A Question of Christianity, Hell and Free Will.

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"Creative periods" bollocks. The Bible CLEARLY says 'days'. But oh no, when evidence proves otherwise we'll forget that particular translation and claim it means something else.

So on the spirit world note... sorry. Just sounds like a load of hogswash and I can't remember a single reference to something like that in the Bible.

 

As far as I'm aware, the bible does not mention any creative periods - or infact, anything that may lead us to believe that they were anything other than days. They even go one step further, to reinforce the idea of days (just incase we didn't know how amazing God was already, creating the world in the dark) it even says that "there was evening, and there was morning—the first day." Which it repeats for most days. But I'm sure I don't need to throw quotes from the bible at you.

So from my understanding, which please bare in mind is limited, these Creative Periods are humans own interpretation of the holy scripts, correct? Surely if this is the case here, the same can be applied to other situations - where one can twist the wording to suit their needs?

 

NOG:

Cool - but those don't help your case I don't think. 500 million years is significantly before the time in which Noah could have existed, and the other sounds like speculation.

(my enthusiasm for this debate is pretty much kaput btw - will probably comment quite a bit less...)

 

spirit wolrd? no where in the bible does it say that nonebelivers get a second chance in a spiritworld.
im with Abomination on this on, sounds like BS to me.

As for Creative periodes, its a term resently invented to counter the growing scientific data, that shows the earth is far older then the biblic earth. The Idea of the seven days as pr bible dogma, not being actual days, but god days/creative periodes/whatever lasting million of years is a relative new idea, to counter science.

Much like the smart evolution, where christians twist evolution to be gods smart plan and not something based on survivel of the fitest.

In my opinion, its desperate explanations, for places where the bible is clearly opposing to facts.

for instance if you believe in evolution you know ma decented from abes, yet the bible claimed man is created in the image of god. if you embrace both ideas, god most clearly be a monkey ....incidently that could explaine quite a few mistakes (dont take the last two lines to serious though )

Oh: and to NOG, i want to see some scientific data confirming what you say. cause most of it sounds like christian scientist trying to explaine the plagues.

 

NOG:

It seems to me the Bible is one hell of a badly written book. Take women speaking in church, for instance. Taking your word for the context being what it was, they could have written something like "Nobody's allowed to gossip or make unnecessary noice or create distraction during mass." (Just off the top of my head.) But instead, someone decided to just write that women must sit silent and be obedient. Hey, let's jot that down in the holy book that people will be reading thousands of years from now! Everybody's sure to get the gist of it.

The theories about the "sons of God" don't really satisfy me.

and

Why would holy men go for evil, promiscuous women, let alone cro-magnons? It says here: because they were beautiful. Not to convert them or anything like that. Strange holy men, those.

And heroes of old, men of renown? Sounds like an attempt to reconcile some ancient folklore mythologies and religion.

The creation story: The "seven days" may not be a chronological list of events and days may not be days, okay. It's just a list. Still it begs the question, where that list came from. Who wrote it, on what basis? We don't know. It's just been taken at face value.

Slaves and slavery: so what if the slaves in Hebrew society were treated better than in other societies? Does that negate them being slaves? You toss "seven years" around like it's nothing. Where I'm from you have to do something really insane to even go to jail for that long.

There's also a nice catch. From Exodus 21:

Another little gem:

However, it also says this:

This is actually kind of impressive.

About men and women and their supposed equality: It says in Numeri that promises made by women are not valid if the husband or father (whoever's in charge at the time) so chooses.

Further, if man and woman have such specified roles, man being in charge and woman being obedient (or respectful or whatever you like), man doing the talking and making the decisions, it's pretty far fetched to suggest it's an equal partnership where the two sides complement each other.

Here's a nice example of a just God, from Leviticus 10, that I just *have to* bring up:

I'm sure there's some wonderful context buried somewhere in there that makes burning someone alive for getting a ritual wrong seem perfectly justified and understandable.

