathers can only aspire to skipping the occasional child support payment. This God in fact owes nothing and has no responsibility to raising his own creation.
In fact whatever things that a normal parent would have to give to their children in the normal course of their development (teaching reason, speech, language) if only through the mandatory school system, your God expects it to count as a gift, for which we should be thankful.
And on top of it all, while even the worse deadbeat father can only beat his child, God directly murders hundreds of his own children and orders the genocide of thousands more.
If this God truly existed, we should take out the celestial equivalent of a restraining order ASAP.
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quote:If free will is not the ability to act contrary to the desires of God, what is it?
We are given freedoms in America. Quite a few actually. I can disagree with the President. I can object to a lot of things about the government. However, my indepenence is limited. I cannot kill the President. I cannot sabotage the government if I don't agree with the way it handles matters. I cannot obstruct a government investigation. Those limitations do not diminish the value of my freedoms. I'm not sure why it would be any different with God. Free will with certain limitations is still free will.
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quote:Wow. So God is like the ultimate deadbeat dad. Most deadbeat fathers can only aspire to skipping the occasional child support payment. This God in fact owes nothing and has no responsibility to raising his own creation.
Nope. If you want to discuss things with me, don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say any such thing.
If you want to twist what I say and make crap up, then I have better things to do.
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: How could such an act not be classified as genocide? AFAIK, they qualify as a religious group and the Israelite war criminals inflicted all of a) through d).
The world is different now. At the time, we killed only those who posed a clear and present danger. They would not be considered, in modern terms, as having posted such a clear and present danger, yet they did at the time. We had fresh Israelite corpses to remind us of that fact.
Understand, you're talking about a different world entirely. Today, if people attack us spiritually, it's just talk. Back then, when they attacked us spiritually, we died. You can't apply modern laws, defined for modern situations, to an utterly different context.
If my saying, "Jim is an ass" had the tracable effect of making Jim develop pneumonia, the laws of free speech would be a lot different than they are, because speech wouldn't be just "sticks and stones". Context matters, and you're dropping it.
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The Jewish Sages of Hillel's school debated for a number of years the question of whether it was better for Man that God created us or whether it would have been better had He not created us.
Their determination in the end was that it would have been better for us had we not been created, but since we were created, we should behave rightly.
quote:You've done no favors for Sophie when you haven't let her eat whatever she wants? That's not a sustainable premise at all.
If I put a poison-laced cake down in front of my daughter, leave her in the company of someone who's telling her that it's a yummy cake, and walk away, I have done her no favors.
quote:Now you have many things - all essentially gifts, either directly given or achieved by you by gifts that you had no part in making.
This is a premise I do not accept.
quote:I didn't say "infinite gratitude" nor did I say that existence is preferable to non-existence.
If everything I am and everything I have is owed directly to the Godhead, what could I possibly not feel grateful for? How could He wrong me? You even go on to say "It's entirely different from someone who literally gave you every single thing you have, have ever had, or will have." This is, as far as I can tell, infinite gratitude: "I will forgive you anything, God, because you birthed me."
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quote:However, my indepenence is limited. I cannot kill the President. I cannot sabotage the government if I don't agree with the way it handles matters. I cannot obstruct a government investigation. Those limitations do not diminish the value of my freedoms.
Yes, they do; you just don't realize it because you drew the analogy badly. Are you free to criticize the President, if the consequence of that criticism is jail? What if the President gets to decide what the consequence is? How free are you to cross the street if it has been decided by someone else that you must cross the street blindfolded and backwards, wearing a clown nose, or be shot dead by Boy Scouts?
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quote:Back then, when they attacked us spiritually, we died.
Lisa, if and when a Sanhedrin is ever re-established, will this again be true?
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quote:If I put a poison-laced cake down in front of my daughter, leave her in the company of someone who's telling her that it's a yummy cake, and walk away, I have done her no favors.
