It's irrelevant because you should judge the post on the points that were raised, not on the basis of who raised them.
I am not in class Waysider...I am on an ex-cult forum and I should do many things that I don't. I should be mowing the grass right now. But, thank you for telling me what I should and shouldn't do and again telling me that my curiosity is irrelevant.
If I knew how....... I would simply post a cartoon of a dog chasing its tail in response. Maybe that would be relevant?
Maybe a song? A joke? Some relevant lyrics....but heaven forbid...I ask a direct question.
I am not in class Waysider...I am on an ex-cult forum and I should do many things that I don't. I should be mowing the grass right now. But, thank you for telling me what I should and shouldn't do and again telling me that my curiosity is irrelevant.
If I knew how....... I would simply post a cartoon of a dog chasing its tail in response. Maybe that would be relevant?
Maybe a song? A joke? Some relevant lyrics....but heaven forbid...I ask a direct question.
Geisha, you've had a burr under your saddle ever since the "Thus Saith Paul" thread. It's time to let it go. You say you asked a direct question, but, what you really did, in a back-handed way, was question my character and use that to devalue my position. That's an ad hominem, whether you realize it or not. I'm not offended by it. I do think, however, that you may want to recognize that you do this sort of thing quite a lot. It doesn't strengthen the position of whatever particular point you are trying to make..... I'm just sayin'.
and...if one includes the possibility that the different books of the Bible were not only written by people at different "stages of faith," but written about people and cultures and histories at different "stages of faith"...and all that has been, will be, and currently is being interpreted from different stages of faith...all the contradictions and paradoxes are still perfect. Life in God is both gardenlike and musical...and wild and noisy.
Geisha, you've had a burr under your saddle ever since the "Thus Saith Paul" thread. It's time to let it go. You say you asked a direct question, but, what you really did, in a back-handed way, was question my character and use that to devalue my position. That's an ad hominem, whether you realize it or not. I'm not offended by it. I do think, however, that you may want to recognize that you do this sort of thing quite a lot. It doesn't strengthen the position of whatever particular point you are trying to make..... I'm just sayin'.
Waysider....how many times in a day do you refer to that website you love to link to? Do you go to work and tell your co-workers they are engaging in straw man arguments...ad hominems, genetic fallacies or their questions are irrelevant? Who made you the discussion police?
You really believe I was asking you that question to devalue your position? That would mean I would have to care for more than a moment what your position is( I am not that vested)...or I would have to be very devious...think what you will.
You are right though....after that thread and your responses I did form an opinion of you and your perceptions. Right or wrong....it happened. It was from opinion that today I wondered how much time you have actually spent searching these supposed contradictions. The horror...it came into my head and out on to the page.
I would never suggest you stop posting. I have neither the desire nor authority to do so. And, no, I'm not the discussion police. I'm not now a moderator and never have been. You've stated your position on this issue and I've stated mine. We don't agree. So what? Let's smoke a peace pipe and move on to the next discussion.
I, for one, am grateful that we can have these discussions - complete with disagreement - which is totally the point of why I said what I said. We can disagree.
Instead of saying that God is bigger than our understanding could ever possibly be in this life, we are were told that God can't contradict himself - and that any apparent contradictions have explanations - which led allowedthem to misrepresent stuff that was certainly not contradictory (like adultery and fornication), make stuff up like God not spitting your way unless you were a 15% of gross giver, and many, many other things. Ultimately it led to a real unhealthy culture of shut the f' up and let someone else think for you.
For example: God's sovereignty and man's free will. That - in and of itself - is a contradiction. Yet God is sovereign and we have free will.
TWI (and I know for certain that one offshoot) had a terrible time dealing with that one.
Man's freewill? The scriptures say that we are dead to sin and basically dependent on God for our every breath. If you are speaking man's freewill choice to believe....the scriptures say we are saved by grace through faith and that not of ourselves.
When Peter told Jesus that He was the Christ...Jesus told Peter....flesh and blood have not revealed this to you.......but my Father which is in heaven. Freewill described in scripture? We are bound by one thing or another and freewill in common vernacular......I don't really find that articulated in scripture.
God is sovereign and man is either bound by sin and death....or man is quickened by God. We all serve something and we are all subject to our flesh. That is according to scripture.
