The Inherently Myopic, Indifferently Mindless and Disingenuously Insincere “religious” Philosophies and Maxims of Atheists, Skeptics & “Agnostics” (Rom 1:16-2:16...John 15:22; 9:41)
...Deliberately foregoing any substantive (generalized) introduction here and instead getting right into addressing such, yet presumingly plausible, various claims and arguments as encountered (And see more discussion in this other, foundationally related, post; as well as this dedicated post in response to TYT’s “special” claims):
-But first....
...as there is nothing more genuine-powerful-convincing as a personal testimony (cf. Rev 12:11), the wonderful conversion testimony of “cradle atheist” Jennifer Fulwiler to Christianity* is introductorily posted here. The following video clip is an ultra-condensed overview of her entire testimony, but following it is a listing of various great presentations/productions about, and resources related to, her testimony.
See also: Jen on ‘Meaninglessness of a Universe without God’ [Cf. here]
Presentations/Productions
More detailed presentation of Jennifer’s Testimony are given by her in (e.g.):
(Audio only) - JENNIFER FULWILER From atheist to Catholic (ca. 09/2011)
Interviews
Book
Much more details, anecdotes/stories and information is given in her book Something Other Than God (an online posting)
Book Review/Interview
Reality Mini-Series on Jennifer’s Conversion & Experiences:
Related/Pertinent Resources
Jennifer’s Blogs:
The Reluctant Atheist [Aug 2005-Feb 2006]
Et-Tu Jen?! (Archive)
Conversion Diary (Archive)
Current Website/Blog [Feb 2006-today]
Jennifer’s recommended Christianity Conversion Reading List
* -but unfortunately to the Theologically and Biblically, actually ‘anti-Christianity’ denomination in Christianity, namely Roman Catholicism, -which, as discussed later, also believes in the fallacy& heresy of: so-called “(Theistic) Evolution”....but at least “vitally” is, as now is Jennifer, (staunchly) Pro-Life/anti-abortion.
-Links to Some More [Popular] Atheists Converts:
More Great Atheist+ to Christian Conversion Testimonies {=Former Lifestyle/Views}:
Cf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I5dgBJX5bo (=not an “April’s Fool” nor a “4-20” prank...I think...)
{Pot|Mushrooms|New Ager/Occultist Millennial} Lindsay Middleton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48eA3dC3hgs
{Bored by Eastern Orthodox Religiosity} Angelina Snitko: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0-MUw2Wmwg
{Popular, Highly-Educated, Secular, Statistician, Millennial, Philosophical, Atheist Blogger} Leah Libresco: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMXkAWHPECQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toyPXmS5Tvk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_Iy8cxiCTs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9ncZHLoy9k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_Iy8cxiCTs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9ncZHLoy9k
{Creeped=/Weirded-Out by Church/Churchgoers} Alison Henry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdnxsLHDpa0
P.S. ‘Never mind”...{“I was 16”... “I was manipulated”...“I was judged”...} Matt 13:4, 5-6, 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZCK6Bqloeg
{Drug/Tattoo/Sex/Heavy Metal+ Lifestyle} (soul-breaking) J.Brett Prince: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKQzlManKYU
-a (‘certified’) real-life “Prodigal Son”!* (Luke 15:11-32) Praise God!!!
{Sex Industry} [f.k.a.: "Jenna Presley"] Brittni De La Mora: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yr_J3npCS0
{Pertinently, see the times when Brittni says now that she was under the deceptive influence of her ‘“wolf in sheep clothing” Fake-Christian pimping boyfriend’: in here (11/03/2010); here [02:23-03:30] (11/2010); here [11:27-12:04] (03/2011) and here [15:54-17:45] (11/2011) prior to that December 2012 truly converting: Rev 2:19-23 “Jezebel”(airplane) experience”}
P.S. (02-03-2018): Sounds/Seems like Brittni has (tryingly) also been ministering to her former co-worker “Lisa Ann” Corpora... -who seemed to have volitionally been professingly considering her, now-yet-again-unretired-from, career as: a ‘blown first chance at life’, but manifestly is, {like 2009+ ‘lingeringly-industry-corded’ Brittni}, despite aspiring intentions, {but unlike Dec 2012+ Brittni}, still “in it” for the (royalty/promotionable/merchandising, -and now also: “occasionally” direct) money (=1 Tim 6:10; cf. Luke 17:32)...
Various Responses to some Claims/Issues/Views in Non-Believers vs. Christianity Debate:
1. Clip[50:51-51:28]; cf. here - Woman formed from rib of the Man - The account of Creation in Genesis does not begin to say, claim or intend that ‘when God “formed/fashioned” man, and then woman (from a rib of man), He was then working according to how He later designed woman to reproduce either a male or female.’ It’s all like the “chicken or the egg” conundrum. God here (also) did not for an “egg”, i.e., a woman, (or a man) starting from an embryonic stage. He instead, somewhat like for man, and all radically unlike the voice-activated (accelerated growth) processes which He used for all of the, priorly-created, rest of creation, -(possibly also including living creatures/animals (Gen 1:20-21, 24-25)); He (inventively) fashioned/formed/built her {most deliberately, like a: “brick...house”} indirectly out of the ground, as this was rather directly from elements in Adam's flesh and bones. (Gen 1:26-27; 2:21-22).So God here was Super-naturally involving what we scientifically now only know and understand as being (human) cloning.
...And what is even more scientifically-verified in all of this is that, as reported from modern scientific knowledge in this 2009 AIG article, which, (as reported here), has been reconfirmed in a 2014-new USC stem cell study: that the rib is the only (known) bone in the human body that can (under certain sustained condition) regrow (within 2 months)!! Moreover “they are one of the few bones that continue to make red marrow (and thus blood cells) in adults”. So this was indeed the perfect bone for God to use in order to (root) clone, moreover the female, Eve from Adam. So that shows that: (1) God, through albeit super-natural means, “scientifically” knew what He was doing; (2) the Bible was clearly 6000 years ahead of modern scientific knowledge and understanding on also this point, (see other examples in here, here & here; -see a mostly quibbling, thus weak/spurious, attempted atheistic rebuttals here); and (3) which all shows that clearly here the Bible writer, Moses, did not come up with this scientifically-accurate understanding on his own, but was indeed inspired by God to know such things.
And manifestly, really as an extra bonus, to also make substantively concrete (cf. ‘God the Son’s Glory/Energy = all (creation) matter’ in here), thus inherently/factually “truthful”, the tangible union which existed between Adam and his wife Eve, (and then later with all (heterosexual) marriage couples (Gen 2:21-24; Matt 19:4-6)) So God used a rib from the man to involve/include his DNA in/with the woman from e.g. stem cells, blood, plasma, and/or marrow properties. But that still does not mean that God had to start from a “blob”....and even if He would have, that still would not mean that it was to be equivalent to how the woman was to later be able to reproduce a child herself. God instead fashioned/formed both man and woman straightly in/as an adult-developed form.
And as further concretizing symbology, the reason why God chose a bone material from the side of the man was:
“Eve was created from a rib taken from the side of Adam, signifying that she was not to control him as the head, nor to be trampled under his feet as an inferior, but to stand by his side as an equal, to be loved and protected by him. A part of man, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, she was his second self, showing the close union and the affectionate attachment that should exist in this relation. (PP 46.2)
Relatedly, it was, quite subjectively, circularly claimed (here[]) that: ‘it cannot be understood how (Theistic) Creationists could believe that Evolution occurred in just 7-days’. LOL...the simple, unbiasedly skewed, answer is that: True (Theistic) Creationists do not, at all, accept the fundamentally flawed (see in here), and still not (capable of being) soundly/logically, even scientifically and rationally,substantiated, (let alone variously, (indifferently) deficient), theory of Evolution. (Cf. The (full) conversion testimony of a former (pompously{=here} and arrogantly{=here}, adamant{=here}; see also here) Evolution professor, Walter J. Veith in this post. {In Part 1 & Part 2 of an interview, Veith goes into much more detail on the science & evolution aspects of his experience.} -See also his excellent 8-part: 'Creation or Evolution' series. See also his presentations: here, updated(=2017): here. [At “best”, in regards to the claim here, (so-called) Christians who (unbiblically) believe that the account of Genesis allows for evolution (e.g. Roman Catholics; {cf. here[03:44ff] from (“backsliding”) Southern Baptist Joe Scarborough; and here|here from charismatic(?!) Southern Baptist Pat Robertson (contra. e.g. 1SP 81.3 in regards to the (no-brainer) mainly vegetative origin of Middle Eastern oil)) do so by wrongly, i.e. unexegetically, claiming that Genesis’ 7 “days” are symbolic for 7 indeterminate “ages” of, e.g., billions of years each.] So there is no irreconcilability between (assumed) evolutionary origins and the Bible’s 7-day Creation account...because the Bible’s God did not use evolution to create. The Bible fully reveals, (as discussed during this post), that He has enough (1) creative, highly-scientific, know-how; (2) life-originating/providing power; and (3) supply and materializing energy; to create all things in there full-grown form, a process which manifestly took up a whole day of energetic work as, pointedly the non-human and non-animal living things (e.g. vegetation) were created through a (voice-activated) accelerated, seed-to-full fruition, hyper-development growth spurting (think a time-lapsing footage of a plants normative-time growth acceleratedly done within one day). The God of the Bible is not subject to science, He is its defining and organizing author. {See this ‘Science vs/& God’ [titles] & “Baptizing the Devil” [=book] Series by Clifford Goldstein (his testimony cf. here/here); Cf. (e.g.) the Creation vs. Evolution “Controversy” related sermon entitled “Adam’s College Life” by Anil Kanda.}.
