Points to Ponder

Similar to what you are doing in the post above.

 

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus gave a lot of commandments that he told his listeners they had to follow. One of the more interesting ones is what he said in Matthew 5:22 (KJV) =
"But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire."

Notice that he didn't say that a person can't be ticked off at someone for a reason. He himself flew off the handle at people when they did something that ticked him off (thus providing a sufficient reason to be angry with them).

Some versions omit the part about "without a cause", which changes the meaning of the commandment completely. But from a practical matter deleting the phrase "without a cause" makes it a better commandment although it puts some of Jesus' actions in a bad light.

Compare the RSVCE version of Matthew 5:22 to the KJV =
"But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire."

When the phrase "without a cause" is deleted the commandment then becomes more supportive of the ones about forgiving people 7 times 70 if they tick you off and loving your neighbor. But, as I said, that version does make Jesus look bad for all of the time he swore at people who ticked him off.

The KJV is like saying that it's OK to smack someone upside the head for stepping on your toes and making you angry instead of forgiving him and not getting angry in the first place like the RSVCE suggests one should behave.

 

My goodness, then let us look at another aspect of what Jesus said. "...his brother..." (quoted in pertinent part). Who is ones brother? Notice also in that last part of His statement, he no longer addresses the subject of "..his brother..", but now sets the accusation against anyone who declares anyone else to be a 'fool'. Well, based on that scripture, there are a couple on this forum who are in such danger.

 

The Bible is always throwing numbers around. Some are large and some are small. But can any of them be trusted? A good example is found in Joshua 15:21-32, which lists the names of cities in Judea and says that they total 29. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua 15:21-32&version=KJV;CJB

Now you can count them for yourself. I did and came up with a total of 38 and not the 29 the writer added up.

Check the numbers and see how many you can come up with.

 

The angels could use a strong union. That God character is one mean boss.

Jude 1:6 (CEV) = "You also know about the angels who didn’t do their work and left their proper places. God chained them with everlasting chains and is now keeping them in dark pits until the great day of judgment."

Employers would love to be able to treat their workers like that. Some do, which is really sad. http://fycharliesangels.tumblr.com/post/27988837137/angels-in-chains-2000

 

According to Isaiah 56:6-7 God is sitting on top of his favorite mountain waiting for people to show up with their burnt offerings and their sacrifices. I'm sure that he's getting ticked off by now since it seems people just aren't into that anymore. The Pope kicks back in the Vatican and the average church goer prefers to sit in a church for an hour or three instead of lugging assorted animals up a mountain and burning them on an altar.

Isaiah 56"6-7 (CEB) = The immigrants who have joined me,
serving me and loving my name,becoming my servants,
everyone who keeps the Sabbath without making it impure,
and those who hold fast to my covenant: I will bring them to my holy mountain, and bring them joy in my house of prayer. I will accept their entirely burned offerings and sacrifices on my altar. My house will be known as a house of prayer for all peoples,

 

The Bible contains a lot of ethnocentric racist stories. The story about the Jesus' encounter with the Canaanite woman told in Matthew 15:21-28 is the most racist of them all. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+15:21-28&version=CEB

The woman, who obviously wasn't a Jew, asked Jesus for his help to cure her daughter. Jesus' disciples asked him to kick her to the curb because she wasn't a member of the clique. Jesus told her that she wasn't his problem because he had been sent only to the Jews and that she was just a dog in his sight. The woman started whining that she was just a worthless dog but that she recognized that the Jews were her masters. Once she admitted that Jesus supposedly cured her daughter.

That story quickly recapped all of the other racist stories in the Bible, ranging from Sarah and Hagar to the bigot Rebekah to the genocides against non-Jews to Jesus as the ultimate racist himself.

The Koran has a whole lot of faults but it doesn't preach overt racism like the Bible does.

