Raf

This thread will be home to the conversations that branched off the Idioms of Permission thread, some of which were kind of off topic. Since those posts were written BEFORE this one, they'll appear before this one on this thread. Enjoy.

I have never heard of anyone else using this "idiom of permission" explanation outside of TWI and its offshoots. And my comments on its usage were on topic. I'll either move off topic posts to another thread or otherwise remove them.

I'm only going to address the portion in bold. I no longer believe in God. And I do believe that religion has caused some real harm in this world. But it has also done some immense good. Not to mention, much, much evil has been done in the name of "not-religion." Evil acts are evil, whether committed in the name of God or in the name of "not-God." The difference, in my opinion, is that evil committed in the name of God expects a reward, whereas evil committed in the name of not-God expects no punishment. In the grand, cosmic scheme of things, the second group of evildoers are correct. But they're still evil. Which gives rise to the question, who gets to decide what is and is not "evil"? I refer you to the thread, Are you more moral than Yahweh," which explores the idea of morality and its origin. But we are getting farther from the thread topic, which is ok IF enough time has passed AND the person who started the thread is ok with its evolution.

Are we all just going to ignore that SirGuessALot has returned after an 11-year absence? DUDE! Welcome back. Mulling over what you wrote. May be worthy of its own topic. Chockful: I have no reply to what you wrote. It seems to me your comments would draw as much opposition from most Christians as my comments do. Good night folks.

I need a ruling from the judges on whether this would be off topic. Also, just checking, Oldies, you know I'm not a believer anymore right? Just checking. For what it's worth: I do not think the writers intended figurative or misleading language here. Paul believed the "presence" of Christ [what we call the "Return"] would take place in his lifetime, or at least in the lifetime of his initial readers. It's hard to imagine that he wrote "we who are alive and remain" thinking "we" was a reference to people living 2,000 or more years in the future. The Jesus of the gospels said what he said. He did not mean "figuratively speaking," nor did he say "by 'generation' I'm referring to people in a future so distant you would not even recognize it." And whoever wrote Revelation did not have a creative definition of "quickly" that implicitly included the words "in geological terms." I do not think there's a figure of speech that can reconcile "this generation" and "quickly" with "2,000 + years later..." Any "accurate" interpretation would have to start there. In my opinion.

See, "God-like mind reading capabilities" is what turns clear writing into "he didn't mean that, he was using the idiom of permission that I made up." *** "God says what he means and means what he says!" Fine. Here's what he says. "He didn't mean that." *** Sorry, I'm not the one doing the mindreading. Just the Biblereading

Jokes aside, I think the simplest expression of my thought is: The idiom of permission was not the intent of the original writers. It only became necessary when the character of Yahweh developed into someone who would never do what earlier scriptures clearly said he did.

Almost thou persuadest me to engage in argument.

Ditto

In my humble opinion, the so-called Idiom of Permission as an explanation for Yahweh's behavior in the Old Testament does not survive Occam's Razor, which is "the answer that requires the fewest assumptions is usually the correct one." The Old Testament writers told us who Yahweh was. His character changed over time. Different writers gave him different attributes, depending on the point they were making for the story they were telling. When God needed to be limited, he was. When he needed to be omni-everything, he was. When an explanation was needed for why Israel did not prevail in a military conflict, God had a problem seeing through lead overcoming chariots of iron. The Idiom of Permission provides a way to explain away that which was never intended to be dismissed in the first place. God sent the Flood. He didn't allow it to be sent. Genesis is clear. He did it. The angel of death in Egypt (which, it must be said, never happened)? That was Yahweh too. Exodus is explicit. But He's LOVE! He couldn't have! So we invent an explanation to retroactively absolve him of responsibility for that which he explicitly wanted credit! What happened? This is not hard. The people worshipping God changed. Their values changed. Their God (who cannot change) changed with them. Suddenly he never would have done any such thing. But he said he did? Hmmm. It was a figure of speech! Get it? Anyway, that's my nickel. I know, it's supposed to be two cents. But inflation's a bitch.

I would just go if I were you. :)

"Think of it this way: you'll go to heaven." "I don't want to go to heaven! I wanna go to the bank and cash this stupid check!"

yes

"The guy sure looks like plant food to me."

Quick Change

The last clue gives it away, but who would remember THAT fact about this series? None of my friends growing up, that's for sure. None of them. None.

it was. These were borderline "songs remembered from just one line" clues.

yes. I was distracted by her... filmography

Let me know if you need the rest of the script, since I have it nearly memorized. Dubuque? Des Moines.

More classic than that. I wanna say Streetcar Named Desire

JLW is correct

Hey baby, let's keep in touch

nope

Heartbreakers The Tuxedo Tropic Thunder Garfield

Perhaps I've grown a little cynical.