You left out the warning.
quote:This is a premise I do not accept.
Whether you accept it or not, it's true. While your effort was necessary for some of the things you've achieved, it was sufficient for none of them. Your entire ability to exert effort is based on something that was given to you. The fact that we live in a universe where effort can have permanent effect is basedon something you had nothing to do with.
quote:If everything I am and everything I have is owed directly to the Godhead, what could I possibly not feel grateful for? How could He wrong me? You even go on to say "It's entirely different from someone who literally gave you every single thing you have, have ever had, or will have." This is, as far as I can tell, infinite gratitude: "I will forgive you anything, God, because you birthed me."
The infinity of the thing given does not automatically mean that the gratitude is infinite.
quote:Yes, they do; you just don't realize it because you drew the analogy badly. Are you free to criticize the President, if the consequence of that criticism is jail? What if the President gets to decide what the consequence is? How free are you to cross the street if it has been decided by someone else that you must cross the street blindfolded and backwards, wearing a clown nose, or be shot dead by Boy Scouts?
It wouldn't diminish your agency; it would make it so that you are less willing to exercise your agency in a particular fashion.
"Freedom" and "free will" are very different things.
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quote:The infinity of the thing given does not automatically mean that the gratitude is infinite.
So at what point do you believe that it would be an appropriate response for someone to no longer feel grateful to God?
quote:It wouldn't diminish your agency; it would make it so that you are less willing to exercise your agency in a particular fashion.
Right. Which is why I'm saying "agency" is a meaningless gift; it's useful ONLY when acting in a way contrary to God's desires, which is not only punished by God but presumably non-optimal in the first place.
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quote:Back then, when they attacked us spiritually, we died.
Lisa, if and when a Sanhedrin is ever re-established, will this again be true?
It isn't related to the Sanhedrin. At least not so far as we're aware.
Basically, there's an event described by almost all of the prophets as the "Day of the Lord". Sometimes as the "Great and Awesome Day of the Lord". It's going to be so huge that it will overshadow the Exodus as the pivotal event in our history. It comes at the end of the war known as the War of Gog and Magog (which is a misnomer, really, because that sounds like a fight between Gog and Magog, when Gog is the ruler of Magog).
Every Jew who says kaddish is, knowingly or unknowingly, praying for this event to happen as soon as possible.
It's going to be an event so blatantly obvious that it will be clear to everyone that God did it. We know some few details. There are going to be a lot of dead bodies laying around Israel, which will have belonged previously to foreign soldiers on their way to Jerusalem. There's going to be fresh water coming out of the Temple Mount, and there's going to be some major seismic craziness. Two mountain ranges in Israel are going to slam into one another, and if there's one place I don't want to be when all of this goes down, it's a place called Shaar HaGai, near Beit Shemesh.
But in terms of what's going to happen afterwards? Beats me. Will things be all miraculous again? I guess we'll find out when it happens. There are differing views. Will the lion lay down with the lamb literally? Or will the nations of the world just stop hating Jews?
Maimonides wrote that there is no difference between this world and the days of the Messiah except for the end of oppression by the nations of the world. Others disagree.
There are also no firm chronological views. Will the Sanhedrin be reestablished before the Messiah comes, or vice versa? Will the War of Gog and Magog precede the Messiah, or vice versa? There's going to be a mass resurrection of the Jewish dead. Will this happen before or after any of the above? We know that Elijah the prophet, who never died, is supposed to show up prior to the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord (the last couple of verses of Malachi, if I'm not mistaken), and Jewish tradition sees him as the herald of the Messiah, so that's some information. But it looks an awful lot like most of the details will only become apparent once events have transpired.
On the other hand, if you read the link I posted in the Ask the Rebbetzin thread (linky, you can see that I think the reestablishment of the Sanhedrin is a major piece in the puzzle.
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quote:So at what point do you believe that it would be an appropriate response for someone to no longer feel grateful to God?
