any christians here in this entire site please stand up
POSTED BY: leelu7777
UPDATED: Monday, September 22, 2025 14:45
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PAGE 14 of 23
Quote:So God created of "Fear Factor"?
Abraham believed God would keep His promise to him, and proved it by his willingness to slay the son through whom it was promised that the covenant would be established.
On a more serious note...
There is the irreducible fact that God demanded sacrifices. Burnt offerings, in fact - no matter how you dress it up. It was a common point of various religions of that day, beginning before the Jews were nomadic herders and continuing through the time when Judaism was an establised religion with a huge central temple
Quote:www.pbs.org/empires/peterandpaul/footsteps/footsteps_2_2.html In fact, the sprinkling and smearing of blood was also a common feature- one that we "normally" associate with the Aztecs and Mayans...
The Temple sanctuary was situated in the center of a large complex of courtyards, each more exclusive than the last. Both Jews and non-Jews -- called Gentiles -- were allowed into the outermost courtyard; Jewish men and women in the second; Jewish males in the third; and finally priests in the sanctuary. Only the high priests could enter the innermost chamber of the sanctuary, called the Holy of Holies. The Temple was the only site in the world where Jews could offer sacrifices to their God. On the altar in front of the sanctuary, priests offered sacrifices on behalf of individuals and the community. Sacrifices had different purposes, including atonement, thanksgiving, fulfillment of a vow, or supplication, and could consist of a variety of offerings, including grain or flour, wine, doves or pigeons, sheep, goats and cattle. Jewish law prescribed specific rules and procedures for each type of sacrifice, but most involved the burning of part or all of the offering on the altar.
Quote:www.come-and-hear.com/editor/br_2.html This God had much in common with other ancient Gods- "He" demanded his pound of flesh (even if that flesh was his). That was how "He" established supreme emotional and psychological dominance over "His people". (It all sounds very cult-like to me.)
MISHNAH. … The slaughtering of the bullock and the he-goat… their blood requires sprinkling between the staves [of the ark],
on the veil, and on the golden altar...HOW WAS THE SIN-OFFERING OF A BIRD SACRIFICED? HE PINCHED OFF ITS HEAD CLOSE BY ITS NECK, BUT DID NOT SEVER IT, AND HE SPRINKLED ITS BLOOD ON THE WALL OF THE ALTAR; THE RESIDUE OF THE BLOOD WAS DRAINED OUT ON THE BASE. ONLY THE BLOOD BELONGED TO THE ALTAR, WHILE THE WHOLE OF IT BELONGED TO THE PRIESTS.
The other thing is that this God seems to be very invested in a rather small group of geographically limited people. Apparently he's not "everyone's" God- cetainly not a God of the people who came before, or a God of the people who were born outside of the correct lineage, just a rather narrow-scope God trying to distinguish himself from Golden Calves and other Gods.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
The late dynastic Egyptians were not an open society. And I would argue that whether the Hebrews of the Exodus existed in Egypt or not, and there is linguistic evidence that they may have been there, the Egyptians would not have wanted a successful slave revolt like that a part of the historical record. The Egyptians were fastidious record keepers, but that doesn’t mean that they would have recorded everything, in fact it actually suggests the opposite. The Egyptians recorded what they wanted recorded. I’m not an Egyptologist or particularly expert on Egyptian writing, but I’m pretty sure that gaps in Egyptian “record keeping” are more common then you make them appear.
But consider that the Egyptian Priests and ruling class did try to expunge Pharoah Akhenaten from the records (his leanings towards monotheism were considered more than a touch heretical) and failed enough that we know a fair deal about him and his reign several millennia later.
Quote:
With Akhenaten's death, the Aten cult he had founded gradually fell out of favor. Tutankhaten changed his name to Tutankhamun in his Year 2 of his reign (1349 BC or 1332 BC) and abandoned Akhetaten, the city eventually falling into ruin. Temples Akhenaten had built, including the temple at Thebes, were disassembled by his successors Ay and Horemheb, reused as a source of easily available building materials and decorations for their own temples, and inscriptions to Aten defaced.