Ken Ham vs. Bill Nye Debate - But most emblematically pertinent and related here is the February 4, 2014 debate which renown Creationist/Intelligent Design proponent Ken Ham and Evolution/Naturalism proponent Bill Nye had (View the full debate here), which was viewed live by over 5,000,000 people. I’ll candid (i.e., vs. partisanly) say that I was initially disappointed that Ken Ham had not addressed the (seemingly) objecting points against Creationism/for Evolution that Bill Nye brought up during his opening statement. And it did/would seem (as harped on by unbelievers the next day(s) (here|here+here & here) that ‘Ken Ham clearly just could not provide a factual counter-response to those claims’. But it was only as I paused the debate and did a simple Google search on each of those points that I got the deliberate approach of Ken Ham to, as he actually had stated in rebuttal, that answering each of these points would take much more time than was available then...pointedly because Ken Ham’s ministry (Answers in Genesis) had actually provided many well-researched and documented answers to those/such objecting claims. (As also pointed out here[12:11-13:54ff] in a Live post-debate show). So, as Ham said in a pre- (and the post-) debate interview, he was, instead of literally resetting this controversy to a root/square 1 level at the debate, going to hone in on the pointed crux of the matter, which is that, as Bill Nye would ultimately be forthcoming about, both sides had the same evidence at hand, but then came to different assumptions and conclusions based on those “observable” facts into trying to reconstruct a “history” of how those observable facts came to be. Ken Ham was thus rightly forthcoming about stating that he, even beyond the fact that he derived all his “historical” evidence from the Creation Account and (Theological) History found in the Bible, he further ascribed to the ultimate belief that, as the Bible states, it was an Eternal, All-Mighty God who had caused all of these things. Bill Nye’s stance was that ‘he did not really know what had cause his observable or historical, but was dedicating his life and passion to trying to find out’...Hence Ham’s appropriate “evangelistic” reply that: ‘there was a Book which already provide such, moreover still scientifically and/or logically/rationally unrefuted, answers to these issues and question.
But on the also available, substantive refutation of Bill Nye’s claims, my Google searching during and after viewing the debate produced this well-argued and documented website article by Christian Creationist Jeff Miller (PhD), pointedly on those (non-fully/pointedly answered) issues raised by Bill Nye in the debate. And on top of the, as stated before, many scholarly articles already available on Ken Ham’s website, I found the video+links analysis by the Creation.com ministry on the debate to be very (resourcefully) helpful. (See also the other websites link to here). There’s no need to restate those well substantiated and presented arguments here. But I will here add some points which I think are additionally/better resolved from my own denominational and Theological/Biblical Research perspective.
-Bill Nye [at ca. 01:53:03] validly brought up the question/issue of an expanding universe, all of those celestial bodies+stars, and the manifest evidence that there was a “Big Bang” in relation to a Creation Model. I’ll here merely summarily restate from my observations within here that I actually would find nothing contraring to Biblical Creationism in a “Big Bang” Event because my Theological studies have shown that the bestowed Divine energy from God the Son (=thus then Michael, and then Jesus) had manifestly been, and that necessarily immediately and entirely, converted into matter for purposes of Creation resulting in all of what materially exists today throughout the Universe. And thus would be a literal/tangible understanding of the statement in Psa 19:1 that: “the heavens [including the “second heavens” = space] count/number/reckon (cf. Gen 15:5) the glory of God [=plural Elohim]” for they would indeed be ‘accounting for’ every particle of that converted Divine energy! So that conversion event could easily have been in a “Big Bang” type of event, as in a Nuclear blast, but instead of an “explosion” of matter into energy as in a nuclear blast, there was a converse reaction converting that energy into matter. It then would be interesting to me the (circumstantial) “evidence” that Bill Nye claims of a residual/perpetuating “hissing” sound discovered to be in the background of the Universe. I.e., perhaps that is the kind of “inward”/suction =hissing sound that such a conversion reaction would produce.
In regards to an expanding universe, it actually could very well be, since as I understand, all of the measurements are made from the perspective of this planet/galaxy, that it is sinful planet which is slowly moving away from the rest of the universe. However it could alternatively be that God’s Universe is indeed expanding to fill up still newer parts of available Galatic space. Whatever the case, as with Ham main premise, such “observable” evidence, still just does not validate the Evolutionary “Historical” Belief that “nothing (intelligent) had created everything”.
-Another interesting point to me that was made [at ca. 01:12:00], was in regards to the structural strength that would be necessary for Noah’s ark to make it through the flood. The response by (briefly) Ham and (more detailedly) Miller in regards to likely also utilized wooden ship structural joints/sectional technology, along with the actually much greater intelligence of antediluvian people (as per the Biblical/Creation Model) and certainly not according to the Evolutionary Model, as well as several other arguments are quite good. But I’ll add here that, first in regards to ship building, the Noah and other people of his time who lived close to 1000 years were actually also taller, ca. 15-20 feet tall. And so their physical strength from a frame of ca. 2000 lbs was definitely that much more greater than people today. And yet “On account of the great size of the trees and the nature of the wood, much more labor was required then than now to prepare timber, even with the greater strength which men then possessed.” (PP 92.3a) So what would require a mechanized tools and heavy duty machinery to do today by humans, was easily done by humans then. So the building of the Ark over 120 years by 4 men was quite feasible, but it is likely that Noah could indeed either contract or have volunteered the help of others, including from his (even if non-believing) sibling and extended family and friends.
But what I found most interesting here was a revelatory statement (pointedly in bold below) which I had read in the SOP written out over 150 years ago 150 years ago (i.e. in also 3SG 70.1 (1864), and thus during the then (predominant) “Age of Faith”) about the Ark during the Flood which, until this structural reliability objection by Nye, I had frankly found to be “unnecessary”. It is the inspired statement that:
“All that man could do was done to render the work perfect, yet the ark could not of itself have withstood the storm which was to come upon the earth. God alone could preserve His servants upon the tempestuous waters.” (PP 92.3b)
and
“The massive ark trembled in every fiber as it was beaten by the merciless winds and flung from billow to billow. But amid the warring elements it continued to ride safely. Angels that excel in strength were commissioned to preserve it.” (PP 100.1)
So that successful withstanding of the Flood elements by the Ark was itself, necessarily, out of a supernatural/miraculous intervention by God. (=1SP 74.2) And as Miller also similarly argued/stated in his answer: “Human wisdom could not have devised a structure of so great strength and durability. God was the designer, and Noah the master builder.” (PP 92.3a)
As several Atheists were commending of Ken Ham and his forthcoming stance for that debate, -since the issues did indeed ultimately come down on both sides to a matter of foundational “belief”, this controversy does indeed boil down to what one foundationally “believes” because the present/observable evidence is inherently painted by this fundamental belief. And so Bill Nye was actually honest enough to admit that ‘he does not know’ the answers to those foundational/causal issues/questions, and similarly, Ken Ham was honest enough to state that he believes that Bible’s Theistic, Creation and Historical accounts, pointed as found in the early chapter of Genesis (i.e., Gen 1-11) does provide the best “explanations” for those present observations.