There is not really a contradiction. The scriptural concept of what you call freewill may not exist....and it is pretty amazing to see how God works in a sovereign manner within the framework of the fall. It is a beautiful dance. It is one of those awe inspiring and praise worthy things we Christians prattle on about.
The scriptures say that God moves nations for His purposes.......yet life still goes on...nations choose what they will.....but God is in control. It is a matter of understanding HOW He is in control......how the providence of God works. He is blameless for evil.....yet His purpose are ultimately served.
I never tire of examining these attributes of God's character......it makes me love and worship Him all the more.
If you want to bring up the issue of evil...that is also an amazing thing to examine in scripture. :) Turns out...not a real contradiction, but something that is woven into life with God right there with us(including the most horrific suffering).....as we know....He too suffered horribly, died, and was buried. He is not immune to our suffering, He has suffered for us...and He promises to one day wipe the tears from our eyes.
Most things people call contradictions in scripture....are usually things with some depth....and things which require us to humble ourselves before Him and allow Him to unfold them for us to understand. That is my opinion. Scripture too if you really look.
When the question is framed as you have done........it looks like it is a difficult contradiction, but what does the bible really say about freewill?
For example: God's sovereignty and man's free will. That - in and of itself - is a contradiction. Yet God is sovereign and we have free will.
TWI (and I know for certain that one offshoot) had a terrible time dealing with that one.
I know CES had serious problems with theodicy as well. They took Wierwille's idiom of permission to the rediculous extreme of teaching that God cannot have foreknowledge. They said that God could make amazing predictions, such as, that the soldiers who crucified Jesus would play dice for his clothes 1,000 years ahead of the time when they actually did it, because there are certain deterministic factors of which God is aware, but we are not. If there are factors THAT determinative, then there is no such thing as free will!
Isaiah 45:7 says, "I form the light and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." CES blew that verse off as a figure of speech, without telling which figure it was, or what it was supposed to mean. In trying to absolve God of all responsibility for evil, they created a very irresponsible God!
The statement, "the Bible doesn't contradict itself" begs the question: What do you mean by "the Bible"? There have been a number of major canons for what we call the Bible: the Jewish canon at the time the Septuagint was translated, the later Jewish canon that excluded the Maccabees among other things, the Orthodox canon, the Roman Catholic canon and the Protestant canon. There have been innumerable minor variations as to which books are included, and there are also different versions of the same book in some different canons. There are some books that are considered apocryphal, deuterocanonical or non-canoniacal, depending upon the tradition you are looking at.
Several writers of cononical New Testament books quote Enoch as if they considered it God-breathed, yet Enoch did not make it into the canon.
I think Geisha is right about praying for the Lord to reveal to you what He wants YOU to learn before you read, but I think it's a big mistake to think the Lord will teach identical understandings to different people, because the Lord has different jobs for each of us to do! That's why James contradicts Paul. The Lord had different jobs for James and Paul to do!
According to James Dunn's Unity and Diversity in the New Testament, the single unifying factor in the whole New Testament is the statement, "Jesus is Lord." Yet this statement in itself contains a contradiction: Jesus, a limited man, is Lord, a function of unlimited divinity.
The doctrine of the trinity was developed in an attempt to resolve this tension. Whether or not it does so successfully is a matter of opinion.
All roads eventually lead back to inerrancy, don't they?... "It all has to fit or the whole thing will fall apart."...Spend the rest of our lives trying to put square pegs in round holes...."No private interpretation"...Oh, heavens, don't you dare find any symbolism that isn't expressly stated....
Where would the fine arts be if everything always had to "fit", I wonder...."Oh, sorry, Mr. Stravinsky, we simply can not allow for this vile dissonance that defies current musical theory. It simply doesn't fit."
Inerrancy is the scourge of spiritual enlightenment.
Where would the fine arts be if everything always had to "fit", I wonder...."Oh, sorry, Mr. Stravinsky, we simply can not allow for this vile dissonance that defies current musical theory. It simply doesn't fit."
True statement, but it's irrelevant to this topic.
Inerrancy is the scourge of spiritual enlightenment
Where would the fine arts be if everything always had to "fit", I wonder...."Oh, sorry, Mr. Stravinsky, we simply can not allow for this vile dissonance that defies current musical theory. It simply doesn't fit."