What's the point of having a holy book if every little tidbit requires tons of background research to determine how each particular tidbit should maybe perhaps be interpreted to fit the current situation? Who's going to have time for that?

 

Also Notice the rules for slaves only apply if the slave is Hebrew.

 

@HB:
That's why I said, 'When ONE of them speaks.' Meaning not when the others speak. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

@Rotku:
Actually, no it doesn't, not in the original hebrew. I've gone through this before, but apparently it is needed again. You have to consider the original language. The hebrew passage here does use the word meaning a period from dusk till the next dusk (or a 24 hour period later in the society), but it is used in a specific pattern that denotes not a chronological listing (i.e. first this happened, then that, and it took this long), but a categorical one (i.e. 'First of all, God made everything that is green. Second of all, God made everything that flies in the air...'). There is no connection to how long it actually took, or even if thing happened in that order. They are ordered according to ancient hebrew orderings. The first three 'days' (the term used here as a dividing tool, not a specific time period) are acts of division, God divided the light from the darkness, the land from the sea, the heavens (sky or air) from the earth (ground and sea). The next three days are days of creation, God creates all forms of life and rulership, thus the Sun and Moon, set to 'rule over' the day and the night are in this set. These are ordered according to their concept of importance, with inanimate objects (the Sun and the Moon) as the first and least important. Next come things that live in the sea and the air, these are 'less important' than things that live on the land. Lastly come the things that live on the land, with humans being the final act of creation, thus the most important.

So you see, the Bible, if interpreted by a student of the language, doesn't actually say God created the Earth in six 24-hour days.

@Abomination:
I can't find where it says that exacly at the moment, it's one of the times Paul is taking about the Law and how the Law brings death, but Christ brings life (he does that a lot). Romans 2:26-27, however, says,

Thus, those that never had the written code, yet followed what God had shown them was right (not what society had shown them) are treated as if they were in the promise and covenant of the Jews. This only applies, however, to those who have never been told the truth, have never heard the name Jesus, not those who have been told and ignored. It also only applies to those who have listened to God speaking to their hearts, not to those who have given in to wickedness. Sorry HB. That also cuts your 'billions' down quite a bit.

@HB:
As shown above, ignorance isn't a defence. Ignorance means different standards, but standards still.

And that's why we're commanded to share the Word. By the way, that's:
Yes, but only their behaviour, the people are still loved.
No.
No.
No and never actually was sinful.
No. Really, no.
No.
Only if you want to be in the 'covenant with Abraham', as circumcision was a way of marking those people as seperate, not a sin if not fulfilled.
No, so long as you don't say something stupid like 'This proves God didn't create life.'
etc

As I said, for those that never knew (not you or anyone reading this), they are only held accountable for what God revealed to them. For the rest of us, turning your life over to Jesus is all that's required. That means admitting you've sinned and can't make it up yourself and asking Jesus to forgive you. That's it. Really.

@Ab:
See what I wrote to Rotku. You're using an English translation that doesn't properly convey the meaning of the passage.

@Aik:

That's when it was created. It collapsed about 5000 BC, well within the time range when Noah may have lived.

@Equester:
There are so many holes in your logic it is truely baffling. Take this one for example:

That suggests that 1.) God was talking about physical image, which He wasn't and 2.) back before there were people, monkeys were actually men in monkey bodies. This is what I mean. If I say a sculpted some clay to look like something, and it does now, that does not suggest that the block of clay I sculpted the statue from originally looked like the thing as well. What I mean is, if God created humans in His own physical image (which He didn't), then that means we weren't in His image until we were humans.

@Susipaisti:
Ah, but Paul's letters weren't written for people to read thousands of years in the future. They were letters to specific groups of people that Paul personally knew. When you write an email to a friend you know very well, do you write it in such a way that people thousands of years from know, speaking a totally different language, will know exactly what you meant? No? Neither did he. And if you don't believe what I say, by all means do the research yourself. Until then, don't say, 'You're wrong because I don't want to believe you.'