Relatedly there was/is a whole kerfuffle about a claim by Evolutionist that the Creation Model is supposed to “predict” future events/developments as supposedly does/can the Evolution Model, well to me, that clearly seems that Evolutionist are merely circularly basing this expectation on there, moreover, actually non-proven Evolutionary belief that “believes” that they had predicted past (macro-evolution) developments..which they just have not. As Ken Ham stated in the closing remarks of the debate, the Bible actually has Divine Prophecies to make such predictions, moreover also in the realm of Free-will human affairs. And that is indeed well attested in the Bible, and God offers this as the other proof, on top of Creation, the He Exist and is the All-Mighty God. But it would seem to me that any (so-called) “predictive” expectation from the Creation Model actually is a misnomering of what should be “explanations”. So for the Biblical Christian, Creation “explains” the world, -(and also unlike the Evolutionary/Naturalism scheme, it does not claim that “experimental” activity are necessarily contributive to determining and advancing life); while Bible Prophecy is what is “predictive” of what is to take place in this world, in the future, all in the Theological Context of God working to satisfactorily and evidentiarily resolving the, later discussed, ongoing “Great Controversy” between Good and Evil.
-A significant point which I slightly disagree with Ken Ham is that I do not believe that God created dinosaurs, but they did exist, through the cross-species-breeding experimenting of fallen men, probably looking to have certain advantages over others, with men before the Flood. But in regards to them after the Flood, I rather see the following inspired statement to be true: “The confused species which God did not create, which were the result of amalgamation, were destroyed by the flood.” (1SP 78.2)
-Also, Jeff Miller made the argument that seeds needed to re-vegetate the destroyed Earth could be preserved in the dead plants and vegetation floating in the Flood’s salt waters, but (1) as presented in this post, though I see from the Bible that Noah’s Flood was global, there is also revelatory indication which perfectly harmonizes with “observable evidence” today that it was also “weighted” by God to necessarily do much more damages, -including in adequately/deeply burying all of the dead bodies after the flood through a great wind (cf. Gen 8:1a), in the parts of the world which were more populated than others. (I.e. the Middle East); and (2) as fully discussed here, the (ocean) waters before the flood were manifestly not at all salty due to the purifying work of God’s purposefully created Leviathan(|Behemoth) (Job 40:15-41:34).
And relatedly also, it can be argued that the manifest break up of a single land mass continent into the various continents we see today, instantaneously occurred when God firstly, i.e. as per the perhaps specific sequencing in Gen 7:11, caused the great fountains of the deep to burst open, thus causing the fragmenting of this then single continent, and probably along the lines and beds of interior rivers; and then opened heaven’s floodgates to flood the Earth (with rain clouds probably concentrated by God upon that highly populated “Middle East” region.) It should also be added that most of the Earth’s mountain ranges, including the ones in which the Ark eventually rested, were caused, and surely as presently accentuated/elevated by/during the tremendous tectonic compressions and shiftings during the Flood.
-Also during the debate I “learned” that Naturalism’s “survival of the fittest” tenet (which most unbelievers just can’t accept, i.e. fully/truly live by), does not necessarily mean “whoever is strongest”, but rather whoever is “naturally best fit” to survive. Well in that case, that would best “justify” the current predominant or inevitable “Live and Let Die” motif by which the world’s “fortunate” today live by. Indeed then one does not have “actively” oppress and/or eliminate whoever is weaker, but just simply “passively” leave them alone to suffer whatever obstacle and fate they are “naturally” not able to overcome on their own. So, Evolutionists, stop all the foreign/humanitarian aid....if you truly believe in your “incontrovertible and subsistencely crucial” worldview. But as Ken Ham and others have rightly brought up, Evolutionist/Naturalists, just always have to borrow, (really steal) from the Biblical/Creation model and worldview to patch up such holes in their fatalistic model.
-I’ll also restate here, in regards to Nye’s main (but vacuous/false) ‘anti-science and discoveries claim, as already stated here, I actually also see that God has left it within the intelligent feasibility of man to be eventually capable of interplanetary travel and technologically transforming those planets into place habitable by humans, but the actual present pressing issues for man in this fallen world is how to preserve their own planet, including the well-being of all, including not resorting to abortion. So whatever resources, including artificially limiting money, though that would not be necessary in a truly cooperative world, should be expended towards those clear and present issues and not billions towards trying to see “via robots or in person” if, as “believed”, there is any drop of water or microscopic life on other planets.
All this to say in sequitur summary, that Ken Ham was ultimately right in involving and focusing on the ultimate issue at the root of this origins controversy. Unbelievers just do not want to recognize anything which would involve a belief in the God of the Bible since that will also make them responsible of heeding the rest of the Bible and its message which is countercultural to their lifestyle and worldview. Given, as Nye inclusively stated in conclusion, the Evolutionary model can at best manufacture some delusional “happiness” in ‘not knowing anything other than that you are destined to die, and even be completely forgotten, eternally’ (hence also the desperation of unbelievers today to become known and famous), why would one be willing to, as involved with the later cited Pascal’s Wager (at Issue #5 below): “bet their life on that”...Really also just so you can “be free” to e.g. sleep around as much as (LOL, safely and healthily) possible before you, LOL, then emotionally desperately try to find someone who will also promise to be faithful to you for the remainder of your “downhill”/aging existence....Indeed as Ken Ham said, the Bible has long been attestingly providing the best model for all such issues, and that, contrary to Nye’s blank rounds attempt to undermine it, having been written starting ca., actually 3500 years ago, (in Hebrew and then Greek)!!!
All this to say in sequitur summary, that Ken Ham was ultimately right in involving and focusing on the ultimate issue at the root of this origins controversy. Unbelievers just do not want to recognize anything which would involve a belief in the God of the Bible since that will also make them responsible of heeding the rest of the Bible and its message which is countercultural to their lifestyle and worldview. Given, as Nye inclusively stated in conclusion, the Evolutionary model can at best manufacture some delusional “happiness” in ‘not knowing anything other than that you are destined to die, and even be completely forgotten, eternally’ (hence also the desperation of unbelievers today to become known and famous), why would one be willing to, as involved with the later cited Pascal’s Wager (at Issue #5 below): “bet their life on that”...Really also just so you can “be free” to e.g. sleep around as much as (LOL, safely and healthily) possible before you, LOL, then emotionally desperately try to find someone who will also promise to be faithful to you for the remainder of your “downhill”/aging existence....Indeed as Ken Ham said, the Bible has long been attestingly providing the best model for all such issues, and that, contrary to Nye’s blank rounds attempt to undermine it, having been written starting ca., actually 3500 years ago, (in Hebrew and then Greek)!!!
That all said above in corroborating support of the Creation Model as defended by proponents like Ken Ham, certain claims in the following, -albeit (at least) pronouncedly, overtly/explicitly non-objective and biased, commentary response/rebuttal/critic to Ken Ham’s debate presentation/positions/claims should, at the very least, be fact-checked, and/or, (if the claims made therein have actually not already been (satisfactorily) addressed by Creationists (e.g. the websites and resources cited above)), be responded to.
Update: December 10, 2014 - Back on December 2, 2014, the Answers in Genesis ministry had responded to an inquiry which I had made on Dec. 1 in regards to whether they had a response to the debate criticizing commentary mentioned in the paragraph above. Their response (posted below), which I just noticed in my email yesterday (Dec. 9) provided a great webpage link from their site, which provided a (Feb 11,2014) issue-by-issue linked responses to the various issues which had been raised in the debate by Bill Nye, including a linked posting of a following night Post-Debate Answer Session with Ken Ham. And as they say, inclusively addresses many of the claims made by “King Crocoduck” in that Youtube video critic of his.
AIG Email Response:
December-02-14 11:49:58 AM
Hello and thank you for contacting Answers in Genesis. Let me first say that I appreciate and like your excellent blog site, and the care and thought that went into developing it.
To respond to your question, typically we don't comment/rebut on other websites or blogs, because if we did, that's all we would ever do as everyone and their brother has one. We've also answered these same questions/comments about "science vs. religion" quite literally hundreds of time on our website, so we don't feel a reply to every particular one is necessary. One of our most comprehensive rebuttal gateway pages is here:
https://answersingenesis.org/countering-the-culture/bill-nye-debates-ken-ham/answers/ In point of fact, many of the contentions on the YouTube video you sent in are addressed here.
We do not try, nor will we, to rebut every evolutionary blog, forum, or website; because if we tried, we would never do anything else, we would be doing a disservice to Christ and we would effectively be muzzled in our goal of evangelism and supporting the local church. On occasion our researchers mention sites and rebut claims, but our primary purpose is to equip the church, not "hunt down" atheist or "counterfeit Christian" arguments.
