Part 10 of Post Your Tough Questions Regarding Christianity

Which is probably why the word "we" is used in Genesis and other books when God talks about itself, strongly implying polytheism.

However, that is another little something Christians refuse to address.

 

"New covenant" theology has been rejected by the vast majority of Christianity. It was something made up/adopted by Evangelicals to try and mitigate the many contradictions between modern religious dogma and the old testament.

Making things up and attributing them to God is common for Evangelicals who claim to speak to and hence for God on a regular basis.

Since these folks speaking to/for God seem to have a better relationship with God than the Pope himself, perhaps the rest of Christianity should not be rejecting the this New Covenant theology.

 

Well, not all Christians. It is not secret among religious scholars that the Israelites were polytheistic. The Bible itself states this, particularly before the time of Moses.

Abraham was born in Ur and his father believed in the Sumerian Gods. So did Abraham for much of his life. It is no coincidence that the Sumerian creation stories parallel Genesis and the story of Sargon of Akkad (united the city states of Mesopotamia/Sumeria into the worlds first empire in 2400 AD) parallels the story of Moses (Sargon was put in the river in a Basket as a child, was plucked out, had an encounter with a Goddess benefactor and rose to become king of an empire).

In the story in Genesis God says "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness"

The reason given for putting Adam and Eve out of the Garden is "Lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and become like us"

Adam had gained the knowledge of the Gods and had the likeness of the Gods .... if he would gain eternal life he would then be like a God.

In the most pathetic of apologies some will claim .... God is referring to the trinity. No legitimate scholar accepts his because the people who wrote the story had no knowledge of the Trinity and were polytheists.

Even if they would have been monotheistic they never would have used such terms without explanation.

In any case .. Genesis is a retelling of the Sumerian Creation story and the story of Moses is a retelling of he story of Sargon.

The God of creation is El (creator God) whose consort is Asherah and one of his Sons is Baal.

El is mentioned as the head of the council of Gods in a couple of places in the Bible. http://www.jhsonline.org/Articles/article_144.pdf

El is the god of Genesis, the God of Abrahams father and likely the God of Abraham.

 

If that is what you believe go ahead and say it...you are free to express your beliefs, why would you find it necessary to ask me such a question?

So do you believe Brahma created everything? Don't worry I'm not going to ask you to prove it to me...lol

I don't play silly games like those atheists play...lol

 

As a further to my previous comments. The Israelites when in Egypt are still worshiping El at the time of Moses. (El is associated with the Bull .. Bull El)

When Moses takes off for a couple weeks his own Brother Aaron has the Israelites pool their Gold and they make a golden Calf .. for the worship of El/Asherah.

Joshua 24 states:

Not only did Abrahams father worship the Sumerian pantheon, these were also the Gods of the Israelites while in Egypt. Interesting that they did not adopt the Egyptian Gods but kept their own cultural Gods ... El his consort Asherah and son Baal.

Only a few decades after Joshua's death the Israelites return to their normal worship practices .. El et al.

Monotheism is not adopted until 800 years or so later when the Persians free the Israelites from Babylonian captivity. The Persians were monotheistic (Zoroastrianism) and the Israelites adopted Persian beliefs.

This was the period when the Bible was edited with the perspective that there downfall was because of worshiping other Gods.

 

I have no idea when God created Adam for God never told us in Scripture and so I refuse to speculate.

And so where did you get this "roughly 6000 years ago as the Bible states"?

My Bible doesn't state that...does yours?...lol

 

The Bible never actually says anything about the age of the earth. This is based off a strict literal interpretation of the Bible.

 

It's based off a wrong literal interpretation of the Bible....IMHO!

 

To deny anything written in Scripture would be the same as calling God a liar. That would be blasphemous. The Bible as we know it is the Word of God!

 

Well...we know from various forms of Radiometric Dating that the age of the Earth is 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years which is a very accurate calculation.

Now as far as how old the Universe is....In 2012, WMAP estimated the age of the universe to be 13.772 billion years, with an uncertainty of 59 million years. In 2013, Planck measured the age of the universe at 13.82 billion years. Both of these fall within the lower limit of 11 billion years independently derived from the globular clusters, and both have smaller uncertainties than that number.