One, that's only one interpretation. Two, because they were beautiful and easy and tempting. It's called falling. I never said they were perfect, and in fact God condemns them for this. Three, standards of beauty are entirely relative to the society. The ancient Greeks thought chubby was beautiful and if a girl didn't have 'love handles' she was starved and ugly.

God wrote it in an attempt to give a little history to the Hebrews who didn't understand what stars were, or cells, or diseases, or anything like that. Genesis is not a text book on the process of creation.

As for the role of women, how do you explain God placing women as rulers and judges over all of Israel? Women have roles to play in a marriage, just like men do, but they are not inferior.

Umm, actually, I think it was the part where Aaron's sons raped some women and Aaron refused to punish them. Yeah.

Every little tidbit doesn't require tons of background research, but reading the whole passage and assuming that sentence A may be related to sentence B does help.

 

Sorry, but I still count as someone who doesn't KNOW. Just because you are spreading a word to me doesn't help me distinguish between your word and the word of, say, a Scientologist. You may say that you are spreading the word of God to me, and you may be right, but I have know way of knowing if you're right, or the other guy is right. It's almost as if I'm getting too much information, so I'm no better off than the 'ignorant savage'. At least the ignorant savage can't make the wrong choice (he has no options to choose from). I have 100 options in front of me, and by those odds, my chances of making the wrong choice, or hearing the wrong word, or coming to the wrong conclusion, are massive!

 

I'm with HB on that one. I could hear about Jesus in passing comment only in my life, I have heard of him but does that mean I'm now damned for not following him?

I think Islam has greater basis than Christianity... I'll go follow them. I die. I find out that in fact Hinduisim was correct. Damn. Now I suffer for eternity.

 

the whole god is a monkey was just an old evolutionary joke, but since you want to go down that road *shrughs*

The bible says adam was created in gods image, for all we know Adam must have been either a homo sapien if you uphold that humans today is created in the image of god, but that would mean that you cant agree to the now proven evolution theory. because in a couple of 1000years, maybe less Homo Sapiens will be as outdated as the CHrom magnum man or Neanderthal. The so called Homo Superior will have taken our place (note: Homo Superior is just the current name for this theoretic race).
In Any case evolution goes right against the god who created us in his image. Which is again why darwin was so hated by the churche.
Its a general churche thing to be some years behind the rest of us, since religion by its nature is a conservative (not the party) thing, Since all religions are build on never changing rituals, thats why its hard for them to except new knowdlege and ideas.
And thats why im so against it.

 

Sources please!

 

I realize they're letters. But whose bright idea was to include them in the Bible, and why? And why are those letters used to justify various claims (like in the homosexuality thread), when they are just letters to specific groups of people?

About the "sons of God":

Where does God condemn them? And this stuff about falling, I don't get that from the text at all.

And what were the other interpretations? Angels mating with human women? Does that make sense at all, looking at the rest of the book, how angels behave?

Here's another interpretation: A monotheistic religion evolving from polytheism. From mythology, just like Zeus and Hercules. Folklore. Stories. People made it up. People made God up. Just an interpretation, mind you.

Genesis:

How do you know? If I were a betting man, I'd say a human being wrote it.

Examples, please. Preferably chapters and verses. And if it's one or two cases where a queen rules instead of a king for the simple reason that there are no male heirs, I'd call it an exception, not something that God has a habit of doing.

The Bible's not big on letting women make any decisions themselves. Daddy's in charge until he chooses a hubby to take over. That's not inferiority?

About Nadab and Abihu:

Excuse me while I ask where the hell does it say that? Certainly not in Leviticus 9, 8 or 7 (those I actually read for the most part). I also searched biblegateway.com using the two names as keywords, and only found references to when they were born, some rituals, and that passage that I quoted. And the passage itself says nothing about anybody raping anybody. It says the fire was unauthorised. Zoom. Dead.