Sincerely,
Troy Lacey
Answers in Genesis
PO Box 510
Hebron, KY 41048
Update: March 24, 2017 - See the so-called “Second Ken Ham vs. Bill Nye Debate”. An informal ca. 2-hour discussion between the two about Origins while visiting Ken Ham’s life-size Ark of Noah Exhibit/Museum. A subsequent seminar presentation by Ken Ham includes a ca. 22-minute highlight section of the debate. Relatedly, see the: “Science Confirms the Bible” presentation by Ken Ham.
2. (E.g. Clip[00:57]) - Bible = Hating “Gays” - Though it may seem conflatable, the Bible does not actually teach to hate homosexual, it distinguishingly teaches to hate the acts of homosexuality. And as involved in this posting, within God’s own people/camp/nation, such practice was not to be tolerated at all. This sin vs. sinner distinction does make a great difference here. And the perfect case in point was that the early Gentile Church (especially in Corinth) also had as accepted members formerly practicing homosexuals. (1 Cor 6:9-11; Tit 3:3-6; Col 3:5-10ff). But it is actually understandable that people, out of a long trail of flawed thinking starting with an unscientific “gay gene/gender” claim, would think that “hating the sin” can only be the same as “hating the sinner”, but it just is not.
And there also is no ‘New Covenant mandate for Christians to enforce OT capital punishment penalties on practicising homosexuals’, under the NT’s Covenant of Grace such capital judgement, even if within the Church, is mercifully postponed until Christ returns and Himself executes it. (Col 3:6; Rev 21:27; 22:14-15; cf. 7:14)
Relatedly, the Bible does not mandate that “Christians”, i.e, New Covenant Israel, (defaultly) kill all unbelievers. Neither “blanketly” did the Old Covenant actually. And (Clip[01:16-01:29] Jesus’s “sword” statement in Matt 10:34, is, as He clearly goes on to stipulate Himself, metaphorically representative of ‘the various Divisions that His radical teachings will cause when simply heeded’. Matt 10:35-36; Luke 12:51-53. And indeed when that symbolism was applied in prophecy, as discussed from here at Rev 19:15 (cf. Rev 6:3-4), it will/did indeed produce those naturally antagonistic/opposing divisions towards believers. It is understandable that non-believers (presumably) cannot perceivingly make a distinction in the Bible between what is literalistic and what is metaphoric and symbolic, pointedly because the whole context of the Bible is either not known or understood....And look, the Bible, pointedly the NT, has actually become more “nuanced and convoluted” in being life-sparingly merciful towards those (especially within Israel) who priorly were to be immediately capitally punished, and even with God’s Israel in the NT then (evangelistically) going out throughout the rest of the pagan world.
3. Clip[:-:] - Israel’s “Offensive” Wars - This topic can be a most involved one, but I’ll here mainly address it from the instance/circumstance of God commanding Israel to attack the nations which lived in the land of Canaan which God had disappropriatingly promised to them instead. Yes God was going to take that land away from the various tribal Canaanite clans and give them Israelites.
[And, most foundationally, if a non-believer is going to use this event against believers, they clearly have to believe that it actually, i.e. historically happened. I.e. Israelites in ca. 1400 B.C. attacked various peoples living in Canaan, (which was a total of 7 specific nations (Deut 7:1|Acts 13:19)), and dispossessed them. So if one is going to, even for arguments sake only, accept that episode as true, then whatever else in the Bible contributes to the development and realization of that story similarly has to be considered as true. This is today akin to the requirement in Law/Justice that to pass a judgement that a case/claim has no substantive legal merit/validity, the elements of that claim all have to be considered as true, and that comprehensive supposition then has to be compared with existing law/legality.]
So here, this Canaan Attack development starts all the way back with the three, post-Flood, sons of Noah. Succinctly recapped, Ham quasi-sexually violated his father, (and God only knows what Ham was fully thinking then), and so he, through his manifestly already perverting son Canaan were cursed to be the “servant of servants” to the descendants of his two other brothers, including Shem (=progenitor of the “Semitic” people) (Gen 9:20-27|PP 117.2-3; see here). The families of Shem, Ham and Japheth went on to repopulate the Earth and, foreseenly enough, the line from Ham (Gen 10:6-14), and ensuingly also from Canaan (Gen 10:15-19, 20) did indeed go on to become most abominable, even manifestly including the renownly selfish and vile peoples of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 10:19).
Then when came the time for God to establish a nation of righteous and moral people, Israel, from the line of Shem, He delayed executing any degree of that Ham-Canaan punishment because their descended peoples had not yet devolved into that naturally expected, most abominable, thus justly warranting, state (Gen 15:13, 16, 19). So God chose to make the Shem-descended Israelites lived as strangers then also slaves in the land of the Ham-descended people of Mizraim (=Egypt).
And now, when the time came for God to fulfill that national promise with Israel, after Mizraim/Egypt paid for their abuses of Israel (=Ten Plagues), God still did not actually want to go about it through killing the people in those foreign nations. He instead wanted to (gradually) drive them out of the land through swarms of hornets (Exod 23:27-30). That was the Exod 23 “Divine|All-Wise Plan”...before the Exodus 32 [cf. here] abominable Israel debacle when God then wanted to completely wipe out that Israel, but changed His mind at the volunteered intercessory pleading of Moses (Exod 32:11-14|PP 318.1-319.2). God forgave them then, but when they did a similar Covenant-annulling thing in Num 14 just as they were about to conquer the land, then God remained firm on His decision to completely, though slowly, kill off the 20-year+ adult generations. And here/now, given a choice between a (comparatively, “merely”) faithless (younger) Israel Nation vs. the still violent, abominable, probably infectedly carriers, wicked, thus surely death-cult-ure(d) (e.g. Lev 18:21; 20:1-5; 2 Kgs 17:31; 23:10), peoples in Canaan, God, as always, Justly (cf. Gen 18:20-21, 22-33) chose to favor this forgiven Israel. [And God would later fairly/justly also hold Israel to that same standard for similar utter judgement if they did the same (e.g. Ezek 16:20-21, 48-52; 9:1-11; 2 Kgs 17:29-33; Matt 11:20-24)]. (And in evidencing proof of such Divine-assistance, one has to wonder how a band of camp-wandering & dwelling (families of) former slaves, -(who evidently were quite weak on their (natural) own (Jos 7:1-3ff)), could, unaided by other nations, defeat well-established, larger and mightier nations (Deut 4:37; 7:7) who all, even from long before, knew that they were coming (Jos 2:8-11; cf. PP 369.1)). But evidently given that He would later still be working with a generation which was scarredly guilty by depending association, God then could not fully supernaturally do what He had promised in Exod 23:27-30 for this conquest. And so a hybrid supernatural act and (supernaturally oversighted) warring was now going to be in effect, as first seen in the conquest of Jericho (Josh 6:1-11ff, 21). But therein came to be involved the tangible warring with, and killing of, the inhabitants of this land, all because God now could no longer merely “terrorizingly scare” (Exod 23:27ff) them away through various Super-natural acts. These people would not be fleeing, but standing their ground to fight. And while God would supernaturally assist His people into winning those wars, and manifestly without suffering any casualty themselves, the flip side consequence of God having had to allow for and work through more human-naturalistic developments to achieve this greater good (cf. PP 369.2) would be that National Israel would now become (arguably) the most hated nation on Earth with other nations perpetually fearfully plotting how they could overthrow it. Had God’s “hornets” plan been able to be executed through an obediently faithful/righteous people, then this national enmity would most likely not have become the “natural” case, as these other nations would forever be trying to figure out, as during the plagues of Egypt: how come those hornets keep pestering them when the try to occupy that land, but they leave the Israelites alone’, all the while surely suspecting/perceiving that this was probably the work of their (Superior/Supreme) God, and thus these people should be left alone.
And furthermore to all of this substantiating demonstration of God’s (preferred) fairness in all of this, of the “standing their ground” people who were not to be defaultly killed, due to their proximity to Israel’s habitations, only those who insisted of fighting back instead of surrendering as slaves, in fulfillment of the Canaan curse, were to be put to death (Deut 20:10-18).
So sure, God did order Israel to take (surfacely) offensive, and dispossessing actions, but it was because of both: (1) the long-delayed effectuation of a family, generational, curse, which had now substantively, fully warranted itself; and thus (2) also because the lifestyle of these people who were to expelled from such misused-leisure facilitating lands/resources, was dangerously perverting morals on the earth. If, especially in those days of virtually no coping/healing scientific capability, various lifestyle-related/spread diseases, such as HIV/AIDS and STDs then appeared, it would be most detrimental to the life and viability, of pointedly enough, these surrounding nations which did not worship and obey the Creator God. So for their own good, God had to downgrade to abomination-curtailing hardship their former level of existence, and only because of Israel’s shortcoming, and eventual His merciful continuation with some of them, God was not able to spare the lives of all of these dispossessed peoples.
