Charity

In the Old Testament, God supposedly needed to call out a group to be His people known as the Israelites. The bible then goes on to tell of the many wars between Israel and other nations. Sometimes, God was on Israel’s side and the other nations were defeated; other times, God was not on Israel’s side because of their disobedience, and the other nations won. My question is why was the nation of Israel even necessary? Scholars say the reason was two-fold: it was for the children of Israel, through their laws, priests, prophets, etc., to teach other nations about the one true god, Yahweh, and also to declare that through them, God’s promised Messiah would come to redeem mankind. Sounds good, but in reality, what resulted were millenniums of division, suffering, death, genocide, etc. This division was carried down to the time of Jesus (while the suffering, death and genocide because of war continued after Jesus and periodically right up to the present time). Mark 7:25-29 For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet: 26The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. 27But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs. 28And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs. 29And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter. 30And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed. Jesus is calling a non-Jewish woman a dog – someone, who according to God’s plan, was not deserving of his help because “the children must be filled first.” Only out of desperation for her suffering child does she submit to this degrading term and respond in such a way that pleases Jesus enough to give her the crumbs she needed. No mention is made of her “faith.” However, Matthew 15 (which was written a decade or more after Mark) attempts to redeem this record in Mark by adding the following: in verse 22, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David,” and in verse 28, a reply from Jesus “Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” As a result, the focus of the record is mostly on her faith in Jesus as the son of David and not so much on Jesus’ calling her a dog because she was an outsider. How does this story show Jesus as the way of peace and love?

No oldiesman, that's simply not true, but you can't come to this realization if you won't question why "it had to be this way." I heard someone say recently, "Nobody thinks they need a savior unless they also think they need saving. So this good news wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for the bad news, and the bad news is that you are bad; you are inherently flawed; there is something wrong with you at the core of your existence, and it needs to be repaired – it needs to be fixed – you are inherently broken. You have to convince someone why they need the message before you can actually convince them to accept it. The main message of the gospel is not that you can be saved. The main message of that gospel is that you are so bad that you need to be saved. These people aren’t coming to you to deliver good news; they’re coming to you to deliver bad news so that they can give you the good news." Therein lies the problem - an ancient book makes up the problem so it can give you the made-up solution. It does not have to be this way.

Thank you for your post. As a recent atheist, it can often still hurt a lot to see the manipulative side of the crucifixion story. One could say "so what it others still blindly believe and find comfort in it - just be thankful you are no longer one of them and move on with your life." I haven't figured out yet why I'm not following that someone's opinion.

6 Times Jesus Wasn't all Peace and Love In the video above by Kristi Burke, six passages from the bible are talked about in order to show the other side of the belief that Jesus was all about peace and love. One passage is Matthew 10:34-39. It says, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 35For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. 36And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. 37He that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38And he that takes not his cross, and follows after me, is not worthy of me. 39He that finds his life shall lose it: and he that loses his life for my sake shall find it. Here are some of her quotes in italics: "Jesus knew his message was radical. He knew that his message would not be accepted by the masses. He was essentially creating his own apocalyptic cult that was branching off of Judaism, and he knew that it would not be well received by those around him – Jew and Gentile alike. So, of course, he knew that they would be persecuted for their beliefs, for following him, for doing something very different and radical." According to the Old Testament, God began the great "us vs them" scenario when he called the children of Israel to be his chosen people. Jesus seems to have continued this theme in his ministry. "To Jesus and his followers, this really seemed to be more of a battle, a spiritual and earthly battle. They were waiting for the kingdom to come here on earth, and they had to accomplish all that would be accomplished including war and persecution and bloodshed before all of that could be done." Again, similar to the history of constant wars against other nations in the OT, Jesus purpose for coming was not to bring peace, but a sword. "You would think that the message of the creator of the universe come to earth [sic] to bring it would find a way to bring people together, but instead, it almost seems that Jesus’ coming was an attempt to make that all boil to the surface so that those who wanted to be his disciples and follow him can walk away, can shut everyone off and walk away, leave their family behind." This was encouraged by twi and even expected if you were participating in their different programs like the WOW, Fellow Laborer, Corps, etc. programs. How many other religious groups/cults have said something similar to this? "At the end of it, he is saying, 'He that finds his life shall lose it: and he that loses his life for my sake will find it.' That’s a dangerous message. He is encouraging people to become martyrs. That is cult-leader behavior – somebody telling you, you might die for me, and I want you to die for me. I want you to be persecuted for me. You’re going to be blessed in the afterlife – don’t worry, I’ll take care of you afterwards, but in this life, you need to be willing to leave your dad and leave your mom, to become enemies with everyone you love and know and follow me even unto death." "Cult-leader behavior" as seen in the Jonestown's story from penworks' post above about the International Cult Awareness Day. Was this not the same mindset as Matthew 10:34-39?

The forum About the Way began in order to discuss the Way International and its leadership. It was, and still is, a chance for those who were (and maybe still are) committed to it to look at its "other side" and the damage it caused in people's lives. In this forum, Matters of Faith (Doctrinal: Exploring the Bible), I'd like the same to happen only with Jesus who said he was the way. What was the "other side" of his ministry, and did it include some possible cult-like teachings and practices? If so, how damaging are they to the lives of people today?

You're probably right. Best I can do is search the internet for what others have written about the historicity of Paul like Richard Carrier for example.