 

Seems as though (if your perception were correct) that the actions of Jesus might have rubbed off on you just a wee little bit. You pull the racial card and then turn around and attempt to pit the Jews, Christians and Muslims against one another by placing one above the other. Oh well, looks like racism is alive and doing well.

 

As it says in Matthew 12:33 (ERV) = “If you want good fruit, you must make the tree good. If your tree is not good, it will have bad fruit. A tree is known by the kind of fruit it produces."

It's unfortunate that the writers of the assorted holy books made their books bad and produced rotten fruit.

 

Then there is the old adage that reads: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
It's unfortunate that people living in a secular society have made so many ugly people.

 

Matthew 19:16-22 contains a story about a young rich guy who has an encounter with Jesus. The guy wanted to know what good deed it would take for him to gain eternal life. Jesus rattled of some of the commandments (not all of them). The guy said that he kept all of them. And then Jesus gave him another one, which was to sell all of his possessions and give the money to the poor. The guy drew the line at that one. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19:16-22&version=ESV;NLT;CEV;MSG;CEB

If people are serious about gaining eternal life why don't they do as Jesus told the rich guy to do?

If a poor guy does as Jesus told the rich guy to do does he automatically gain eternal life or does he have to sell whatever he has in order to comply with the instructions?

 

When you find a satisfactory answer to that question, please let me know, because I am one of those 'poor guys' that you speak about. Knowing that information that you find, might save me a bunch of time and energy.

 

The Old Testament has a lot of stories about dummies sacrificing their children to God. The law about having to sacrifice the first born. human or animal, was one of the very first commandments.

Exodus 13:2 (CEB) = "Dedicate to me all your oldest children. Each first offspring from any Israelite womb belongs to me, whether human or animal."

Under one passage the parents could buy the first born back for an unspecified price. If they didn't buy their animals back they had to break their necks.

In Leviticus chapter 27 it gives all kinds of rules for setting values on things people gave to the priests for protection money. Under certain conditions they could buy them back but they could never buy back the first born children or first born animals.

Leviticus 27:28-29 (CEB) = "Also note that everything someone devotes to the Lord from their possessions—whether humans, animals, or pieces of land from their family property—cannot be sold or bought back. Every devoted thing is most holy to the Lord. No human beings that have been devoted can be bought back; they must be executed."

So if the parents turned over their first born child the priests would kill it. That's some sick crap. That trend continues into the Jesus story and his crucifixion. He was a goner from the day he was born. Satan must have been the second child since nothing ever happened to him.

 

Yeppir.... That CEB translation does indeed appear to be some "real sick crap". Must have been written by some new-age non-theist.

 

Generally speaking, the characters in the book of Judges are insane psychopaths and sociopaths. A case in point is the character Jephthah, found in Judges chapters 11-12:1-7 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges+11-12&version=KJV;NLT;CEV;MSG;CEB

Jephthah got off to a rocky start. His mother was a hooker. His half brothers thought they were better than him and kicked him to the curb.
Jephthah then joined a gang of crooks. When his former clan needed help to fight the Ammonites they sucked up to him and put him in charge of their army. As usual they were fighting over land. The Israelites had sticky fingers when they left Egypt and the Ammonites accused them of stealing their land and they wanted the Israelites to peacefully return it to them. So much for that peace plan.

Now this is where Jephthah goes psycho. He makes a vow to God that he will kill whatever or whoever comes out of his house upon his return if he wins the war and offer it or the person as a burned sacrifice. So naturally God sticks it to him and Jephthah's tambourine dancing daughter, his only child, was the first one to pop out the door.

The dummy Jephthah then started shedding crocodile tears about the bargain he had made. His daughter, being a good little sheep, asked for some time to romp with her pals and when she returned home Jephthah killed her and roasted her corpse. He then got to rule the country for another six years before he croaked.

The story is similar to the one about Abraham selling his soul for fame and fortune in return for sacrificing Isaac.

They would have made some good ISIS members. Despicable people.