So all contributing things considered, God eventual command to, and approach through, His Israel vs. these other nations, is not actually impeaching of God Himself. Was He allowed to have His preferred way in accomplishing His “greater good” Israel plans, it would have been bloodless....and, as God surely did not at all want, there would not be anyone today hanging onto unbelief and antagonism towards Him because of this last resorting, human-natural, effectuation. The story of God’s Israel People, right through to the blasphemous waywardness of Israel-tribes-turned-“Babylon” (Jam 1:1; Rev 17:3; 18:23), first during Church History (Rev 13:1-10) and now Modern History (=Rev 13:11-18), is indeed filled with these mercifully-allowed, greater-good-pursuant, developments which have only served to attribute fault with God and His Character of Love.
So I can understand such knee-jerking faulting and deeming from non-believers, particularly if/when the full story is not being considered, but there indeed are God-disculpating elements in all of these incidents. In all of this, just abandoning this world, both variously deficient “believers” and bold unbelievers to their sure self-destructing end, instead of at least making use of the then even worst possible , but Great Controversy permissible approach has always been God’s anguishing, self-staining, dilemma (EW 149-153 see here; Matt 26:36-46|DA 685-715ff; EW 36-38|Rev 7:1-3; discussed here).
4. Altruistic Goodness vs. Evolutionary Belief - So the closest response that I myself could come across to my question posed here to Ana Kasparian is the arguments for “Biological Altruism”. It includes doing good for your own kind, because they are your own kind, but it, nor any other claimed basis, allows for, in the inherent/inescapable overarching context where “evolution theory” has literally been deemed/made the supreme god, for actions which are not tangibly profitable to the actor, and that towards advancing the species’ evolution, most basically in regards to reproduction. And it actually seems that Ana also ascribes to some level to that view as she refused to go an indirect donor route which manifestly would still have come to surely benefit her mother. So while for Ana, giving one of her kidneys here, may at best be beneficial for her as it would keep her mother healthy, even alive, and thus, “in return”, beneficially maintain her own happiness, it still goes against any dogma of from the supposition of Biological Altruism. For while Ana does effectively have a “spare” kidney to give, not only would donating it potentially put her own “survivability” at risk, for she herself, -moreover with her partying lifestyle, may later come to need it, but her own child may later also have such a crucial need.
4. Altruistic Goodness vs. Evolutionary Belief - So the closest response that I myself could come across to my question posed here to Ana Kasparian is the arguments for “Biological Altruism”. It includes doing good for your own kind, because they are your own kind, but it, nor any other claimed basis, allows for, in the inherent/inescapable overarching context where “evolution theory” has literally been deemed/made the supreme god, for actions which are not tangibly profitable to the actor, and that towards advancing the species’ evolution, most basically in regards to reproduction. And it actually seems that Ana also ascribes to some level to that view as she refused to go an indirect donor route which manifestly would still have come to surely benefit her mother. So while for Ana, giving one of her kidneys here, may at best be beneficial for her as it would keep her mother healthy, even alive, and thus, “in return”, beneficially maintain her own happiness, it still goes against any dogma of from the supposition of Biological Altruism. For while Ana does effectively have a “spare” kidney to give, not only would donating it potentially put her own “survivability” at risk, for she herself, -moreover with her partying lifestyle, may later come to need it, but her own child may later also have such a crucial need.
So to me, the “religious” tenet ascribed to evolution, which supposedly ‘has gotten Earthly life this far, and is not finished yet’, has been just chucked away by Ana here for, ironically enough, her self-interest. She has thus effectively “sinned” against her god of evolution, moreover through self/selfish interest, preferring to put the better good, even viability, of her, her own posterity, and, given her media talent and her public platform, in turn many others, and also since she believes she has a valid/viable solution for (social) life in response to various emerging issues/problems, potentially the greater good of mankind.
Interestingly enough, this is all what is corresponding “enjoinedly” involved in Biblical Theology when one sins against the ‘Love “Law of Life”’ of God (1 John 4:8; Matt 22:34-40; DA 20.3-21.1ff), showing that, man incontrovertibly is not an island, and which is why God Himself knows that He must not tolerate (pointedly willful/deliberate, thus “premeditated”) sin in any degree.
One indeed “can’t have it both ways”, either you’ll live according to your claimed tenets of this evolution god/religion, and thus strive to remain within its evolutionary law, or you’ll choose to act in selfishly contradicting way and only look out for your own pleasure and interest irregarding the effect that this potentially can/will have on others in that “evolutionary social group”. That later option would be perfectly in line with the, as expressed/intimated here[19:33] by Ana: ‘life is short, ‘Do You’, cause we are all going to die soon’ mantra “philosophy”, but, that effectively “lesser god” just does not reconcile with the prior superior, indeed supreme (i.e., all-creating) supposed god of (still striving) evolution. So, ironically enough, post-moderns will have to become “atheists” to their prior evolutionary god, if they are going to instead be faithful to their self-interest/“Do You” god!!
In fact, that latter stance and mindset is what should make the most “rational” sense to non-believers...Why “sacrificially” do anything that will not provide immediate reward for oneself, as in working to save the planet, -which (potentially really) may be just be obliterated by asteroids following the lifetime of present unbelievers. Do be faithful to your “religion” and live, and do all, only for your own here and now, and lifetime, and let others worry about their life when/if they ever live it. As challenged here, ‘have the conviction of your “beliefs”...
Relatedly, ironically enough, when non-believer are faced with something which they have no answer to and is beyond them, they instinctively, inherently, even explicitly so, call out to “God”, even if mindlessly so. Why not so call out to...anything else??!! Furthermore, at best, they also mindlessly just forsake their claimed religion. And yet they fundamentally fault believers for, when in similar “beyond oneself” situations, running to this same God (cf. John 4:22). Again, have the conviction of your claims/beliefs...starting with not honoring God in anyway in your thinking and expression...In other words, be a True Atheist...And so-called Agnostics don’t get an ambivalent pass either. If you are adamantly claiming that it is “irrational” to believe in what you have never seen and thus do not begin to empirically or scientifically “know”...then don’t!...It is “rationally” as simple as that. Do be consistent with yourself, and wait till you see before claiming any degree of “belief”....Otherwise, do have the boldness to skip right to the sequiturly incontrovertible conclusion that you do think that their really exists no higher authority outside of you, either individually, or self-servingly, collectively, and thus you/you all are gods, and thus, democraticizingly, revive the long defunct, self-deifying religion of the Romans....-which, tellingly enough of Truth, was utterly routed by the religion borne out of the formerly hated sect of Jews, which revolved around someone which they had capitally punished...Now how can that, i.e. of course Christianity, but for a long chain of the veracity of passing on witnesses and Truth, ever come to, still, -and even being bolstered and corroborated by actual modern science see e.g. here (cf. here), and conversely cf. this series), be the dominant religion in the world!??? “Think about (all of) this’ (Ana!!)...
5. Rational “Stress Test” - So if your worldview is that: “We’re all going to die soon, potentially tomorrow, if not in the next 30 minutes” then why not have some degree of “crash & burn” as your ideal, especially in non-profiting matters, but if your worldview is one that God can, and intends to necessarily only let Loving, Truthful and Unselfish people live eternally, then why not bet on that. (a.k.a Pascal’s Wager; cf. this (“faith”-based) illustration[...25:46-29:15ff])..
5. Rational “Stress Test” - So if your worldview is that: “We’re all going to die soon, potentially tomorrow, if not in the next 30 minutes” then why not have some degree of “crash & burn” as your ideal, especially in non-profiting matters, but if your worldview is one that God can, and intends to necessarily only let Loving, Truthful and Unselfish people live eternally, then why not bet on that. (a.k.a Pascal’s Wager; cf. this (“faith”-based) illustration[...25:46-29:15ff])..