I don't think it's karma though when an uncaught serial killer sincerely obeys Rom 10:9-10 at the end of his life, gets saved and then has the promise of eternal life while his unsaved victims will either spend eternity in hell or die a second death in the lake of fire. mj412 wrote in the "Justice" thread linked above, "I mean if you think the scriptures prove all evil men will die I do not read , I read all men who deny Jesus as LORD. will burn ." Since I believe the bible is man's word and not God's, I'm interested in why Paul would come up with a concept like Rom 10:9-10 (which was written before any of the gospels) and attribute it to the god yahweh. What benefit was there to him in doing so?

vpw taught that Jesus was not God. Do you still believe this or have you returned to the belief in the trinity?

I often bring up the above two false attributes of God, but rarely do I mention the all-righteous-and-just trait of god. This concept was one of the main reasons I began to doubt in the existence of yahweh - specifically the examples of his wrath being rained down regularly on people in the OT and which will again show up in the end times via his son. I’m thinking of starting a new topic in the Doctrinal: Exploring the Bible or the Atheist sub-forum to discuss, what to me is, this disturbing idea that there must be a penalty for sin because God is righteous and just. Many Christians find comfort in believing that evil people will get their due one day, but this actually happening is something that must be taken on faith. I read with interest this short thread (especially the posts by "think fish" and "mj412") - Justice By Abigail, August 9, 2005 in Doctrinal: Exploring the Bible

Blood sacrifices can be traced as far back as the Babylonians, Canaanites, and ancient nomadic rituals. The writers of the OT simply assigned it to their god. It's very barbaric. A real, all-loving and all-powerful god, however, would have come up with something more humane when relating with the mankind he created.

It was your "You're JUST catching on to that?" post to oldiesman that got me to read his again 2 more times to be sure what it actually said.

I am now realizing I misread oldiesman's post who seems to have misread my previous post from July 15. I mentioned non-believers in that one but not that I was one. Below is oldiesman's reply to the above post. I read it as "I get a sense that you do not believe in a God that exists." So just to be clear, I have believed in God from a child growing up in the RC church right up to the earlier part of this year. I began this thread because of the doubts I was having about God and the bible. I now am an atheist but still interested in discussing the biblical teachings about God and Jesus because of the influence they had on my life in the past and how they influence the beliefs and actions of people today.

Looking back on the whole thing, I agree. I just provided the whole timeline in reference to the timeline modcat5 provided. I have no animosity towards his email or his decision to delete the posts.

Thank you for your reply. I guess from the standpoint of the Pontius Pilate's story, it was an injustice. From the standpoint of the redemption story, it was God's righteous plan was it not?

Here's the timeline. Nathan had written on July 14th about the former president being shot in the context of how people's "beleefs" cause division and destruction. You then wrote a post on July 19th where you mentioned candidate X and the fallen firefighter in the context of who God spared and who he didn't. My post about “you know who” being shot in Baker, PA. was written on July 20th in the context of some calling the incident a miracle. That post was not deleted and I wrote yesterday that I appreciated this. It wasn’t until 4 months later in November that Oldiesman replied to my July 20th post. Both his post and my reply were deleted for the reason you gave above. I think my reply to Rocky’s post of Nov 10th was also deleted. Got it (hot chocolate with whipped cream for me)

The first half hour so far has been interesting. Thanks for sharing it Rocky.

I agree with your first part. Can you say more about your last sentence. I don't think this god (if he exists) is either. Thanks,

I’m going to go ahead and assume that the “greatest injustice of all” is the story of Adam and Eve since it introduced the concept of sin into the world. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. If taken as being true, it simply shows one man was capable of undoing God’s perfect creation which, imo, makes God pretty inept. If taken to be a myth that teaches some moral lesson, that’s cool, but it is devoid of a god’s authority and authorship. Concerning your "great sin" reference, below is part of my post from my "Sin and the Need for Perfect Love" thread.

I get where you are coming from because I was there too - for over 5 decades. What "greatest injustice" are you referring to?

I appreciate that you were not strict Raf because the issue was not to discuss political views but to discuss what evidence someone has to claim god had anything to do with an incident that involved a politician and a fireman. It's all a bunch of guesswork made necessary because a hidden god won't show up and speak for himself. I heard today this great quote from Christopher Hitchens - "It’s called faith because it’s not knowledge.”

Just as an aside Rocky, how does this relate to the topic of this thread.

I noticed yesterday for the first time that when I googled a question, AI was the first response.

This is a recent event that has to do with why I started this thread. Shortly after the Christian woman I wrote about previously said she would continue praying for my grandson’s health, he had a drastic improvement. He was consistently much happier and was having only the occasional minor seizure. I immediately had to deal with the idea that God (who I no longer believed existed) was answering her prayers. Although there was also a small change made to his medication, previous changes (and there were many of them) had resulted in only a temporary improvement or none at all. So, there was no way of knowing for sure if this change was causing what was happening. The relief from seeing him this new way felt wonderful and we were all truly thankful. As a Christian, I would have had no doubt that this was coming from a loving and caring God. As an atheist though, I obviously had my doubts, but I couldn’t outright dismiss the possibility. The consideration to “give God the glory” was tempting mostly because of how thankful I was and previously, I had always given that thanksgiving to God. However, I eventually realized that my reaction was indeed a nostalgic feeling based on those from the past which I now know were never based on factual evidence and that the things I had learned over the past few months about the many problems with God’s morality and the authenticity of the bible still remained real and rational. Since then, my grandson continues to have some bad seizures but they are much fewer and farther in between than what they had been for so long and for this present reality, I’m most thankful.

That be the one. Thanks!

Finally, a use for that emoji! You're quite witty to think of it!