True statement, but it's irrelevant to this topic.
Inerrancy is the scourge of spiritual enlightenment
Obtuse, maybe, but not really off-topic. It's analogous.
When The Rite of Spring was written, music and dance were experiencing their own period of "inerrancy" that the great masters of "times gone by" had "etched in stone", so to speak. Stravinsky thumbed his nose at all that and defied convention. His variation from musical "inerrancy" resulted in reactions that were violent and unprecedented. But, because he was willing to explore new territory, the course of musical history, as well as dance, was irreversibly changed.
Re: What is "spiritual enlightenment", anyway?
I don't know. Does anyone? So, suppose we take the word "spiritual" out and just talk about enlightenment in general. Enlightenment, on any subject, is not fostered by rigid adherence to an attitude of "inerrancy". Enlightenment comes with exploration, experimentation, reconsideration, expanding ones vistas of learning.
Wierwille said, in PFAL, "You can never go beyond what you are taught." That's utter nonsense. If it were so, man would still be banging two rocks together and wondering what to do with the resultant sparks.
To say that there are no contradictions in the Bible denies God the use of irony in communcating His intended meaning.
(snip)
See below.
We live in a state of tension between receiving the earnest of our inheritance and receiving the inheritance itself.
Nicely phrased.
For us, the Bible is FULL of contradictions, and to deny that is to succumb to the lust for certainty.
Love,
Steve
Looks like you're using a different definition of "contradiction" than some of us.
Geisha's usage:
"The Bible does not 'contradict' itself- one God gave all the text and all the meaning. All of it is consistent
within its own framework. If it 'contradicted', then it would not be internally consistent."
Steve's usage:
"The Bible 'contradicts' itself- God's usage of irony (correctly used) is but one example of how He
uses dramatic figures and other things to communicate a consistent message."
I think the 'point' of each book in the Bible is to show some facet of the Messiah. The book of Job included.
'Contradiction' can be taken in more than one way. Does the Bible teach separate and opposing doctrines? No I do not think so. Such would be a contradiction. Does the Bible use 'figures of speech'? which may be in the form of literary contradictions? yes, of course.
I think that anyone, who honestly cries to God for a closer walk with God, will in due time, be shown a closer walk. A walk un-like anyone else' walk with God. Each and everyone of us can be given revelation from God that would be unlike any given to anyone else since the time of Jesus' original disciples.
I still think this is nicely phrased.
There are tensions in the Bible that God deliberately wrote into it. The only way for an individual to resolve those tensions is to DECIDE what he or she is going to believe.
When TWI said there are no contradictions in the Bible, they said they were going to resolve those tensions for us. We wouldn't have to be responsible for our own believing. If we just believed what Wierwille said, everything would fit like a hand in a glove, we wouldn't have to DECIDE anything, and the tensions would be gone.
Yes, the idea that Wierwille's interpretation was inerrant was one of the biggest lies perpetrated.
I think we can all (almost all of us) agree on this last part, which I hope is where you meant to go.
I don't know Steve, I personally think that saying sex outside of marriage would heal a young unprotected and vulnerable woman was a pretty bad lie.....that spiders coming out of someone's nose in a vision could break up a marriage......pretty bad. All the women belonging to the king with a wink and a nod.....much worse than saying the bible doesn't contradict itself IMO.
Suicide being a direct result of the lie that adultery was okay if done in love of God....bad.
That the bible doesn't contradict itself? As a Christian understanding this just takes some time, prayer, patience......and a really good dose of a humble heart as a finite being....in relationship to an infinite God. Realizing we may never understand it all......that is life.
Dealing with the tensions in scripture.....welcome to Christianity 101.
Why is it we think we have to arrive at one end of the spectrum or the other?
For what is worth to you... I did read what she wrote and again.....with all the heinous acts perpetrated by TWI and its off-shoots......and I believe they are bigger than you realize......that the bible doesn't contradict itself is pretty low on the list. IMO
Quite an absolute statement....saying this is a lie from hell...no? Ironic too.
I agree.
Some of those killed people (by suicide), ruined lives, and so on. Some people still can't get out of the "vpw's doctrine is correct no matter what" mindset, and remain "casualties" to this day.
