tommi atkins

As it says on teh tin.

God is often assigned the property of being immutable and unchanging. I'm talking about the arguements that the old and new testement god is the same one, just showing or revealing different sides to his "Personality", in that suddenly he changes from a raving genocidal animal sacrificer into a gentler but multiple personality disordered necromancer.

Christians will always say that God dosnt change, despite him changing his mind dozens of times when mortals argue the toss with him.
But apart from the point that he might be shown to have got things wrong in the first place if he DOES change his mind....what is actually wrong with the concept of him doing so?

Astral

Heh... you should read your own post and get an answer.

"Christians will always say that God dosnt change, despite him changing his mind dozens of times when mortals argue the toss with him."

In that line you mentioned the answer. God does not change yet He can change His mind. Have you ever changed your mind? Are you trying to call God out for something you do as well? Being hypocritical is not the best way to prove your point.

It is possible to change ones mind without changing ones self. I do understand some of your frustrations however, so I will toss you a bone. You made reference to God requiring animal sacrifices and then changing into something gentler. It all has something to do with Sin!

Since the beginning the bible has shown that the wages of sin is nothing other than death. The animal sacrifices served as the bearers of that price. Not that the animals can actually cleanse sins, but that they always serve as a reminder to man that death is the price for sin. When Christ came along His sacrifice became the final one. This is why He is the Savior and that we must now obtain salvation from Him now and why animal sacrifice no longer has the power of cleansing sin. Christs death was not only to signify a cleansing of the sins, but also to show His power over Death, and also to become the worthy Judge. In this way, when you go before judgment none will be able to say... you do not know what it is like to be like us! Remember that saying about walking a mile in a mans shoes before you judge? Christ has walked in our shoes and knows our temptations and pains. Christ turned down all the earthly powers and pleasures promised Him by Lucifer if Christ would only deny His Father and worship him instead. Many of us deny the Father for far less than an entire world and often without any benefit.

Now... God is omniscient and omnipotent, any change from that is actually making Him lesser than what He is already and that is not possible. Further more... I will remind you that if you are truly agnostic then you should have no reason to defile yourself by making froward remarks against God's name. There is a reminder in the Bible that all things against mankind may be forgiven, but blasphemy against God is not forgiven in this life or the next.

To those of you who would speak against God, remember that you only doom yourself. If you are truly agnostic, is there any reason to risk insulting a God that you yourself are not sure exists?

tommi atkins

Just clarify my agnostisism to you first.
Im not sure what god is, but it is my firm beleif that it is not yahweh or allah or ganesh or Travasser. So on that account, i'm fine with the doom aw8ing.

As to the meat of the post, you are not saying that in olden times, mankinds sin could be washed out by stabbing a goat and burning it.However God demands it to be a reminder that the wages of sin are death.
Two points.
1) God is willing to kill animals, indeed instructs it for such crimes as menstruating. This will remind the woman that her repoductive capacity is a sin worthy of death. OK. Fine, but how is the justice of god, who is obviously infallibly fair, weighed up in this rather one-sided snuffing out of the two doves or pigions required?
2) there are plenty of sacrifices in the bible that dont equate with mans sin. Moses for example ran around the desert whilst 601 years old chopping up over 1,400,000 animals from Kangaroos to Duck-billed platypuses and Polar Bears after the ark landed in sacrifice. As a Tribute.

Astral

Understood

Perhaps you should re-read Leviticus. You have fallen victim to wholly ignorant remarks regarding these things. These are pretty much references to people with STD like problems and the reason for all the cleaning and such is to prevent others from becoming infected and to maintain a sense of awareness to why they should stay clean. Remember they did not have words like sexually transmitted diseases. Plus they were not aware of things like microbes and viruses. The reason for the sacrifices is that people are usually not being very God like to contract these things in the first place. People did sleep around back then like they do today, only now we openly welcome the act of infidelity unless of course it is against us.

Did you read that at the front of all that men were spoken of before the women?

Leviticus 15
2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When any man hath a running issue out of his flesh, because of his issue he is unclean.

3 And this shall be his uncleanness in his issue: whether his flesh run with his issue, or his flesh be stopped from his issue, it is his uncleanness.

So lets keep this all in good order... if they have issues with their bodily fluids then obviously there is something wrong.

Therefore a woman is NOT considered sinful just because she is menstruating. It never ceases to amaze me that people are quick to talk negative about things in the bible when they don't even understand it.

It is true... some sacrifices are for offerings to the Lord an not for sin cleansing. But you might notice that none of the cooked "food" went to waste. God instructed them how to prepare the food and how to keep it. You see, God was also about teaching them how to properly live and deal with all the different animals. Things like how to prepare them and each of their parts.

You seem to be overly obsessed with the fact that an animal is being killed for God here. Perhaps you should think about some of the positive benefits of these things.

Are you a vegan?

tommi atkins

Levvy 19 " 'When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening.

20 " 'Anything she lies on during her period will be unclean, and anything she sits on will be unclean. 21 Whoever touches her bed must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening. 22 Whoever touches anything she sits on must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening. 23 Whether it is the bed or anything she was sitting on, when anyone touches it, he will be unclean till evening.

24 " 'If a man lies with her and her monthly flow touches him, he will be unclean for seven days; any bed he lies on will be unclean.