Finally, Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, Tutankhamun, and Ay were excised from the official lists of Pharaohs, which instead reported that Amenhotep III was immediately succeeded by Horemheb. This is thought to be part of an attempt by Horemheb to delete all trace of Atenism and the pharaohs associated with it from the historical record.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten
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Hurrah, hurrah, when things are at their worst
With cries of “Death or Glory” comes the mighty Twenty-First
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Drats, did I kill a thread? I wasn't trying to. I was just making the point that separating religions from historical and social contexts can lead to the (false) impresison that they all fit comfortably into our understanding.
But, pursuing some thoughts on pyramids ... It seems such a wasted effort. All that stone-moving, all that artwork, all that metal-refining and beer-making and tablet-writing to re-produce a whole society in glyph form, just for the pharaoh's survival in the afterlife. It must have seemed terribly important- or at least it was so widely accepted by the Egyptians of that day that they never thought to demur, never wondered what their lives would be like if instead of weaving funery shrouds they wove bug-nets or fish-nets. Or rather than pushing stones up a ramp, they created canals and sewage systems? It's an example of one of those monumental assumptions- not even fatal (like sacrificing to the rain gods) just effortful, and yet no one stops and says "Hey, we could be doing a lot better!" What you had was a significant portion of a population willingly busting their *sses in projects that actually siphoned off beneficial progress.
That leads me back to the idea that fundamental assumptions are nearly invisible. Looking back, we might want to smack the Aztecs upside the head and say "Hey, you numb-nuts! Killing people doesn't bring the rain! Check out your own records! And this big-ass pyramid? You should have created wells and cisterns instead!" And yet I'll bet we do a lot of really, really stupid, wasteful, even fatal things all because our assumptions are equally faulty and we can't even see them.
EDITED TO ADD: But this is already far afield of the "Xtians please stand up" topic, so I won't post further along these lines. Perhaps in another thread, if anyone cares to discuss comparative religions and heirarchical systems.
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Free as in freedom, not beer.
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BrownCoat1,
Uhm, we are expected to respect Leelu but not the other way around? I didn't see any negative postings toward Leelu until Leelu aimed a flamethrower at everyone who doesn't believe as Leelu believes.
Return fire is fair.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Uh- yeah. That too. 
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Free as in freedom, not beer.
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I believe it was the inspired word of God and that it is 100% true
Oh boy.
Whose OT ? That of the Jews or those of the Christians? And which versions? There are so many. And if you are to literally believe every word, what do you make of the backtracking and outright contradictions? Which ones do you accept?
Whose NT? The Nag Hammadi plus or the early bible or the one that survived all the serious book-burning (manuscripts anyway) ca 500AD or the proposed Q1 and Q2 NTs. And if you go with the modern NT, again, which versions? How do you reconcile the discrepancies in order to figure out WHAT to believe in?
If the bible truly is the word of god you need to figure this out ASAP because it is CRITCAL to your everlasting spiritual life. Simple belief that it is the word of god ain't gonna cut it when god takes you to account about following his word.
This is the word of god.
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Quote:That’s actually my point. We know that the Egyptians did try to control recorded history. And we have a pretty good idea why, I think. The power of the pharaohs and the priests rested heavily on the perception of the divinity of the pharaohs and the Egyptian leadership. The Egyptians weren’t writing objective history; they were promoting the politics of the pharaoh, which probably meant controlling and in many cases erasing certain things from public knowledge. They may not have always succeeded, but if they had, how would we know, if not for other recorded text or archeology?
Originally posted by Hotpoint:
But consider that the Egyptian Priests and ruling class did try to expunge Pharoah Akhenaten from the records (his leanings towards monotheism were considered more than a touch heretical) and failed enough that we know a fair deal about him and his reign several millennia later.
If a story ever got out and became common knowledge that some heathen god of rogue slaves laid waste to the mighty Egyptian kingdom, then one imagines the priests would be very concerned that it would seriously undermine the power of the pharaoh. Now why they might have succeeded in erasing the Exodus from history and not the Aten cult, I don’t know. It could have been that the Aten Cult just wasn’t as big a deal as the Exodus or maybe, following the devastation that the Santorini eruption left, people may have had more important things to deal with, or maybe there wasn’t anyone left who knew. I don’t know; I’m not sure anyone does.