Any creator/inventor/builder/manufacturer actually aiming for the highest success will subject their creation/invention to the pertinently most extreme of testings to insure that, when released, the product will perform at its optimal best. Unless the creator/inventor is a complete scam artist and just wants to himself maximize his profiting from people who need his invention and thus will have to keep purchasing a new one at unnecessarily more frequent intervals. So take those desirously beneficent and caring qualities here, and rationally and reasonably apply them to the “creation/invention” of life. -And at this point, it is not necessary to postulate who exactly is that Creator (i.e., the God of the Bible or ([somehow] Self-existing/actuating) Evolutionary “Forces/Processes”). Let’s take what Unbelievers popularly/prominently ascribe to, all under an overarching maxim of personally relative “truth”, and give them a stress test, but first stipulating what the Biblical Model provides, and even for this life when all have been subject to the (First, -i.e. non-Hell) Death due to sin (Gen 3:22-24):
A1. An (actually ultra-scientifically) all-knowing & eternally alive, thus most wise, moreover Designer and Creator God, knows what is best for His Creation and Optimal Life, and has provided the Manual to live by. Thus “Truth” is both absolute and already exhaustively determined.
A2. Humans are to experientially probe and determine what common, and also personal, truth is.
From just this heading a whole listing of sub-entries can be “stressed tested”:
a) Democratic Experimentation - How really can truth be both commonly determinative and also exhaustively personally reflective. If Unbelievers really lived by that maxim, then they would require, -tellingly actually as in the serious context of a criminal trial, that any & all democratically voted decisions be determined by a unanimous vote, and not just a majority, or even a super-majority. But that would require that everyone have the same opinions/values, and thus all be convicted by a commonly accepted truth. But since that is not effectuated in any democracy, then a perpetual state of conflict and competition reigns instead, and incontrovertibly with trial and error, pain vs. pleasure, experimenting with (the supposed) both/many sides of the “truth”.
In the (ideal) Biblical model, the “truth” of a matter is long settled before it is implemented. Thus all can then go on living according to optimal ideal and avoid the waste and detriment of constant, recurring battles. Tellingly enough, the present, object-lesson, “Great Controversy” War Between Good and Evil (Rev 12:7-10ff), is all because an angel (“Lucifer”, now Satan), at first genuinely, but eventually pridefully, refused to accept that God knew best (Alluded to in the emulating Isa 14:12-21; Ezek 28:11-19; cf. here&here; {cf. this film animation project}).
b) Survivability & Thriving - Take the long-practiced and currently widely growing issue of same-sex relations, marriage union and families units and subject it to a pertinent extreme stress test to gauge its “truthfulness”. (a) As one pastor stated: An entire world engaging (only) in homosexual unions will result in the extinction of the human race in one generation! Of course not so with heterosexual unions. So if unbelievers really “believe” that the grand object of life is to continue evolving, then homosexuality is the oversized wrench in the gears. It just grinds everything to a halt. So it objectively, inherently is not a part/product of evolutionary processes its because death is the end that evolution is supposed to be improving surviving. So it clearly is that other religious tenet that Unbelievers themselves are most leery of openly worshipping, and that is, ironically enough, the anti-thesis of Love (=God): Selfishness (=Satan), which Biblical Theology has long pinpointed as the Chief of all Sins. (4T 384.3).
But you can here the strident retorts here of supposed many workarounds to avert this sure end in rapid and/or complete extinction. People can here claim/suggest that people can endeavor to produce offsprings through sperm donation or surrogate carriers. Well, strictly from the sure economic implication for this, it will have its costs, and given the highest of, even vital, demand here, corresponding highest of cost. Of course, these, really parity prices may opt to mutually cancel themselves out, all for the benefit of the survivability of mankind, but then, as stated earlier, the post-modern religious tenet of “personal pleasure/profit determinance” would have to be dropped as it would categorically conflict with the older religious tenet of evolution and species survivability. And again, why “altruistically” care at all for what happens after your gone. Why make any sacrifice or investment for any future generation...which may not even be around due to a meteor strike event. In fact unbelievers generally “believe” that such a catastrophic event has already happened in Earth’s history which (supposedly) wiped out all dinosaur life, (but somehow surgically spared the life/existence of all non-dinosaur species)....But such a “cancelling out” reproduction market is highly unlikely because if all prices are cemented to be the same, and since various genetic advantages, be it (facial and/or physical) beauty, strength, athleticism, intelligence, etc, are more likely to give someone a greater advantage, and thus greater success, then people will flock to those who can provide such “better genes”, and then will “survival of the fittest” (naturally) kick in, and the end result is surely to be most everyone on the planet being of a very close genetic makeup...and science shows that significant “in-breeding” detriment will be done when that generation seeks to reproduce for it is actually greater genetic diversity which produces the greatest genetic vitality. So here also the old school “religion” of evolution actually clashes with itself through its attemptedly derived post-modern relativism.
There is, under this workaround for the “only homosexual” stress testing here, the caveat option to go the natural, heterosexual route for reproducing, outside of wedlock, (as e.g. this online ‘mhatching’ service), but the above inevitable competitive scenario will surely again result. Then there is the conundrum of how to “safely” (healthwise) become naturally impregnated when not using any protection at all is required. And of course, health screening will become exponentially more necessary in this free for all “reproduction marketplace”, and there goes the costs, and its pricing wars...
And then there is the, at least fictionalizingly empiricalized catastrophe where the Starbuck|Delivery Man scenario is clearly just not the best. Indeed which child, except for one with no other choice but a completely, or even just a predominantly, jaded, hateful and selfish world, wants to grow up not knowing who their (genetic) father and/or mother is/are...How is that to result in a better/healthier/safer future society. And on the flip side, which father or mother wants to be even just emotionally, responsible for caring for e.g. 500+ genetic offsprings!! That workaround also fails the “optimal life” stress test....therefore it just is not “truth”.
By now it does not seem to be necessary to go on in order to substantiate that God’s “one man one woman, for a fruitful life” design is clearly best...but unbelievers instead need to learn by their experiential “pain and pleasure”....manifestly just like any animal does.
“Young Fun”, which is defined as: ‘having fun by sleeping around as much as possible while young, hopefully without becoming impregnated, or forcefully intervening to end such an event, is popularly touted by post-modern unbeliever as a “truth”, pointedly in the face of the “reality” of a short and only present life. Well that indeed is more faithful to postmodern religious tenet, but again it conflicts with the evolution religion. (Ignoring the issue of emotionally jading and scaring for now in this selfish exercise of, even mutually, callous, and even if (possibly), self-confessedly “hurtful”, using and then discarding of people), later impregnantation comes will all kinds of risks, detriments, costs and/or vital complication. Just on a physical level, none of these are actually conducive to evolutionary, thus optimally necessary, “evolutionary” advancement. Additionally any cost incurred to prevent such adverse elements just inherently economically hampers productive progress elsewhere. [And tangentially relatedly here, disregarding, perhaps merely assumed pleasurableness, I don’t see animal/species ever engaging in any type of impregnantation-preempting measures in their sexual relations]. So, skipping the problematic detailing for the other elements involved here, it seems confirmingly evident that having and starting a stable, natural family, as early in adulthood as possible, is best (cf. Psa 127:3-5), but of course this world’s chiefly capitalistic system (another sly, “religious” selfishness spin off invention from Satan), just aims to inculcatingly preempt this.
And do keep in mind in all of this that the human race need to be reproducing at a rate of at least 2.1 offspring per couple or else the population will, and that critically, enter into a recessing declining....
So, in all of this , if optimal and thriving life is supposedly the foundational goal of your religion, then why do, or actually how can it actually be naturally (and beneficially) allowing for, anything which actually comes in the way of this. Nature is repletely clear that homosexual relations will not produce offspring, so this indeed is not “natural behavior”. And tellingly enough, I have never heard the supposedly due “scientific” countering/“validating” argument for homosexuality from those who adhere to the religion of evolution, that this behavior/practice is all experimentation for, pun intended, forging forwards towards achievable, and qualitatively more advanced, homosexual (and then perhaps, self) human reproduction. So there also, evolution-adhering unbeliever just do not believe their own religion, and just keep sinning against it. Thus they have evidently accepted that it indeed won’t do any better than just end up in (eternal) death, so why not ignore it although the resulting behaviors will all just be contributive to even quicker death, pain, damage, detriment and loss. Now how is such a (self-defeatist) worldview “rational”, let alone Truthful.... (Actual) “Love” just cannot be antithetical or detrimental to Life.