Show me sentence B. That would be a start in this case.

Now when did I say that? And if by "doing the research yourself" you're suggesting I dig up some chronicle titled Everyday Life Among the Christians in Rome in the Year 35 at the local library, I don't think I have fifteen years to spare right now. This goes to show that those tidbits do require quite a lot of background research.

 

@HB and Ab:
Sorry, but it doesn't matter what you count as 'knowing', only what God counts as 'knowing'. If you've been told the truth, and deep inside God is telling you it is the truth, and you still ignore it, you are going to Hell. If you were never told the truth (this includes just hearing Jesus's name in passing but never hearing His message), then you are not held accountable for what you didn't know, but only for what you did know (from God again).

@Equester:
Ok, apparently you missed the part where I said all this is moot because it wasn't a physical image of God we were made in.

*sigh* So manny things wrong with this.
1.) It hasn't been proven, we've had 100 threads on this and they've all devolved into nothing because there isn't any conclusive proof, it's just one theory that fits the evidence well.
2.) You apparently don't understand anything about the time scale of evolution. Homosapien Sapien has been around for, AT MOST, 200K years, which is a baby step in evolution. If you said 'in the next .5 million years' or so, you MAY be on the right track, though that would still be very fast.
3.) You're assuming that human society has not negated survival of the fittest, which is a debatable point, but not one you should assume. You are also assuming that humanity will survive the next X years, which, if God is in control, is no guarantee as He has already predicted AN end, just not when.

No it doesn't. There's no contradiction between evolution and the Bible at all. And the Catholic Church went against Darwin because he threatened their power, just like the religious leaders went against Jesus.

@Aikanaro:
It was in a Scientific American about 5 years ago. I don't still have it and I don't remember the issue. If you have access to their online database, please look through that time period, but I don't.

@Susipaisti:
Paul's letters were included because they had divinely inspired advice for common problems that people still encounter today. If you read them in their original context, you can understand what that is. If you ignore the context, it doesn't make as much sense, just like anything else.

Falling refers to falling into temptation, and it isn't in the text, that's part of one explanation.

As for the angels theory, well, they were fallen angels (demons) not God's angels.

Did a quill write the Illiad? No, the person that came up with it did. Therefore, if no human came up with the ideas in Genesis, then no human wrote it. If God created the ideas, the God is the author.

Well, you could start by looking through Judges, since I said they were Judges, and not queens. By the way, if you don't know this, each judge was individually appointed by God, no inheritence or anything like that, and they were called from any member of the population, so no 'women were the only ones available' excuse either..
Here are some examples of God favoring women:

Judges ch. 4-5: Deborah, not only a judge, but a prophetess, too. She's the only female judge appointed, also the only judge said to have been a prophet(ess), clearly special.

Exodus 15:20: Miriam is a prophetess

2nd Kings 22:14: Huldah is a prophetess

Nehamiah 6:14: Noadiah is a prophetess

Luke 2:36: Anna is a prophetess

Acts 21:9: 4 daughters of Philip are called prophetesses

The whole book of Ruth exemplifies the faithfulness of Ruth to her duities (not marrital as she wasn't married). Here God spends a whole book on the life of one person in times of trouble in Israel, and it's a woman.

The book of Ester tells the story of a jewish woman who delivers the jews in exile here from the oppression of Xerxes's reign. It's actually the kings advisors who are oppressing the jews, not the king himself. Ester marries him and become queen, holding great power, changing the social climate and saving the jews from genocide.

And that's not even getting into the women who are praised for various acts throughout the old and new testaments.

Oh really? Maybe you should read Proverbs 31:10-31 before you say that. Actually, maybe you should read the Bible before you say that.