You should feel grateful to God. That's my point.
quote:Right. Which is why I'm saying "agency" is a meaningless gift; it's useful ONLY when acting in a way contrary to God's desires, which is not only punished by God but presumably non-optimal in the first place.
It is not meaningless when not being used contrary to the will of God. The will of God does not mean everyone does the same thing all the time. There are infinite possibilities within the will of God, and it is agency that allows us to choose among them.
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quote:You should feel grateful to God. That's my point.
So, to reiterate this, there is nothing that God could do to you that should obviate the need for gratitude? And the only reason you don't want to call this "infinite" gratitude is that you don't believe we humans have the capacity to express infinite gratitude?
quote:There are infinite possibilities within the will of God, and it is agency that allows us to choose among them.
So what's the point of having possibilities that contradict the will of God? Remember that God created those possibilities according to your theology, too.
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quote: Basically, there's an event described by almost all of the prophets as the "Day of the Lord". Sometimes as the "Great and Awesome Day of the Lord". It's going to be so huge that it will overshadow the Exodus as the pivotal event in our history. ... It's going to be an event so blatantly obvious that it will be clear to everyone that God did it. ... Maimonides wrote that there is no difference between this world and the days of the Messiah except for the end of oppression by the nations of the world. Others disagree.
At least it will be blatantly obvious for a few years. If Maimonides is right (never heard of him), how long before the events are just called myth again and people start hating Jews again? Given the history of your people, it doesn't sound like something he describes would be a very long term solution, which I would expect the coming of your Messiah to be.
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quote:So, to reiterate this, there is nothing that God could do to you that should obviate the need for gratitude?
No. I don't know where you're getting this from. God could do a lot of things.
quote:So what's the point of having possibilities that contradict the will of God? Remember that God created those possibilities according to your theology, too.
There's a lot of different possibilities for the reason, none of which I can do justice to here. But I find it conceivable that you can't think of some yourself, even if you disagree with them.
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quote:No. I don't know where you're getting this from. God could do a lot of things.
Like...? Specifically, what could God do to you that would make you no longer grateful for your existence?
quote:But I find it conceivable that you can't think of some yourself, even if you disagree with them.
Can't think of a one, if we're assuming an omnipotent and omniscient God. He's not going to learn anything by turning us loose, and we're not going to learn anything that He couldn't put in our brains in the first place.
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Tom, just so you don't look for a reply, I'm done with this conversation. We're clearly talking about two very different things and I don't have the energy to untangle it.
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Dag, Take for example a baby that is born with a condition that means that all their brief life they are going to be consumed with agony. Should they be grateful to God for that?
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quote:So at what point do you believe that it would be an appropriate response for someone to no longer feel grateful to God?
You should feel grateful to God. That's my point.
For a lot of things, yes. But Tom has a point. We're grateful to God for creating food for us to eat. But then, He created us with a need for food in the first place. If someone were to view that as sort of hobbling us, it could be seen as cause for less than gratitude.
For example, if I own a slave and I keep that slave chained with a collar around his neck, would the slave owe me gratitude if I were to give him a cloth to place between the collar and his neck, in order to prevent chafing? I don't have to give him that cloth, and he couldn't get it without me. So should he be grateful when I give it to him? Or might he not complain that I didn't have to collar him in the first place?
God could have created us without the need to eat. I'm not questioning why He didn't do so. I assume He had good and sufficient reasons for it. Tom, though, isn't willing to make that kind of assumption. Without an explanation for it, he isn't willing to give God the benefit of the doubt.
Most of the time, when my daughter (who will be 7 next month) asks me why I won't let her do X or have Y, I explain it to her. But sometimes, it's something she just isn't going to understand. Or worse, it's something where the true explanation will give her false impressions. In such a case, I do resort to "because I said so". That doesn't mean I don't have a reason, or that my reasons aren't good. It means that there's a huge gap between a 43 year old parent and a 6 year old child, and she just isn't always going to understand the whys.