 

The Bible contains a lot of racist stories which are presented as something good. According to a theory some researchers are working on prejudiced and racist people are just stupid. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wray-herbert/is-racism-just-a-form-of_b_5694894.html

After reading the article I started thinking about the first character in the Bible who exhibited major racist characteristics. Rebekah, Isaac's wife, was a Syrian and she and Isaac were second cousins on both sides. Since Abraham had married his half sister he wanted Isaac, a fully grown man of 37, to marry in the family.

So Issac and Rebekah get hitched and have twin boy, Esau and Jacob. Rebekah spent most of her time plotting against Esau. Rebekah went nuts when Esau didn't marry within the family. She hated the locals and got her dummy husband to force Jacob to go find a relative to marry. By the time Jacob finally got hitched he was around 70 years old. Talk about a mamma's boy.

So it seems that Rebekah was the first overt racist in the Bible because of her prejudice against the local girls. Was she stupid and did her stupidity cause her to be a racist ? Based on the story her whole family was a bunch of dummies. Maybe the researchers can examine the story.

 

Abraham supposedly came from Ur, which is in present day Iraq. He had Syrian relatives. So how did Jacob's kids become Jews?

 

How did early arrivals from Europe become Americans?

 

They stole the land.

 

In Genesis chapter 1 it tells the story of creation. But have you ever read it with a critical eye? It starts off with God making the heavens (whatever they are) and the Earth. He then turns on a light bulb and got day and night and the first day. Now the point to bear in mind is that God hadn't made the sun and the moon at that time.

He then goes on to create water and dry land and all kinds of vegetation. So we now have a lush living planet but no sun or moon.

Then God decides that he needs to fill up the space so he then creates the sun, the moon, and the stars!

Now God is on a roll. He makes sea creatures and birds.

OK, things are humming now so he tries his hand at making land animals and an animal called "man" that looked like God himself. Now this is an important detail because the Bible says that no one has ever seen God. But the creation story says that man was made in God's image. Therefore God must look just like a human!

Isn't Genesis chapter 1 a lovely fairy tale?

 

They does not explain how they became Americans. It only shows your opinion of what they did upon their arrival or shortly thereafter. Stay focused.

 

According to the Noah story Noah loaded up the ark with just animals. It doesn't mention anything about him collecting assorted plants. The flood killed off all of the humans and animals that weren't on the ark. After months floating about Noah sent out a dove that returned with a freshly plucked olive leaf in her mouth.

Now think about that. Olive trees range in height between 15 to 30 feet. So while the flood killed all of the animal life it didn't affect the relatively short olive trees at all They continued to thrive submerged under thousands of feet of brackish water for months with no sunlight. And by the time the dove could find one the water level had dropped from thousands of feet deep to less than 30 feet. Given the weight of the ark it should have been riding low in the water with a draft of between 20 to 30 feet. Therefore, since the height of olive trees range between 15 to 30 feet the ark should have been stuck in the mud at that time.

Oh, and BTW, unless that olive tree was at the very top of the highest mountain Noah would have seen land a long time before the dove brought him the olive leaf.

 

You sure are rough on the fairy tales. Not one of 'em is safe while you're around. LOL.

In all fairness, Noah could have been stuck in a doldrum far beyond sight of land, and we'll have to assume that the land is still near enough for the dove to act like a homing pigeon, and not need to hitch a ride on an albatross.

GPS courtesy of friendly UFOs/USOs.

 

Noah would have been stuck in the mud in whatever doldrum he was in.

 

In Ezekiel chapter 18 the God character is bending Ezekiel's ear with a sermon about how each person is to be responsible for his own acts and not share someone else's guilt. Yet all of that had been neatly summarized in Deuteronomy 24:16 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=deuteronomy 24:16&version=CEB;NLT;CEV;MSG;NKJV. So why did Ezekiel present the sermon as something new when it had been part of the law for who knows how long?
Ezekiel 18:19-20 = https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel 18:19-20&version=CEB;NLT;CEV;MSG;NKJV