Oh, sorry, was thinking about someone else. They got swallowed by the earth, not burnt alive. Here, this wasn't just a simple mistake, though. This was the priests 'offering fire', which can be generalized to any ritual, when they weren't supposed to. This would be like offering the Sin Offering when they weren't supposed to or going into the Holy of Holies when they weren't supposed to. It's a big deal, it's the son's trying to take control of their position, trying to look good in the eyes of the people, and directly disobeying God. God was being very serious with a people that had a history of blatantly disobeying Him and He wanted to make a point.

Well, for starters the verses I mentioned on women in high positions.

You didn't say it directly, but your posts so far have demonstrated a striking lack of knowledge about the Bible you are attacking, as well as a general lack of willingness to do any research yourself, while still criticising things that you assume to be there or to be wrong, apparently just because you want them to be and not because you see any evidence they are. All in all, I'm quite disapointed. I hope you won't bring up any of these topics again without some new matters that you have bothered to research a bit. I'm getting tired of repeating myself.

 

That sounds spectacularly unfair to me. The savage gets told nothing and gets to go to heaven. I get told 100 things with no real way of deciding what's right and I go to hell. I repeat again that I have absolutely NO way of knowing whether you are right about worshipping God through abiding by his notions of avoiding sin, or whether the Scientologists are right about their notion of purging humans from the evil influence of malevolent aliens, for example.

Just so you understand, I will repeat once again, I have NO way of knowing whether your view is right. No way. Which is why you will hopefully never hear me say that you are wrong. God may have spoken to you in way that makes it obvious to you that he is there and right and good, but I have not yet heard such a persuasive voice. If I have to go to hell because of this, then I am disappointed by the unfairness of it all.

 

First you dodge the issue of the letters' unclear wordings by saying they were only intended for specific groups in a specific time and place. When I then question their inclusion, you say they offer advice for problems people still encounter today. Interesting.

Ignore the context? How many people do you think have the time and motivation to do some extensive history research, when the Bible itself is always presented as offering all the answers? If the context isn't *in* the book, 90-something per cent of people, Christians included, won't know where to look, or to even look in the first place.

And none of this is in the text. That's thin. And you still haven't said where exactly God condemns these celestial beings or his sons or whatever they were.

If. How am I supposed to know?

Actually you said:

Let's see what we've got. One judge/prophet, eight prophets, one woman faithful to her duties, and one hero -> queen. A far cry from "rulers and judges over all of Israel." Since when did prophets rule?

Okay, an ode to a housewife. How about checking out some of those laws in Leviticus? In the 20th chapter it says the reason why it's wrong for a man to have sex with his uncle's wife is because it dishonors the uncle. The same with his brother's wife, it dishonors the brother.

Suspicious of your wife? Make her drink water with some dust from the tabernacle floor in it and see if she gets sick, like in Numeri 5. Can you find a ritual for testing how faithful a man has been?

How about what Numeri 30 says about promises made by women? They're valid only if her husband/father doesn't say otherwise.

Numeri 31, a campaign of vengeance against Midians:

Deuteronomy 22. If a man accuses his wife of not having been pure, and her parents can't produce a bloody cloth, she gets stoned. The reason? The father's honor. Also, a rapist caught in the act must marry his victim.

What does this type of stuff spell out? Property.

And about Nadab and Abihu again:

This is the best one so far. Really. There's a loving, just God for you. Later on those oh-so-important rituals where just dropped.

I think you know that what I was referring to was the thing about Aaron's sons. To which you replied:

So no need to get high and mighty there.

Striking lack of knowledge? I'm just reading what's there. That's what Christians have been doing for quite a long time. That's what they do when they seek to justify condemning things, yet they outright ignore other things. You know the context of things, great. Millions of Christians don't. They never even actually read those unpleasant bits.

What I find striking is how you ignore a flood of "women=property" type of chapters and find one that says how glorious it is to be an obedient, responsible wife, as if it negates the others.

Doing research? I've researched the book itself. I don't have time to go through the history of the world. If the book itself is not enough, I'll say again: it's pretty badly written for a holy book.