There's an even bigger gap, though, between us and God.
I know that's not a satisfying answer to a lot of people. Just like most kids go through a period where it's not acceptable to them to get an answer of "because I said so" from their parents any more. Trying to convince someone who is coming from Tom's stated position that God knows what He's doing and that He's doing things for the best, even if we can't always understand it, is about as useless as telling an adolescent that his parents really do have good reasons for the rules they impose.
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quote: Basically, there's an event described by almost all of the prophets as the "Day of the Lord". Sometimes as the "Great and Awesome Day of the Lord". It's going to be so huge that it will overshadow the Exodus as the pivotal event in our history. ... It's going to be an event so blatantly obvious that it will be clear to everyone that God did it. ... Maimonides wrote that there is no difference between this world and the days of the Messiah except for the end of oppression by the nations of the world. Others disagree.
At least it will be blatantly obvious for a few years. If Maimonides is right (never heard of him), how long before the events are just called myth again and people start hating Jews again? Given the history of your people, it doesn't sound like something he describes would be a very long term solution, which I would expect the coming of your Messiah to be.
That's the thing. Yes, we're stubborn. Like mules, the bunch of us. It's a double-edged sword. It's the reason we've managed to preserve His Torah all this time, and it's the reason we've gotten in so much trouble with Him so often.
But this is supposed to be the finale. <shrug> I'm not sure what's going to do the trick, but I assume God has some ideas.
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quote:I am not grateful to my parents for having sex. I'm grateful to them for raising me. The mere act of creation isn't that impressive.
While I think I agree with your general point, I am grateful not only for being raised by my parents but also for my mother enduring nine months of discomfort and pain to bring me in to existence. I am also grateful for being wanted. While having sex isn't all that impressive, enduring many of the consequences is.
The conversation has progressed since I was last online, but below are my responses to BlackBlade.
quote:Can you really read that and get the impression that the God of the OT is not the same sort of being that Jesus is?
While none of the things that Jesus did were evil, or to my recollection even bad, I do not have trouble with the concept that Jesus and the God of the OT are the same sort of being. I find many of Jesus' teachings to focus on the same obey or pay mentality as the God of the Old Testament
quote:completely discount the efforts of the force that has declared war on God. God is interested in letting us be agents unto ourselves and his enemy is interested in enslaving us and blaming God for it.
Why do we pretend he is not a big part in any equation?
The biggest thing that Satan is credited for is turning hearts against God. From the descriptions of this God, I'm not sure that that's such a horrible thing. The Satan part of the equation is irrelevant to me unless God appears to be an entity worthy of worship.
quote:You CAN'T say and do everything yourself, you are God, you must allow people to exercise their agency, you can't just be ever present right in front of them as then they do not really have much to decide on.
I don't see a conflict between the exercise of agency and the ability to have physical evidence of my existence. Think about almost anything secular that you make choices about- your job, your clothes, contaceptives, what tv you watch, etc. Does the knowledge of various options/ truths limmit your ability to choose something else? I believe that knowledge is power.
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quote:Trying to convince someone who is coming from Tom's stated position that God knows what He's doing and that He's doing things for the best, even if we can't always understand it, is about as useless as telling an adolescent that his parents really do have good reasons for the rules they impose.
I think it is more that there is no reason to believe that your God is actually a good entity and that the only way to excuse the realyl horrible behavior he engages in is to say "Oh, we just don't understand."
Malicious adults manipulate children all the time by preying on their trusting nature. In so far as I can judge, your God is an evil being. So I don't just trust that there are actually reasons that make him good.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Dag, Take for example a baby that is born with a condition that means that all their brief life they are going to be consumed with agony. Should they be grateful to God for that?
Not just for that, but their existence as a whole - including an eternity of perfect natural happiness - is certainly something to be grateful for. And it's possible that, from the perspective of that eternal natural happiness, their might be something in the suffering to be grateful for.