Now some people use what they can read in the Bible to come up with an Earth that is less than 6000 years old.

Anyone with half a brain knows this number to be ridiculously too low in the extreme.

As well Humanity has been around for about 5 Million Years.

The story of Adam and Eve is just that...a nice STORY....as it is impossible for two people to have enough Genetic Diversity to populate a planet as the amount of various Genomes Mapped and the amount of information DNA and RNA specific stored could not originate from only 2 people.

As well after just 2 or 3 generations such inbreeding would make any new children sterile.

AboveAlpha

 

They feared for their lives and their lack in faith in God, for He told them they would be victorious but because of their lack of faith in God, He made them wander in the desert for 40 yrs. until the very last one of those faithless cowards died off, then and only then did God permit the Israelites to enter the Promise Land that He promised them.

 

You specifically posted.. He made them wander in the desert for 40 yrs. until the very last one of those faithless cowards died off....end quote Mitt Ryan.

Now...does anyone else beside me here see Mitt to be both Judging the value of Human life as well as taking the time to very specifically label a race of people Faithless and Cowards?

THIS....is the kind of behavior I find not only extremely distasteful but as well contrary to the teachings of Jesus.

AboveAlpha.

 

What's the matter can't handle the truth? Like they say "if you can't handle the heat get out of the kitchen."

 

If you are referring to a Christian Bible it certainly does. You should read Genesis sometime. It gives the number of years for each generation and you just need to add them up. Here is a link for you. http://www.creationtoday.org/tag/age-of-the-earth/

 

As I stated earlier. The majority of Christianity does no believe in scriptural inerrancy. The Bible has been changed over the years by the hand of man ... many times.

Some books of the Bible may well have been the inspired word of God ... who knows. What we do know for sure is that the oldest Bibles have a large number of differences from todays Bible. Seminaries (real ones as opposed to the on-line evangelical kind) teach that the Bible has been altered and we know why.

One example is Christ crying tears of Blood. This is a known interpolation/addition of an overzealous copyist wanting to show the humanity of Christ. Some things were added, some things were edited out to make the Bible better conform to the dogma of the day.

These things are not even questioned by real religious scholars which is why the vast majority of Christianity (basically everyone but the wingnut evangelicals who make things up as hey go along) do not subscribe to Biblical inerrancy.

- - - Updated - - -

Quit cherry picking my posts.

 

Good one.

What puzzles me is why God could not give the Promised Land He promised to the Israelites, and not allow the deaths of millions of people, Hebrews and Gentiles.

In fact, the modern thinking, evidenced by the lack of evidence for the forceful entry into Palestine, is that the takeover was more a gradual one.
The books of Joshua and Judges both present different views. Judges shows a slow takeover of Palestine, while Joshua a forceful one. Joshua's account makes no real sense as most of the cities Joshua 'conquered' were already in ruins or empty, and some had been for centuries.

And how did around 2,000,000 Hebrews survive in the desert for '40' years (a generation). How many million quail, tons of manna, lakes of water would be needed. How much space would be needed to house a population twice that of Birmingham (England), ten times the size of Alabama's largest city - Birmingham (USA).

 

Can you handle the truth? See #616

 

But you claim God programmed each of us like a computer....hahaha! Don't stop with the comedy I get a good chuckle from your posts.

 

You know Mitt....I know you can neither see it or understand it or even realize that you are doing it....but if Jesus was in the same room as you and read what you posted he would TELL YOU....that you are NOT either following his teachings or doing ANYTHING other than distancing yourself with the Word of GOD.

I am an Agnostic and I KNOW I am and always will be closer to both understanding and living by the teachings of Jesus than you will ever be.

You just don't get it.

Whether or not Jesus was the son of GOD is irrelevant...and whether a person believed he was the son of GOD is not important as well as Jesus himself basically conveyed this message.

Jesus made sure to NOT DRIVE OTHERS AWAY FROM HIS TEACHINGS by placing unrealistic CONDITIONS upon people who required more proof or evidence that he was the son of GOD....as Jesus KNEW....even if people did not believe in HIM....they would believe in what he did or stood for or taught.