28 " 'When she is cleansed from her discharge, she must count off seven days, and after that she will be ceremonially clean. 29 On the eighth day she must take two doves or two young pigeons and bring them to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. 30 The priest is to sacrifice one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. In this way he will make atonement for her before the LORD for the uncleanness of her discharge.

http://www.thebricktestament.com/the.../lv15_16a.html

Read it carefully.We are talking here about semen, masturbation and periods.
The killing of the animals is for atonement of the sin of being a functioning woman. Heck, sure afterwards why let the BBQ go to waste, but the point of killing the tweety is to placate god and ok, I'll accept that sacrifice is to scare the betravesters out of potential sinners, but ....umm...is there any evidence this is what its for?
My points stand unaltered.Plus only one bird is cooked!
Im a Carnivore by the way and if im obsessed with anything its Mcsausage Muffins.

I'd be interested as well in your veiws on the septucentenarian moses's killing of over one and a half million animals on his lonesome from Camels to Penguins. Thats a heck of a tribute.

Astral

You are reading from a New translation that distorts and changes the context of the Bible. You can not rely on them. The closest translation is KJV. It is not perfect but the closest one. If you want better than that, you will need to learn how to read the original scriptures.

The problem with these new world translations is that the translator offers their "translation" of the verses instead of the verses themselves.

I will leave you be on this issue because it is not possible to have any meaningful reconciliation if you are using a misleading translation.

God Bless!

greywolf90

i would guess that the isrealites got the practice of animal sacrifice from the other pagan religions. animal sacrifice was, after all, a normal practice back then. the greeks, for example, believed sacrificial offerings was a way of showing their devotion to the gods. i imagine that the pre-Abraham religions had similar beliefs, and these practices were simply carried on into Judaism.

as for the bible, i cannot say which version is the most accurate, but i don't think you can say the KJV is just because you like it. im sure their are many christians who could debate this with you, so i do not consider that to be a fact. as for me, i must admit that my bible is a KJV and i have not read any newer versions, but logically, i would think that the newer versions would be more accurate if we assume that we know more now then we did back then.

also, a literal word-for-word translation may not always be the best way to understand. some words may have had different meanings thousands of years ago than what they mean today. for example (and i am just making this up), thou shalt not steal: their definition of "steal" may not have been the same as our definition of "steal".

__________________
"for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."- Hamlet

tommi atkins

Wolfy: Yeah, thats my take on it, I was seeing if i could coax that out of the Theists

As regards literal word for word translations.
A) we are talking about gods perfect word or his inspired word, so my shot would be that if god was trying to communicate wth his fans he would not be ambigious
B)King James had the rewrite to fit in with the politics and the enlightenment of his times. If you are looking for "authenticity", then logic would say that the older versions were more accurate.

Astral: I'd rather delve into it a bit more to be honest if your game. i'm not fixed on one translation. I would like however if your not ,then just the explaination of what the burnt offerings are for when theyre not there as a scare-factor.
Also the Noah thingy, because thats the biggest cull of animals needed by a deity that i know of, and it really needs some clarification.

Cheers

marmalade

Has anyone read Jack Miles book titled God? Or his other book titled Christ?

http://www.jackmiles.com/default.asp?ID=15

I haven't read the second one, but the first one is a biography of God and how he changed over time. I've read parts of it, but its been a while since I looked at it. If I remember correctly, he takes it as a premise that its the same God and so makes a continuous evolution of personality out of it... and, from the reviews, it sounds like the second book is a continuation of the first. Someone said he was a Christian and so he takes this narrative creation of his quite literally, but its still an interesting read for a non-Christian.

Jung did the same type of thing with his book Answer to Job which I highly recommend. Here is a commentary talking about these two books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=X5G...pJzMU#PPA13,M1

Astral

Anyone can say that the Bible took this from that or that from this. Is it not also possible that they took those animal sacrificing from the people of God? Remember... just because the Bible was not written back in that time does not mean anything. The bible speaks of Adam and Eve, but we all know for certain it was not written at that time. But we do know they were the first based on the scriptures. It is not implausible at all that Adams and Eves descendants taught all the others to sacrifice in tribute to God. Further more it is also not implausible that they taught them nothing and Satan taught the others to sacrifice.

As you can see no one specifically owns the whole sacrificing thing so propping something up as stolen from another theology is really more or less offering up straw men and loosing red herons.

Now regarding the Bible and which translation is most authentic. Many scholars have done comparisons of the original scriptures with many translations and the general consensus is that the KJV is the closest. This means that while the KJV is not perfect it is the closest thing we have. Unless you care to learn the original 3 languages of the scriptures then we are pretty much at their mercy. Does this mean that all other translations are bad? No, but it does mean that in the best interest of discussion we should stick to one to help diffuse unnecessary misunderstandings in advance. Also since I am more familiar with where the errors are in the KJV I am also better able to provide responses to questions. Especially questions that regard what many may believe to be contradictions in the bible. As vast as the Bible is it is not possible for me to be able to keep up with all the different translations. So if you are set on using other translations apart from KJV, I may not be very forthcoming with suitable answers.

I would also like to add... using new age translations are bad because definitions have changed over time. It is VERY important to understand the etymological differences in the definitions of some words.

For example... who can tell me which Commandment is correct and the other false?

"Thou shalt not murder"

"Thou shalt not kill"

Killing and murder are definitely NOT the same thing. Yet you can find many posted commandments with the wrong words.

tommi atkins, I am always game. I may not be able to answer all questions but you can bet I will offer up what I can.