Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Please Read OP)
Options
Comments
-
-
-
-
You claim NT God is the exact same God as OT God
Christians follow NT God
Join up the dots yourself.
Can anyone please explain for one who doesn't understand; did God change the rules/His mind generally from the OT to the NT? If so, why is it thought that this was done?
Is OT God thought to be different from NT God? 0 -
-
Advertisement
-
Can anyone please explain for one who doesn't understand; did God change the rules/His mind generally from the OT to the NT? If so, why is it thought that this was done? Is OT God thought to be different from NT God?
i suggest you go back to where this thread began and read through PDN's posts.
from around here
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=75762475&postcount=7310 -
-
Can anyone please explain for one who doesn't understand; did God change the rules/His mind generally from the OT to the NT? If so, why is it thought that this was done? Is OT God thought to be different from NT God?
No, it generally isn't thought that God changes. Classical theism would hold to the immutability of God. What changes is his interaction with us. How we fit the incarnation into this is probably quite a large area for theological debate.
I personally think that God works within the context of our sovereignty (to at a greater or lesser extent). The analogy might be that of a maze. God stands outside the maze and his goal lies in the centre. The unfettered paths and the walls of the maze are our moments in history - sometimes these are moments of glory, other times they are acts of sin and rebellion against God. If he is to reach his goal and also permit us our sovereignty then I would think that his choices are limited.
I think of the story of the Bible as just that. God will reach his goal (redemption, judgement and renewal of creation) but he also does it through history and in response to the choices we make. The Bible isn't a rulebook of how to live (though I don't doubt that it contains such elements at it's core Matthew 22:37 for example). It a book of history, poetry, prose and any other number of genres that you can think. It is a story of fall and redemption of spread out over millennia. Not all that is contained in it's pages is encouraged or thought of as ideal. Sometimes there is no perfect solution - at least not in this life.
Again, the maze is an analogy. It therefore has weaknesses. I don't intent to imply that God is somehow dancing to our tune.0 -
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
philologos wrote: »This "debate" is all over the shop, so much so that it might be better off progressing to another discussion while Zombrex gets his position together in a clear manner.
Position is perfectly clear Philologo, in fact I went to the trouble of writing a few posts about it after you claimed I wasn't being clear enough for you.
Funnily enough since I did that everything has gone some what quiet except for ISAW's persistent attempts to argue the sky is red.
I would of course like to think that I've stunned you all with the beauty of my argument, but it could also be a Sunday night perhaps you are all doing the washing up.
0 -
-
-
-
-
-
Soul Winner wrote: »Yeah, you've stunned us into silence. What were we thinking when we thought that we had explained things sufficiently about the Christian position on this subject to you? How were we to know that you're even duller of hearing than we first thought?
For the last time: God never commanded rape, God never condoned rape. God commanded His people people to take control of a particular piece of land as their inheritance. A land that was at that time plagued by a people who sacrificed their children to false gods. Who participated in heinous acts of sodomy, rape and beastiality. They defiled themselves and their land and God was using His chosen people to drive them out of that land so that when they moved in it would blossom again. He did the same thing to His own people when they became depraved in their activities, forgetting the Sabbath year and failing to the land lie fallow in order for it would be reinvigorated for the next six years and so on. He raised up the Babylonians to do to them what He commanded His people to do to the Canaanites, that was to get them out of the land.
That's the way He did things back then, because that land was going to be the land who's capital was the Holy City Jerusalem in which was built the Temple with the Arc of the Covenant, into which Temple the Messiah would enter in His first coming. It was this city that Messiah would perform His work to save mankind from their sins. Pretty important land from God's perspective. When you look at the bigger picture you can see why He wanted the Canaanites out of it.Soul Winner wrote: »That's the whole point. If God doesn't exist and didn't tell them to do it then yes of course its a load of tosh. But if God does exist and did tell them to do it for whatever reason He deemed sufficient then that's a different story. As Christians we believe that God exists and told them to do it. You don't believe He exists and didn't tell them to do it. Of course you would be appalled at a group claiming that God told them to do such things. We're not because we believe He does exist and did tell them to do such things and that He had sufficiently good reasons for doing so. If He exists then as the creator of the earth its His blooming land to give to whomever He wants. You don't have to like that but it is what it is. If I were God I would have wiped them out myself and made it easy for the Israelites to just occupy the land. But He didn't want to do it that way for some reason known only to Him.