Now you and others like you are calling yourselves Christians and stating you follow the teachings of Jesus when that is exactly THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU DO!!!

Let's make a small list shall we of things Jesus made sure to teach.
Jesus taught....
COMPASSION.
FORGIVENESS.
LOVE.
EMPATHY.
INCLUSIVENESS.
NON-VIOLENT PROTEST.
LOVING AND UNDERSTANDING YOUR FELLOW MAN BE IT YOUR FRIEND, NEIGHBOR, ENEMY OR SINNER.
NOT TO JUDGE.
TO BE GENEROUS.
TO GIVE ANOTHER RESOURCES WHEN THEY WERE IN NEED NO MATTER WHO THEY WERE.
NOT TO CAST STONES OR INSULTS OR BLAME OR DISCRIMINATE OR ABUSE THOSE YOU DISLIKE.
THAT ALL PEOPLE NO MATTER THEIR STATUS OR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS HOLD THE SAME VALUE.
THAT FOR ANY OF JESUS'S FOLLOWERS TO CONDEMN OTHERS WHO WERE NOT WAS NOT GODS WAY.

I could go on....but I HOPE you get the idea.

AboveAlpha

 

Look...I am an EXPERT in Jungle, Arctic, Ocean and Desert Survival.

People back then were NOT IDIOTS and were perfectly capable of using the Stars and other celestial bodies to calculate direction and IT IS IMPOSSIBLE for them to have gotten LOST in the Desert for 40 years.

Now....a Human Being as long as that person has adequate water supplies...and does not even need food...can easily walk 50 to 70 miles of desert at night.....and a person could EASILY without any food as long as they had water WALK THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF THE SAUDI ARABIAN PENINSULA IN 15 NIGHTS...never mind the much smaller distance of crossing the lousy 150 miles of Sinai desert between what is now the Suez Canal into Modern day Israel.

What is just totally idiotic as far as the idea that anyone could get lost in the Sinai...is that the Sinai has on the Eastern Side the long Gulf of Aqaba....and on the Western side the Gulf of Suez.

All across the North Top of the Sinai is the Mediterranean Sea and the top North East of the Sinai IS ISRAEL!!!

So...UNLESS....Moses and every person with him were complete MORONS....which I know they were not as anyone who was capable of working on highly technical in architectural designed Egyptian Monuments and buildings which had extremely detailed specifications as far as their positioning and pointed directions specific to the planet and the Stars....IS NOT GOING TO GET LOST CROSSING 150 MILES OF DESERT!!!!

AboveAlpha

 

I agree with you. But it is not possible for 2,000,000 people to wander and survive in these conditions for a generation from the view of logistics. I don't think the Bible suggests they got lost, just that they would have to wander in the desert. The inference is that God set a boundary that excluded their access to areas outside the desert, ie Egypt, Palestine, Edom, Midian.

 

If you had 2 Million People walking 4 abreast and spaced 5 feet apart that would be 500,000 people times 10 feet which is 5 Million Feet....or 947 MILES LONG!!!!

Even if people walked 40 abreast that is still 94.7 miles long a train of people.

Since the distance they needed to travel was ONLY 150 Miles....it is IMPOSSIBLE for 2 Million People to get lost in the Sinai!!!

AboveAlpha

 

I know. That's why I argue that this event never happened. Plus what I posted earlier about the lack of evidence.

 

The Bible is the science that have taught man to use their intelligence in a positive way to build roads, irrigation, medicine, protect life, protect earth to create in the image of God not in the image of APE and it is because man act in the image of God that this world has expanded and now we have great scientist and inventors that have pick up where the great prophets have left of this scientist with their great discoveries have successfully presented to world leaders whom many have acted outside of God's image refuse to accept Global Warming and Global Climate Change that is now consider the modern Noah's flood warning the same warning that saw men refused to heed because of their apeness thankful there are many humans who understand science and God that this world stand a good chance to be around for another million years.

 

Hitler was able to murder 10 million+, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot etc. were able to murder 10 million+, WWI and WWII saw millions+ dead and it did not take that long for all those millions dead to be replaced by new born babies.