Raping or molesting God's precious gems because twi doctrine made it all right, IMO, is MUCH worse than "is inerrancy an accurate doctrine"? As I see it, priorities go like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs- first we need food, water, shelter, relative safety, and THEN we can address philosophical point or worldview points.
If I had one wish and could retroactively erase exactly ONE doctrine from twi so that it was never thought or acted on, "Is the Bible contradictory" wouldn't even make the Top 10 list. I'd put the stuff that allowed rapes, molestations, abortions, and so on all before it.
To say that the Bible is either ALL true or ALL a lie is a false dichotomy. And it's not just a problem for ex-Wayfers.
Depending on what you mean by that, I might either strongly agree, or strongly DISagree.
When college freshmen and sophomores are exposed to what the Bible actually says, instead of the pabulum they were taught in Sunday school, it's a REAL shock to their systems, and too many of them turn to athiesm and agnosticism as a result.
In my opinion.
Love,
Steve
After years of being exposed to the pablum of "Sunday" school, I became agnostic, and waved away the Bible.
They convinced me they supposedly knew the Bible and based their doctrine on it. Since their doctrine was
bushwah, I concluded the Bible was, also, and discarded it for life.
When I was college age and exposed to what the Bible actually says, instead of the atheism and agnosticism
I was pointing towards (as well as other stuff), I believed its contents- nicely ironic considering how
dismissive I had been of it a few months previously.
After DECADES of being exposed to atheism and agnosticism growing up, as well as some of the pablum taught
in "Sunday" school, an intelligent person I know has actually picked up the Bible and begun reading it.
So far, they've concluded its contents contain more sense than the pablum they'd been exposed to-
and is more internally-consistent than the atheism/agnosticism framework they were brought up to use.
I, for one, am grateful that we can have these discussions - complete with disagreement - which is totally the point of why I said what I said. We can disagree.
Instead of saying that God is bigger than our understanding could ever possibly be in this life,
Ok, I can get behind this, totally.
we are were told that God can't contradict himself - and that any apparent contradictions have explanations - which led allowedthem to misrepresent stuff that was certainly not contradictory (like adultery and fornication), make stuff up like God not spitting your way unless you were a 15% of gross giver, and many, many other things. Ultimately it led to a real unhealthy culture of shut the f' up and let someone else think for you.
Ok, I can agree that being taught twi's doctrine was inerrant was what hurt everyone-
THAT led to misrepresenting adultery, fornication, and God's "protection plan" of tithing.
As well as other stuff....and led to us letting twi think FOR us.
(To greater or lesser degrees, depending on which of us was duped, where and when.)
Here's where I think some people miss the boat. They think that if it's NOT inerrant, it must not hold anything of value. These are writings, observations, stories, parables that have been passed down for generations, hundreds of years, thousands of years. They have stood the test of time. Why? Because there are great lessons, great insights into the human condition, great wisdom regarding day to day living, contained in those pages. How unfortunate some would dismiss those lessons in toto simply because they may be shown to hold imperfections.
Depending on what you mean by that, I might either strongly agree, or strongly DISagree.
WHAT! You mean you have to exercise judgment to figure out a simple statement like that!?! Oh, how happy for us that the Bible interprets itself because there are no contradictions in it! Otherwise, we might have to exercise our own judgment in interpreting it too!?!
I don't know Steve, I personally think that saying sex outside of marriage would heal a young unprotected and vulnerable woman was a pretty bad lie.....that spiders coming out of someone's nose in a vision could break up a marriage......pretty bad. All the women belonging to the king with a wink and a nod.....much worse than saying the bible doesn't contradict itself IMO.
If we look at the title of this thread, it is "One of the biggest Lies from Hell TWI and (some) Offshoots Perpetrated"
I can't speak for all of the offshoots, but I was very familiar with CES, as was Tzaia. CES NEVER propogated the doctrine that sex outside of marriage would heal a young unprotected and vulnerable woman, nor did they teach that all the women belong to the king. If anything, CES erred on the side of legalistic restriction when it came to ANY physical expression of affection.
And TWI NEVER got into the debacle of personal prophecy, so there were no dreams of spiders coming out of peoples' noses there.