Criticizing things that I assume to be there? I'm quoting it. How about those wild theories about holy men and cro-mags? Who's assuming?

Getting tired of repeating yourself? Did it ever occur to you your answers aren't satisfactory? Burning people alive to prove a point? Okay, I'll just go worship now.

[ Hey there ... ] - Beren

[ October 12, 2006, 13:22: Message edited by: Beren ]

 

Both statements are correct. Though they were written for people 2000 years ago, their advice is still just as valid and necessary today. Humans really haven't evolved very much int he last 2000 years (or the 4000 years before that for what it's worth...)

 

True, but human thought and science has. Even religion has.

 

26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

I guess you can interpertate this as you want and ignore churhc Dogma and so forth, but to me that prety much sound like physical likenes. its not like and god created the Chromagnum and said go evolve into the image of me or and god created a creature with the mind like him. Infact we dont get a mind like him until we eat of the trea of life.
but arguing with fanatics, wille fun, its pointless.
I hold no illusions that i can change gnarfs or nogs mind, as far as i can see they uphold a good religius tradition of ignoring all facts that prove them wrong, while they feel no need to produce other facts than statesment of a divine being telling them thier believes are the truth.

 

@HB:
The savage gets told nothing and goes to heaven IF HE LIVES A PURE LIFE WITH EVERY ATTEMPT TO BE PERFECT. You get told the truth (and there is a way to know which is which, but that probably deserves its own topic the way things are going now) and can choose to be forgiven or go on living sinfully. Hell, being forgiven doesn't even cost anything, it's free.

@Susipaisti:

No. I never dodged the issue. I said context was important. It boggles my mind how you can repeatedly miss this. Drew had the same problem. He seemed convinced that Modern New York was just like ancient Jerusalem, people, building plans, society, everything. I never understood it. What I'm saying here is that 1700 years ago, people still spoke greek and had pretty good ideas about what was going on when Paul wrote his letters. They saw that what was in the letters (meaning) was important regardless of time and that people would keep having the same problems, so they kept the letters. 1700 years later, you probably don't speak greek and only have the slightest clue about what was going on from what I've told you, so you read the letters out of context, getting a meaning out of them that was never there to begin with. Then you claim that this new meaning is contradictory to the Bible and when I tell you you got the wrong meaning, you say I'm dodging the issue. It's like you missed the 'not' in "You will not steal." and refuse to accept that it is actually there.

First off, 90% of context is never in the text itself, unless the text is a text book. Secondly, that's why we have things like concordances, and Study Bibles. Spend $30 at any christian bookstore and you can probably get the basics. You can even find a lot of this stuff online for free. Try Google.

Umm, it's given as the reason as the reason for the Great Flood. That sounds like condemnation to me.

See what I've said to HB.

Exactly, no queens, not in the sense you intended them anyway. The only queen marries into the position.

They don't, but we were talking about the Bible saying women are inferior to men. God chose women as His mouthpeace, His representative, His way of delivering His word to His chosen people. That's a very high and honored position, and not one to be given to an inferior creature, thus God doesn't treat them as inferior, He honors them.

Did you actually read it? She decides when and what land to buy, she starts her own business, she trades with people from afar, she keeps the books for the house. That's not an ode to a housewife, that's saying the 'woman of noble character' is imortant, decisive, just, caring, and discerning.

One, this reflects the concerns of the time. Two, it is as much a warning against men as it is against women. If the man is jelous and can't prove it himself, he has to give a grain offering, no small token. If the woman is guilty and hides it, she is cursed. If the woman is innocent, nothing happens. Compare this to other societies at the time where tests include things like drowning, burning, or maybe there is no test and the accusation of the husband is enough to kill her.