Maybe He's trying to teach us something today. God's ways are not man's ways. That is not a cop out, that's been central to the teaching of the Bible for centuries. But God did not command them to commit rape no matter what way you want to dice it. These people were given the option of surrender and they didn't take it so their men were wiped out. They could have just left the land but they wouldn't. Their women and children were left without protectors. God gave them into the hands of the Israelites which was to them a great mercy, they had someone to take care of them. Nothing about rape. That's simply inferred by your brain doing overtime. No evidence of it whatsoever. How do you know that these women and children were not happier with the Israelites than they were with the own men? I'd say the Israelites gave them a better life, a life without fear of their kids being sacrificed to idols.
Like I said, if I were God I would have wiped them all out myself, long before God got around to it, but then I'm not God am I? As long as its possible that God might have had sufficiently good reasons for doing it the way He chose to do it then He knows all ends and what we might consider barbaric from our vantage point in history might bare nothing on the greater scheme of things.
I can always rely on Soul Winner to help demonstrate my point
You just spent two long posts justifying these actions in human terms to your satisfaction. God is good (according to you).0 -
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
The basic point is crock. And your accusation is untrue. We are perfectly willing to explain why God uses different methods in the Old Testament and the New Testament. It's not our fault if others don't want to listen when we explain it.
I asked here and Sonics2k asked here; it was not addressed. I don't propose to spend all my time sifting through years of posts in case my questions have been asked previously. It hasn't, in as far as I've seen, been addressed while I've been following so untwist your knickers if you can reach up that far.
Christians believe that God has revealed himself progressively in stages to mankind. This is not because God changes, but because people, along with their cultures etc, take time to develop.
Christians believe that God chose the Jewish nation, as described in the Old Testament, in order that they would bring forth the Messiah (Jesus Christ). Once the Messiah came, then people would have a fuller revelation of who God is.
Well if that's the best he could come up with and Christians believe it........they are entitled to believe any ould thing they want I suppose.
We can compare this to how teachers use very different methods to teach math to primary school children than to students in seconary school.
In primary school you are taught that you cannot subtract a larger number from a smaller number. Then, in secondary school, you learn about minus numbers and hey, guess what, you can subtract a larger number from a smaller number!
Were the teachers in primary school wrong? Or did they change their mind and start teaching something different to the older children? No. They taught the primary aged children in terms that made sense to their level of understanding. Then, with older children, they were able to introduce more complex concepts that were suited to their more developed frames of reference.
Well my six year old daughter can subtract a large number from a small number with little difficulty, coming out with a minus number, so it would appear something is lacking in the approach to maths in primary schools would it not.
That's a terrible analogy btw. I'm sure God could have revealed Himself in better ways as am I sure teachers could teach in better ways. It boils down to a desire to do so or lack thereof and is questionable in both cases by reasonable men. Of course it's only blasphemy in one case.
So, in the Old Testament the people were to form a nation that would follow God and which would eventually produce Jesus Christ. To do this, as with any nation in history, they had to fight wars with those who would otherwise destroy them. In those wars they observed the commonly accepted rules of warfare - the Geneva Convention of their time.
Of course where rules were not observed (you know little of warfare if you think this was not the case a lot of the time) they were no doubt doing it on their own, uncommanded by God who, no doubt, bears no responsibility. I can see the appeal of your innocent world view here but I'm glad I don't share it. Still, they say willful ignorance is bliss eh?
(Despite some highly opinionated assertions by some non-Christians, and some gross dishonesty by others, there is no evidence that this ever included rape, but it certainly included mass killings of a kind to make any sane modern person highly uncomfortable).
See above!
In the New Testament, now that Jesus has already come, God's plan for Christians is very different.
So you admit that the plan changed then? There may be hope for you yet.
Not because God has changed, but because Israel's pupose is already accomplished. Christians are not to be a nation, but are to live in a way that demonstrates the Gospel of Christ and encourages others to embrace this new message and lifestyle. So now they are not to fight wars, but are rather called to turn the other cheek and endure persecution. The Gospel is not like a tribal or national identity - it does not need to fight wars to survive. In fact it grows and spreads faster and in a more pure form when it refuses to take up arms.
Oh well that's alright then, lets forget all about it, let bygones be bygones, let's never speak of it again then.
So first wholesale slaughter, then turning the other cheek. How oh how could I have not seen one as the obvious and natural progression of the other?
It's clear to me now what a stand up job God has done of managing the revelation of his existence ruling out any possibility of doubt from those he made inquisitive. Top job there big man!0
This discussion has been closed.
Advertisement