Notice the word "and" in Tzaia's title. It is a logical connector. It includes both TWI and (some?) Offshoots. If a lie was not being perpetrated by BOTH TWI and (some?) Offshoot, then that lie falls outside the category of lies Tzaia is addressing. The way "the Bible contains no contradictions" was taught by both TWI AND CES was a lie from hell used to persuade people to switch off their critical thinking as they listened to Wierwille's teachings (and the "baby" CES did not "throw out with the bath water") and as they read the Bible in light of those teachings.
All of the other lies we bought into, the lies that wreaked so much havoc in our lives, we bought into because we bought into this one first.
What reason do people have for saying the Bible doesn't contradict itself? Is it because we've been taught that the Bible is God-breathed, and God cannot contradict Himself?
To judge that God cannot contradict Himself is to reduce God to the level of man. It is to put God in a box.
God can do ANYTHING He dang well pleases! That's why HE is God and I am not. To recognize that God can do anything He dang well pleases, and I cannot, IS the fear of the Lord!
God CAN contradict Himself!
And He does so every time we draw breath.
God said "...in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shall surely die."
If God had not contradicted Himself, we would all have been kaput long ago. God contradicts Himself EVERY TIME He extends mercy!
Do you wonder where mercy went to in TWI? ...the Bible doesn't contradict itself!
Do you wonder how the leaders of CES tied themselves up in such senseless knots? ...the Bible doesn't contradict itself!
I can make God be what I want Him to be, and do what I want Him to do, if I can make the Bible say what I want it to say by rationalizing its contradictions. That is NOT the fear of the Lord!
Psalm 36 (NIV)
"1 An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked. There is no fear of God before his eyes.
"2 For in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin.
"3 The words of his mouth are wicked and deceitful: he has ceased to be wise and to do good.
"Even on his bed he plots evil, he commits himself to a sinful course and does not reject what is wrong."
No, we're not supposed to FEAR God! Heavens, no! Otherwise, the Bible would contradict itself. It would all fall apart. We're just supposed to RESPECT Him, just as we would an old uncle that we no longer have to obey!
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waysider
When I was a little kid, I went to Sunday school at The Brookside Missionary Baptist Church on Forestdale Ave. Like most kids, I suppose, I was somewhat baffled at the prospect of Noah cramming all th
Steve Lortz
The boundary between that which is objective and that which is subjective is the human mind. That which is subjective depends on the mind of the subject. That which is objective exists independently o
Tzaia
is IMO the notion that the bible doesn't contradict itself. Really?
geisha779
I am not in class Waysider...I am on an ex-cult forum and I should do many things that I don't. I should be mowing the grass right now. But, thank you for telling me what I should and shouldn't do and again telling me that my curiosity is irrelevant.
If I knew how....... I would simply post a cartoon of a dog chasing its tail in response. Maybe that would be relevant?
Maybe a song? A joke? Some relevant lyrics....but heaven forbid...I ask a direct question.
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waysider
Geisha, you've had a burr under your saddle ever since the "Thus Saith Paul" thread. It's time to let it go. You say you asked a direct question, but, what you really did, in a back-handed way, was question my character and use that to devalue my position. That's an ad hominem, whether you realize it or not. I'm not offended by it. I do think, however, that you may want to recognize that you do this sort of thing quite a lot. It doesn't strengthen the position of whatever particular point you are trying to make..... I'm just sayin'.
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sirguessalot
and...if one includes the possibility that the different books of the Bible were not only written by people at different "stages of faith," but written about people and cultures and histories at different "stages of faith"...and all that has been, will be, and currently is being interpreted from different stages of faith...all the contradictions and paradoxes are still perfect. Life in God is both gardenlike and musical...and wild and noisy.
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geisha779
Waysider....how many times in a day do you refer to that website you love to link to? Do you go to work and tell your co-workers they are engaging in straw man arguments...ad hominems, genetic fallacies or their questions are irrelevant? Who made you the discussion police?
You really believe I was asking you that question to devalue your position? That would mean I would have to care for more than a moment what your position is( I am not that vested)...or I would have to be very devious...think what you will.
You are right though....after that thread and your responses I did form an opinion of you and your perceptions. Right or wrong....it happened. It was from opinion that today I wondered how much time you have actually spent searching these supposed contradictions. The horror...it came into my head and out on to the page.
Bad, bad.....ad hominem, straw man, genetic fallacy, red herring , Geisha.
LOL
I should have cut the grass....I will know better next time I am tempted to post.