6. God is not Arbitrary - In response to a wholely endorse quoted claims of James Randi [who did not respond to my responding discussion challenge or my MDC proposal on the basis of (historical) Bible prophecy] made during this show[02:45-04:29ff] someone, (manifestly an Israeli), who I, in further entirely viewing his video, soon later stunnedly found out that he was actually an atheist, made the fair, above also mentioned, foundational observation that: [42:07-45:43ff] ‘in order to justly condemn believers in God, you first have to factor in all that they claim to believe’. And so, in the case at issue, claiming that ‘God is e.g. a cruel mass murderer because he drowned billions of people during Noah’s flood’ without taking into consideration any reasons leading up to that is not fair....However this is actually around where this responder bafflingly, (at least back then), lost me because he goes on to claim this ‘since the Bible also states that this God had generously created all of people then he had the right to destroy them.’ (The responder actually also implicitly premises that this God has no power over death, which, since it is not true, actually further highlights the fact that the Eternal Creator God had actually made arrangements so that His Created Being could also, perpetuatingly, live Eternally (Gen 3:22-24)). My original reaction to that statement, knowing that God had not done this judgement out of arbitrariness and whim, but because of vital and capital the reason He states in Gen 6:5-7, 11-13, -leading to His subsequent, man-mandated/allowed, preemptively checking Capital Punishment Law (Gen 9:6), then I found this claim to be slanderous to God’s character of, here: Love for the innocent and Justice for the (capitally) guilty.
6. God is not Arbitrary - In response to a wholely endorse quoted claims of James Randi [who did not respond to my responding discussion challenge or my MDC proposal on the basis of (historical) Bible prophecy] made during this show[02:45-04:29ff] someone, (manifestly an Israeli), who I, in further entirely viewing his video, soon later stunnedly found out that he was actually an atheist, made the fair, above also mentioned, foundational observation that: [42:07-45:43ff] ‘in order to justly condemn believers in God, you first have to factor in all that they claim to believe’. And so, in the case at issue, claiming that ‘God is e.g. a cruel mass murderer because he drowned billions of people during Noah’s flood’ without taking into consideration any reasons leading up to that is not fair....However this is actually around where this responder bafflingly, (at least back then), lost me because he goes on to claim this ‘since the Bible also states that this God had generously created all of people then he had the right to destroy them.’ (The responder actually also implicitly premises that this God has no power over death, which, since it is not true, actually further highlights the fact that the Eternal Creator God had actually made arrangements so that His Created Being could also, perpetuatingly, live Eternally (Gen 3:22-24)). My original reaction to that statement, knowing that God had not done this judgement out of arbitrariness and whim, but because of vital and capital the reason He states in Gen 6:5-7, 11-13, -leading to His subsequent, man-mandated/allowed, preemptively checking Capital Punishment Law (Gen 9:6), then I found this claim to be slanderous to God’s character of, here: Love for the innocent and Justice for the (capitally) guilty.
However, upon further pondering now, I presumedly can get the further, ultimate, issue that this responder was getting, at, particularly as this seems to be the root issue with atheist. They manifestly are questioning why does God have this inherent authority to take away ones life. And this is where the understanding that God is the Creator of all things, including humans, fits in. But the Bible indeed reveals that even though He is the Creator, God does not act whimsically or arbitrarily, but always with judiciously outweighed, “right-doing” cause. (Rev 15:3-4; Cf. Gen 18:20-33).
And it stems from deeper than this. It may be evident that a person who is committing murder must be stopped, and judged, and even capitally punished, but it may be argued, as seen in contemporary Capital Punishment discussions: “what right does the State have to take the life of even that convicted murderer?” Well the State can at best get such authority from the people it represents. And really a surely natural consequence of the State not intervening here would be a vigilante scenario where friends and/or family of someone who was murdered would act on their own to exact vengeance (e.g. through a hired hit man) on the murderer, (and if securely locked up, then they may “passionately” opt to still make that murderer suffer by targeting people close to him.) But the real validity for effectuating Capital Punishment is the greater deterrence factor. Life in Prison may be a much less deterring alternative to many than a sure imposed/premature death.
Theological Studies (see here and here) reveal that whole reason why God has imposed a death penalty, not merely on capital offenses producing death, but actually on any violation of His (Ten Commandment) Law is also not out of arbitrariness, but out of the fact that He aims to have a Universe in which optimal Love, Joy and Satisfactions, all within the realistic conditions for having Created Human Life, is the realized and sustained case. So any violation from this ideal must justly be punished.
Unbelievers today may think that they have a novel claim against God and His Ultimate Authority over even worlds which He has created. But Satan was the first to conceive of this objection...and God giving him a fair, objective visible and tangible “hearing” is why this planet today is in such conflict. (See much more from DA 758-764; discussed here) . There enjoinedly is the whole, theologically understandable issue, as discussed here, that God’s Authority over all on this planet goes way beyond a creative or declarative one, but that He has, through the Divine-Energy bestowal by God the Son, Michael|Jesus, tangibly invested Himself as matter in every existing particle throughout the Created Universe. So thus...Yes, He has some say as to what you can or cannot do, and who should be allowed to live.
As a comparison example, a car manufacturer actually cannot have the inherent right to tell you what to do with the car you bought from him, but if the means for having that most beneficial car could only be provided by him, and he agreed to, and that sacrificially, invest from what he possesses and is able of doing so that, not only you, but billions of other people can have a car, which, moreover, they just could not pay for, including capital repairs, then this manufacturer would inherently have this possession or dispossession right over the driver which he provides this car. And since this manufacturer wants this costly and unique invention to be affordable and of benefit to all, and surely would not want it to become a hazard and life risk for any, then he has the right to set various laws in relation to the vehicle and its maintenance and operation, including even traffic laws.
Similarly the “all-around, soundly Truthful” and “prophetically validated/corroborated account of the Bible stipulates/reveals that All life on just this Galaxy’s Planet Earth, uniquely, comes from, and since the Sacrifice of God the Son, preservingly/restoredly, a gifting of God, and thus, God does have all due rights to ensure that it is used and enjoyed according to His (character) ideals. Again, Satan, and his following angels, futilely had thought otherwise, and, have now long been ultimately, objectively shown to be wrong, he now is on just a vexatiously vindictive campaign to prevent others from also, and that properly/fully, understanding this, whether Atheistic Unbeliever or Professing Christian, and thus not receiving and enjoying what was taken from him due to his pridefully persisted, really jealously-murderous, rebellion. (See Rev 12). And all of this is actually possible for Satan because, “ironically enough”, despite all of this, God still has not, on one hand, been found guilty of the foundational charge of Satan that “God did/can not allow His intelligently created beings to be Free Moral Agents” nor, on the other corresponding hand, violated His own Character which involves that people can live out of pure, even self-sacrificing, Love, and even if they themselves are physically not able to see, even fully understand God...and either live, or be ever capable of being granted any mercy...-thus living by, some degree of, genuine, thus warranting, Faith. (Heb 10:38-12:2; cf. also 2T 36.2). Hence the incontrovertible conundrum with an inherently Eternal God vs. inherently Finite Beings who He has nonetheless created to be Free, (and, this side of restricting Fallen humanity (Gen 3), with, collectively, much more evidence to have faith, than not)...But certainly not Free to engage in any, pointedly others-depriving/hazarding/destructive/detrimental courses. (As delved into in those posts, here and here, this theological topic is much more involved that this summarizing).
7. The Irrational, Fantasy “God” of Atheists & Agnostics - [For a more emphathetic, and expounded presentation on this issue see this Re-Imagining God series]. To hear Atheists and Agnostics express their various reasons why don’t/can’t believe in God, pointedly the God of the Bible, it conversely, implicitly becomes clear about what kind of God they would want to, and would believe in. Not in any particular order here, Atheists & Agnostics (=A&A) want a “God” who:
Similarly the “all-around, soundly Truthful” and “prophetically validated/corroborated account of the Bible stipulates/reveals that All life on just this Galaxy’s Planet Earth, uniquely, comes from, and since the Sacrifice of God the Son, preservingly/restoredly, a gifting of God, and thus, God does have all due rights to ensure that it is used and enjoyed according to His (character) ideals. Again, Satan, and his following angels, futilely had thought otherwise, and, have now long been ultimately, objectively shown to be wrong, he now is on just a vexatiously vindictive campaign to prevent others from also, and that properly/fully, understanding this, whether Atheistic Unbeliever or Professing Christian, and thus not receiving and enjoying what was taken from him due to his pridefully persisted, really jealously-murderous, rebellion. (See Rev 12). And all of this is actually possible for Satan because, “ironically enough”, despite all of this, God still has not, on one hand, been found guilty of the foundational charge of Satan that “God did/can not allow His intelligently created beings to be Free Moral Agents” nor, on the other corresponding hand, violated His own Character which involves that people can live out of pure, even self-sacrificing, Love, and even if they themselves are physically not able to see, even fully understand God...and either live, or be ever capable of being granted any mercy...-thus living by, some degree of, genuine, thus warranting, Faith. (Heb 10:38-12:2; cf. also 2T 36.2). Hence the incontrovertible conundrum with an inherently Eternal God vs. inherently Finite Beings who He has nonetheless created to be Free, (and, this side of restricting Fallen humanity (Gen 3), with, collectively, much more evidence to have faith, than not)...But certainly not Free to engage in any, pointedly others-depriving/hazarding/destructive/detrimental courses. (As delved into in those posts, here and here, this theological topic is much more involved that this summarizing).