Again, it is anauthority issue, and it only concerns vows made before God, the equivalent of signing a contract. A YOUNG woman, ie still living with her parents, is under the authority of her father and any such vows she makes are subject to her approval. The same is true today, a child can't sign a contract without the parent's aproval, or it isn't bindind. A married woman is under the authority of her husband, and such vows would affect the family as a whole, not just the woman. This is like passing a law saying a woman can't have an abortion without notifying her husband. We don't have one, but I wouldn't have a huge problem with it. Unmarried women who are not living with their fathers are bound by all their vows.

Ah, but what was it vengence for? It was vengence for what happened in chapter 25 where the women seduce the Israelites into sexual immorality and worship of a foreign god. All who commited the acts were slain, both the Israelite men (in ch 25) and the Moabite women (all non-virgins in ch 31). There's no reason to kill the virgins, so they are spared. Just leaving them there, though, would still be killing them as their entire tribe was just wiped out. Instead, they were assimilated into the Israelite tribe, a common practice at the time when tribes went to war.

Ok, 1.) virginity was a big thing in those days and the family would have kept proof that she was a virgin when she was married. Therefore, any father would be able to produce such proof if it was true, and the husband gets punished. If it is false, there is nothing to produce, and the woman is punished for it the same way she would be if the father found out before the marriage. 2.) The reason is not 'the father's honor', but rather the daughter doing a disgraceful thing, or sinning.

Drew and I got into a very long discussion on this topic. It moved into PMs and got rather heated. I'd rather not see a repeat of this, but the issue is again virginity. An unmarried woman who had lost her virginity would not likely get married, ever. Not in that society. This places the woman under the protection of the marriage laws and makes the rapist pay for her living for the rest of his life. And don't think NY psycho who locks her up in an apartment for years, that was Drew's problem. Think over-eager teenager who then has to share his living quarters with another three families and can't get away with squat.

I'm assuming you're talking about the New Testament, in which case they are dropped for a MUCH more important event.

Actually, no, I didn't, because I was refering in general when I made the statement about A and B.

But that's what worries me, you aren't. You seem to be quoting verses that are ripped out of their context, even ones in the text, to try and support your points.

All I can say here is there are millions who claim to be Christians who aren't, and probably millions who are technically Christians, but don't live the life. Don't judge the book by people who ignore it.

I don't, I just explained each and every one of them. They aren't women=property at all, that's only your analysis of them outside of the context.

But you are drawing faulty conclusions from things you quote out of context and then assuming that's all there is.

No one. That was one possible explanation. ONE. POSSIBLE. No one ever assumed it was right.

What's not satisfactory? So far all I've heard is 'I don't have time/want to do the research to prove you right or wrong.' That's not my problem. If you don't want to believe me, ok, but don't argue as if I was wrong unless you can show I am.

@Rotku:
Not really. Science yes, religion, maybe in some cases, and not neccessarily for the better, thought, not really. There's nothing new under the sun.

@Equester:

And it also doesn't say why people get sick, or why the sun moves in the sky. The text is filled with imagery, very rarely exact. It doesn't say it was a physical image, and there's doubt whether God even had one set physical image for us to be made after, so it isn't illogical to believe that maybe it wasn't a physical image. Throughout the Bible, old testament and new, this phrase is used to refer to the characteristics of God, not his mug shot. "Therefore be conformed to the image of Christ." But there are no paintings of what Christ actually looked like. The text is talking about His character, not His portrait.

You haven't given any 'facts that prove me wrong', only a wide number of claims that are unsubstantiated. And when you attack my Holy Book, claiming it to be contradictory and wrong, you bet I'll turn to it to argue, it is the topic at hand. I'd be a fool to do otherwise. Instead it is you and Susipaisti that are ignoring things like context, historical evidence, and science.

To all:
My belief system is consistent within itself (it doesn't contradict itself), it is consistent with proven scientific data, it is consistent with accepted historical fact, it is relevant to modern times. If you disagree with one of these, please specify which and how. Don't make generalizations like:

[ October 12, 2006, 21:00: Message edited by: NOG (No Other Gods) ]

 

OK then. Forgive me. Is that it?