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waysider
I would never suggest you stop posting. I have neither the desire nor authority to do so. And, no, I'm not the discussion police. I'm not now a moderator and never have been. You've stated your position on this issue and I've stated mine. We don't agree. So what? Let's smoke a peace pipe and move on to the next discussion.
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Tzaia
I, for one, am grateful that we can have these discussions - complete with disagreement - which is totally the point of why I said what I said. We can disagree.
Instead of saying that God is bigger than our understanding could ever possibly be in this life, we are were told that God can't contradict himself - and that any apparent contradictions have explanations - which led allowed them to misrepresent stuff that was certainly not contradictory (like adultery and fornication), make stuff up like God not spitting your way unless you were a 15% of gross giver, and many, many other things. Ultimately it led to a real unhealthy culture of shut the f' up and let someone else think for you.
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cman
hm, like someone has to be right
and the other wrong
both can be right and contradict
watch out when they cross ways and eyes open
a time for everything
and times a plenty
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Tzaia
For example: God's sovereignty and man's free will. That - in and of itself - is a contradiction. Yet God is sovereign and we have free will.
TWI (and I know for certain that one offshoot) had a terrible time dealing with that one.
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geisha779
Man's freewill? The scriptures say that we are dead to sin and basically dependent on God for our every breath. If you are speaking man's freewill choice to believe....the scriptures say we are saved by grace through faith and that not of ourselves.
When Peter told Jesus that He was the Christ...Jesus told Peter....flesh and blood have not revealed this to you.......but my Father which is in heaven. Freewill described in scripture? We are bound by one thing or another and freewill in common vernacular......I don't really find that articulated in scripture.
God is sovereign and man is either bound by sin and death....or man is quickened by God. We all serve something and we are all subject to our flesh. That is according to scripture.
There is not really a contradiction. The scriptural concept of what you call freewill may not exist....and it is pretty amazing to see how God works in a sovereign manner within the framework of the fall. It is a beautiful dance. It is one of those awe inspiring and praise worthy things we Christians prattle on about.
The scriptures say that God moves nations for His purposes.......yet life still goes on...nations choose what they will.....but God is in control. It is a matter of understanding HOW He is in control......how the providence of God works. He is blameless for evil.....yet His purpose are ultimately served.
I never tire of examining these attributes of God's character......it makes me love and worship Him all the more.
If you want to bring up the issue of evil...that is also an amazing thing to examine in scripture. :) Turns out...not a real contradiction, but something that is woven into life with God right there with us(including the most horrific suffering).....as we know....He too suffered horribly, died, and was buried. He is not immune to our suffering, He has suffered for us...and He promises to one day wipe the tears from our eyes.
Most things people call contradictions in scripture....are usually things with some depth....and things which require us to humble ourselves before Him and allow Him to unfold them for us to understand. That is my opinion. Scripture too if you really look.
When the question is framed as you have done........it looks like it is a difficult contradiction, but what does the bible really say about freewill?
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Steve Lortz
I know CES had serious problems with theodicy as well. They took Wierwille's idiom of permission to the rediculous extreme of teaching that God cannot have foreknowledge. They said that God could make amazing predictions, such as, that the soldiers who crucified Jesus would play dice for his clothes 1,000 years ahead of the time when they actually did it, because there are certain deterministic factors of which God is aware, but we are not. If there are factors THAT determinative, then there is no such thing as free will!
Isaiah 45:7 says, "I form the light and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." CES blew that verse off as a figure of speech, without telling which figure it was, or what it was supposed to mean. In trying to absolve God of all responsibility for evil, they created a very irresponsible God!
The statement, "the Bible doesn't contradict itself" begs the question: What do you mean by "the Bible"? There have been a number of major canons for what we call the Bible: the Jewish canon at the time the Septuagint was translated, the later Jewish canon that excluded the Maccabees among other things, the Orthodox canon, the Roman Catholic canon and the Protestant canon. There have been innumerable minor variations as to which books are included, and there are also different versions of the same book in some different canons. There are some books that are considered apocryphal, deuterocanonical or non-canoniacal, depending upon the tradition you are looking at.
Several writers of cononical New Testament books quote Enoch as if they considered it God-breathed, yet Enoch did not make it into the canon.