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quote:I think it is more that there is no reason to believe that your God is actually a good entity and that the only way to excuse the realyl horrible behavior he engages in is to say "Oh, we just don't understand."
You're clearly overstating your case, Mr. Squicky. No reason? You can't even think of one reason why God might be good? Even as a potential reason, not one you agree with?
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I wasn't talking about Jews forgetting so much as the rest of the world. Sorry I didn't get that across very well. I was also mildly curious about the POV that not much would change before the coming as to after. It seems like it would be a bigger deal than that. *shrug*
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Oh, wow! A Golden Compass Satanist! It's cute!
*pats head*
There's something charming about buying into an entire foundational myth and then deliberately choosing the losing side.
I don't know how to feel about your comment. It is condescending, but you seem so pleased by my obscure world view that I'm not sure what to do.
I'll be a little annoyed that you called me "cute" and patted my head, but trust that you seriously think it's charming.
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I wasn't talking about Jews forgetting so much as the rest of the world. Sorry I didn't get that across very well. I was also mildly curious about the POV that not much would change before the coming as to after. It seems like it would be a bigger deal than that. *shrug*
Well... a pretty large chunk of the rest of the world isn't going to survive the Day of the Lord. It seems that either 2/3 or 8/9 of the world's population is going to get wiped out that day. That's the kind of thing that makes an impression on the survivors.
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quote:I'll ... trust that you seriously think it's charming.
I do. I find Satanism utterly, inherently unworkable (and completely inconsistent), but am endlessly and absolutely fascinated by the ways people try to make Satanism work for them. It requires a level of abstraction that's quite interesting.
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quote:Trying to convince someone who is coming from Tom's stated position that God knows what He's doing and that He's doing things for the best, even if we can't always understand it, is about as useless as telling an adolescent that his parents really do have good reasons for the rules they impose.
I think it is more that there is no reason to believe that your God is actually a good entity and that the only way to excuse the realyl horrible behavior he engages in is to say "Oh, we just don't understand."
Malicious adults manipulate children all the time by preying on their trusting nature. In so far as I can judge, your God is an evil being. So I don't just trust that there are actually reasons that make him good.
When I was 17, it occurred to me that I was a person, and my parents were people. I wasn't an incompetant or an infant, so why were their opinions of any greater value than mine? Greater life experience isn't a lock on being correct, after all. Hell, the first time I was right in a dispute with a teacher, I was probably 8.
I was insufferable.
A couple of years later, when I'd pretty much recovered, I was visiting my family from college, and in the middle of dinner, my brother (2 years younger than me, so he was 17 at this point) started ranting about how he was just as much a person as our parents, and how what he thought was just as right as what they thought.
Sometimes, you can only see yourself in a mirror years later, and with a person as the mirror. This was one of those times. I turned to my Dad, after my brother had flounced out of the room, and said, dead serious, "I am so sorry. I wish there was something I could say to him." But there wasn't. He had to get through it himself, and of course, he did.
There was a period of human history when we listened to God the way a little child listens to his parents. Blind love and acceptance. And for a couple of centuries, we've been going through the equivalent of adolescent rebellion. The whole "god is dead" schtick. I'm hoping that on the other side, we'll come out with an adult respect for God, and an acknowledgement of our place relative to Him, and His relative to us. Obedience, sure, but not the old blind sort.
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quote:Obedience, sure, but not the old blind sort.
What do we have to offer God beyond blind obedience? Do you think we can surprise Him, or offer Him new perspectives?
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Lisa, You didn't actually answer my post. I get that there may be entities that know more than we do. That's not really an issue. What I'm saying is, how do we know that they are good? From what I can see, your God is pretty clearly evil. Why should I trust that he is not?
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Wait, if whether He needed them or lacked them is relevant, then you need to demonstrate a need or lack of blind obedience.
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