My point is that one simply cannot argue that the Exodus was not based on an actual event, simply because there is no Egyptian account of it, because it is quite possible that there wouldn’t be.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:
Originally posted by OmegaDark:
But, the point of what I was saying is this, I do not believe that the Bible is a moral guide I believe it was the inspired word of God and that it is 100% true.
...
Thus, (Man that was long winded) when you said moral guide, I said no because that wasn't MY particular belief...but you arent necessarily wrong either... i was just responding to you in terms of how I believe.
Well, we clearly disagree about the 100% true part, so I'm not going to go down that road.
But, when it comes to my saying it is a moral guide, why can't it be what you beleive it is and and moral guide. Doesn't it being the word of God and 100% true imply moral guide?
I understand that you don't want to limit the Bible to a moral guide, but why not say it is that and a whole lot more?
Or did I miss your point entirely?
Quote:
Originally posted by OmegaDark:
It all starts with their desire...no one can force them (the free will thing again). They want to i will help get the message out...they don't; I can't
See, the problem I have run into is that some believers fear they are rejecting or going against their religion if they don't explain it all as 'THIS IS THE WORD OF GOD! BELIEVE IT OR DIE!' who in thier right mind would even think of that positively today?
As someone who has been harassed by "beleivers" at several points in his life, I thank you for taking this stance. I wish there were more Christians like you in the world
Quote:
Originally posted by OmegaDark:
*sign* unfortunately I can't disagree here...that has been my experience also...with both christians and non... it is like they just heard it at a sermon or from someone in an 'authoritative' position and never gave it another thought...
It's sad when the whole being kind thing gets tossed out the window.
One of my past classmates said he had a Paster that put it as, "You don't want to be a Quaker Christian!" He wasn't refering to the Quaker religion, but the quaker breakfast bar. You know with all the nuts and fruits. At least, I found it funny
Quote:
Originally posted by OmegaDark:
exactly, those sounds like to viable answers (i haven't read that passage again, so i am taking your word on it).
Thanks
But, you're taking my word for what's in the passage? Oh dear
Quote:
Originally posted by OmegaDark:
It has to be thought about and you must ask yourself, what the heck does this mean? because you are write in both cases, if all you do is work you will find an early grave...
That is one of the things that I've notice in society in general. Namely, that people seem not to want to think, they just want to be told what to think. And this doesn't seem to be limited to only one country, but is growing in all countries
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"We're in a giant car heading into a brick wall at 100 miles/hr and everybody's arguing about where they want to sit."
-David Suzuki
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Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
My point is that one simply cannot argue that the Exodus was not based on an actual event, simply because there is no Egyptian account of it, because it is quite possible that there wouldn’t be.
But the attempt to write Akhenaten out of the history books failed despite the fact that it was likely a greater threat to the status quo than a story about a few thousand slaves which could have far more easily been spun as an expulsion anyway.
We know from the records of the Battle of Kadesh between Egypt and the Hittites that the Egyptians were certainly not above spinning a story to make a defeat, where Ramesses the Great was likely repulsed, look like a glorious victory. Why not do the same for the Exodus (which supposedly happened at roughly the same time according to some chronologies)?
...................................
Hurrah, hurrah, when things are at their worst
With cries of “Death or Glory” comes the mighty Twenty-First
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@BrownCoat1:
In general I agree. But, there are some exceptions to this rule.
For instance, my conversations with OmegaDark and Cartoon in this thread, have been quite civil and illuminating; I enjoy[ed] them greatly
Some others though, not so much.
I kind of think of my conversation right now as this:
Scene:
Two staunch British soldiers sitting at a small table in the middle of a battlefeild having tea and crumpets, bullets flying all around them.
Soldier 1: Yes well, I think...
Soldier 2: I agree up to a point, but...
Soldier 1: Oh dear, they seem to have destroyed our tea kettle.
Soldier 2: It does seem that they have; quite upsetting.
Soldier 1: No matter, we can carry on.
Soldier 2: Indeed.
The conversation continues.
Yes, the above was meant to be silly But, the point is that even in the mess that some (most?) of these threads become, it is possible to have civil discourse.
At any rate, I understand that most people don't want to enter the fray. I can become quite ugly.
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"We're in a giant car heading into a brick wall at 100 miles/hr and everybody's arguing about where they want to sit."
-David Suzuki
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