I think Geisha is right about praying for the Lord to reveal to you what He wants YOU to learn before you read, but I think it's a big mistake to think the Lord will teach identical understandings to different people, because the Lord has different jobs for each of us to do! That's why James contradicts Paul. The Lord had different jobs for James and Paul to do!
According to James Dunn's Unity and Diversity in the New Testament, the single unifying factor in the whole New Testament is the statement, "Jesus is Lord." Yet this statement in itself contains a contradiction: Jesus, a limited man, is Lord, a function of unlimited divinity.
The doctrine of the trinity was developed in an attempt to resolve this tension. Whether or not it does so successfully is a matter of opinion.
Love,
Steve
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Broken Arrow
Where would the fine arts be if everything always had to "fit", I wonder...."Oh, sorry, Mr. Stravinsky, we simply can not allow for this vile dissonance that defies current musical theory. It simply doesn't fit."
True statement, but it's irrelevant to this topic.
Inerrancy is the scourge of spiritual enlightenment
Says who? What's "spiritual enlightenment", anyway?
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Tzaia
It IS a dance - so to speak - but one that TWI and certain offshoots could not come to terms.
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cman
interesting thoughts come to mind
predestinated
our will or will not
god's will or will not
everything happening according to one will
as some verses say
maybe they are the same wills
deep down, will ya...
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sirguessalot
absolute and relative
the one and the many
inner and outer
whether or not it seems so, seems to depend on where one draws that line between self and other...in any given moment.
parallel to the development of faith is the development of ego-awareness.
"just who do you think you are?"
As in life, seems scripture is full of such paradox.
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waysider
Re: off-topic
Obtuse, maybe, but not really off-topic. It's analogous.
When The Rite of Spring was written, music and dance were experiencing their own period of "inerrancy" that the great masters of "times gone by" had "etched in stone", so to speak. Stravinsky thumbed his nose at all that and defied convention. His variation from musical "inerrancy" resulted in reactions that were violent and unprecedented. But, because he was willing to explore new territory, the course of musical history, as well as dance, was irreversibly changed.
Re: What is "spiritual enlightenment", anyway?
I don't know. Does anyone? So, suppose we take the word "spiritual" out and just talk about enlightenment in general. Enlightenment, on any subject, is not fostered by rigid adherence to an attitude of "inerrancy". Enlightenment comes with exploration, experimentation, reconsideration, expanding ones vistas of learning.
Wierwille said, in PFAL, "You can never go beyond what you are taught." That's utter nonsense. If it were so, man would still be banging two rocks together and wondering what to do with the resultant sparks.
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WordWolf
See below.
Nicely phrased.
Looks like you're using a different definition of "contradiction" than some of us.
Geisha's usage:
"The Bible does not 'contradict' itself- one God gave all the text and all the meaning. All of it is consistent
within its own framework. If it 'contradicted', then it would not be internally consistent."
Steve's usage:
"The Bible 'contradicts' itself- God's usage of irony (correctly used) is but one example of how He
uses dramatic figures and other things to communicate a consistent message."
I still think this is nicely phrased.
I think we can all (almost all of us) agree on this last part, which I hope is where you meant to go.
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WordWolf
I agree.
Some of those killed people (by suicide), ruined lives, and so on. Some people still can't get out of the "vpw's doctrine is correct no matter what" mindset, and remain "casualties" to this day.
Raping or molesting God's precious gems because twi doctrine made it all right, IMO, is MUCH worse than "is inerrancy an accurate doctrine"? As I see it, priorities go like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs- first we need food, water, shelter, relative safety, and THEN we can address philosophical point or worldview points.
If I had one wish and could retroactively erase exactly ONE doctrine from twi so that it was never thought or acted on, "Is the Bible contradictory" wouldn't even make the Top 10 list. I'd put the stuff that allowed rapes, molestations, abortions, and so on all before it.
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WordWolf
Depending on what you mean by that, I might either strongly agree, or strongly DISagree.
After years of being exposed to the pablum of "Sunday" school, I became agnostic, and waved away the Bible.
They convinced me they supposedly knew the Bible and based their doctrine on it. Since their doctrine was
bushwah, I concluded the Bible was, also, and discarded it for life.
When I was college age and exposed to what the Bible actually says, instead of the atheism and agnosticism
I was pointing towards (as well as other stuff), I believed its contents- nicely ironic considering how
dismissive I had been of it a few months previously.
After DECADES of being exposed to atheism and agnosticism growing up, as well as some of the pablum taught
in "Sunday" school, an intelligent person I know has actually picked up the Bible and begun reading it.
So far, they've concluded its contents contain more sense than the pablum they'd been exposed to-
and is more internally-consistent than the atheism/agnosticism framework they were brought up to use.
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WordWolf
Ok, I can get behind this, totally.
Ok, I can agree that being taught twi's doctrine was inerrant was what hurt everyone-
THAT led to misrepresenting adultery, fornication, and God's "protection plan" of tithing.
As well as other stuff....and led to us letting twi think FOR us.
(To greater or lesser degrees, depending on which of us was duped, where and when.)
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waysider
Here's where I think some people miss the boat. They think that if it's NOT inerrant, it must not hold anything of value. These are writings, observations, stories, parables that have been passed down for generations, hundreds of years, thousands of years. They have stood the test of time. Why? Because there are great lessons, great insights into the human condition, great wisdom regarding day to day living, contained in those pages. How unfortunate some would dismiss those lessons in toto simply because they may be shown to hold imperfections.
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Tzaia
Well when we were told that it either is the word of god or it falls apart...sheesh.
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Steve Lortz
WHAT! You mean you have to exercise judgment to figure out a simple statement like that!?! Oh, how happy for us that the Bible interprets itself because there are no contradictions in it! Otherwise, we might have to exercise our own judgment in interpreting it too!?!
Love,
Steve
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Steve Lortz
If we look at the title of this thread, it is "One of the biggest Lies from Hell TWI and (some) Offshoots Perpetrated"
I can't speak for all of the offshoots, but I was very familiar with CES, as was Tzaia. CES NEVER propogated the doctrine that sex outside of marriage would heal a young unprotected and vulnerable woman, nor did they teach that all the women belong to the king. If anything, CES erred on the side of legalistic restriction when it came to ANY physical expression of affection.
And TWI NEVER got into the debacle of personal prophecy, so there were no dreams of spiders coming out of peoples' noses there.
Notice the word "and" in Tzaia's title. It is a logical connector. It includes both TWI and (some?) Offshoots. If a lie was not being perpetrated by BOTH TWI and (some?) Offshoot, then that lie falls outside the category of lies Tzaia is addressing. The way "the Bible contains no contradictions" was taught by both TWI AND CES was a lie from hell used to persuade people to switch off their critical thinking as they listened to Wierwille's teachings (and the "baby" CES did not "throw out with the bath water") and as they read the Bible in light of those teachings.
All of the other lies we bought into, the lies that wreaked so much havoc in our lives, we bought into because we bought into this one first.
Love,
Steve
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Steve Lortz
What reason do people have for saying the Bible doesn't contradict itself? Is it because we've been taught that the Bible is God-breathed, and God cannot contradict Himself?
To judge that God cannot contradict Himself is to reduce God to the level of man. It is to put God in a box.
God can do ANYTHING He dang well pleases! That's why HE is God and I am not. To recognize that God can do anything He dang well pleases, and I cannot, IS the fear of the Lord!
God CAN contradict Himself!
And He does so every time we draw breath.
God said "...in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shall surely die."
If God had not contradicted Himself, we would all have been kaput long ago. God contradicts Himself EVERY TIME He extends mercy!
Do you wonder where mercy went to in TWI? ...the Bible doesn't contradict itself!
Do you wonder how the leaders of CES tied themselves up in such senseless knots? ...the Bible doesn't contradict itself!
I can make God be what I want Him to be, and do what I want Him to do, if I can make the Bible say what I want it to say by rationalizing its contradictions. That is NOT the fear of the Lord!
Psalm 36 (NIV)
"1 An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked. There is no fear of God before his eyes.
"2 For in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin.
"3 The words of his mouth are wicked and deceitful: he has ceased to be wise and to do good.
"Even on his bed he plots evil, he commits himself to a sinful course and does not reject what is wrong."
No, we're not supposed to FEAR God! Heavens, no! Otherwise, the Bible would contradict itself. It would all fall apart. We're just supposed to RESPECT Him, just as we would an old uncle that we no longer have to obey!
Love,
Steve
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