7. The Irrational, Fantasy “God” of Atheists & Agnostics - [For a more emphathetic, and expounded presentation on this issue see this Re-Imagining God series]. To hear Atheists and Agnostics express their various reasons why don’t/can’t believe in God, pointedly the God of the Bible, it conversely, implicitly becomes clear about what kind of God they would want to, and would believe in. Not in any particular order here, Atheists & Agnostics (=A&A) want a “God” who:
a) They can see, at will.
b) Does not judge them. So who accepts everything that they do. Therefore who is just like them in thinking and character and absolutely loves it.
c) Is constantly walking behind them to fix whatever mess they do, such as healing them of their behavior, lifestyle, choices inflicted sicknesses, diseases, wounds.
d) May, or probably not have “caused” the creation of the world & universe by using the evolutionary processes they now claim, indeed over millions of years
e) Tells them of things to look out for. So who straightforwardly relates to them prophetic things.
f) Actually had a beginning since being Eternally existent is incomprehensible.
g) Does not actually have the ability to prevent death, since everything dies.
h) Has no afterlife plans.
i) Would clearly tell them what they should or should not do if He is ever going to judge them.
In evidencing other words, A&A want a God who is completely opposite to what the Bible says about Yahweh. That’s not surprising in itself, but the fact that this all is exactly the opposite of what the Bible stipulates clearly shows that this is all the views of a “polar opposite” camp. If this were a political campaign, this would be the platforms of two opposing side. As referenced earlier from Rev 12, telling how the Bible does reveal that God and Satan are indeed a such “polar opposites” and both have been, and still are, trying to attract votes from God’s created beings. So at the very least, since the Bible is patently, and unwaveringly, at a polar opposite to what unbelieving people generally want and/or believe about “God”, then at least do recognize that their indeed are two (main) opposing sides at issue here. The Theological Caption for this cosmic reality is: ‘The Great Controversy (between [actually:] Jesus, His Angels & Good vs. Satan, his angels & Evil)’. And conclusionarily related here/now, this conflict is pointedly between Jesus vs. Satan and not God the Father vs. Satan, because Biblical Revelation reveals that this Warring state (Rev 12:7-10), -with “war” in general, as with this one, being the typical development when (at least) one or two sides refuse to give in, all started when Satan refused to admit that he, in his prior campaigning vs. God the Father, was in the wrong, and vexatiously decided to instead actuate his jealous-hatred of the more exalted position which Michael/Jesus had. (PP 36.1-42.1ff)
As an illustration of the most foundational issue under consideration here: Two people get married. They deeply love, and thus expect love from, each other, and frankly they didn’t need a marriage ceremony and formal vows to hold them accountable and maintain their love. Now, given all of that reality, must e.g the wife be constantly reminding the husband to love her, of their wedding, even significant dating, anniversaries, or be constantly initiating/indicating what she would like to be done. In a truly loving relationship, this all would be freely and most volitionally seen to by the husband, even to the point where the wife would be constantly turning down his more than enough loving, even effectively self-sacrificing, acts.
Now take that basic and most emblematic representation of love as found in marriage, indeed the most widely highest viewed demonstration of (unperverted) love. The Bible, especially in one of its last written expression (by the now aged disciple John), is clear to express that “God is Love” (1 John 4:8, 16, 20; cf. John 3:16; Matt 22:34-40) and likewise from subsequent, more detailing, revelation, at the bookends of the present “Great Controversy/Conflict of the Ages” is the same expression (i.e. PP 33.1 & GC 678.3). Unbelievers, especially looking around at the existing world today just cannot believe that such a “Loving God” can exist. Then they sustain/bolster such claims from things which they pull out from the Bible (which they obviously are accepting, or at least positing, as true...so again, why not, for at least a ‘fair hearing sake’s’, everything else?!). But here, if the Biblical Revelation insists that: God is Love and, as reported in Gen 1-3 has created for, and given life to, (also) human being who He wants to enter in a (Truly) Loving relationship with, and initially, for a (short) while, had begun to do so, which, as discussed in here, was so, as fully intended, trustingly loving, that complete visual, and thought, privacy was granted to these humans, then, since indeed “love is of God” (1 John 4:7), they why would the same “parameters”, elements, expectation that is expected for and in a “blissfully” loving marital relationship not also be passionately desired in God’s relationship with His created beings. How loving would it be otherwise, i.e. if, pointedly, the great love already and firstly expended and expressed by God towards Human, was not, and that most freely, genuinely and voluntarily, reciprocated. But, as is the initial faultline in most marital break up, an issue of trust suddenly came up, and Adam and Eve, decided to straightly believe someone else, Satan, and his deceptive claim about before even asking God for any explanation (See Gen 3:1-7, 22). This would all be as tellingly non-rational as a husband having told his wife starting the first week just after their honeymoon that he’ll be home later than normal for a while because he has some things to attend, and when the wife asks him exactly what, he simply tells her to trust him, and then wife’s jealous sister comes along one day and claims that the husband is having an affair with an old girlfriend, and that same day, even before the husband gets home, the wife immediately just goes out and violates her “own” marriage vow....and all the while, the husband was just sacrificially working hard on building a new, larger (surprise) home for them and the large family they so wanted. It seems to me that the circumstances of such a capitally drastic reaction of the wife would be reason enough for the husband to wisely seek a recollecting “timeout” of this whole marital union. Then how much more if the wife persists in most hurtfully mistrusting the husband. Surely a finalizing divorce would be in order.
So take that fundamental basis of desired true and trusting love by the God of the Bible, as innately per His Character, then take what the Bible reveals about what a God actually is, and one should “rationally” come to understand what this ‘Great Controversy” is all about. Unlike the “irrational” fantasy “God” of Atheists and Agnostics, the Bible and Biblical/Theological studies of it, correspondingly, soundly reveals, in/with rational implications, that:
f) Has (uniquely) lived from Eternity. (1 Tim 6:16) (That alone substantively establishes Him as “God”)
d) Is the, “rationally” necessary, Intelligent, Designing and All-Powerful First Cause of all things, and also the source of all (levels of) Science. (And in regards to being “All-Powerful”, =All Mighty/Omnipotent, it means having the capability and power to do all that can “realistically” be done. So wanting God to have the power to “make a square circle” is just outright nonsensically silly. Indeed, proper Biblical study reveals that God actually acts within Scientific realities, which however are sciences which are way beyond human knowledge, let alone comprehension. Moreover God has created the angelic order to be His effecting instruments for what He wants to be “Super-Naturally” done in His Universe.)
a) Possesses tangible, greatest-of-energy, bodily features which prevent Him from even being openly merely looked at by others who do not have, or have not been outfitted to withstand, this, probably supra-atomic, energy. To grasp this limiting reality, try going into a nuclear reactor when it is a peak production phase, and without any protective gear. One would just not live through this, and in God’s case, the death would be immediate. Now try living a normal life where you constantly have to be in that protective gear and/or where the local nuclear powerplant is either completely unshielded or cannot ever, or most of the time, operate at inherently full reaction levels, and you’ll begin to have an understanding of what is involved with the God the Bible reveals...and that was all before atomic/nuclear science/power/energy was known.
b) Given the intended Free Will, great mental capacity and intelligence, inventive and reproductive abilities which God intended to grant to humans, all “in his image” (Gen 1:26-27), God at the very least responsibly decided to incorporate inherent ownership of all that He would create by transforming His (God the Son’s) own Divine Energy/Glory as particle matter for all that exists in the universe, and using this as His building blocks for all derivedly Created things. And with this limiting parameter it can be seen that Humans created as flesh and bones, was all things considered, the most efficient way to create human, i.e. in order to be able to create as many as possible. (And on the flip side, given the power of Satan and his following fallen angels, just imaging the greater crisis if humans were also invested with such physical qualities and powerful capabilities.) It however may be the case that God had no other option for Creating things but to use His already, eternally existing energy/glory, and so He self-sacrificially accepted to do so rather than not having any created beings at all, or even as much “physically” possible.
So given all of these inherent ownership realities, why wouldn’t, or really shouldn’t this God have the authority to, literally, “lay down the Law”, and that a Law which, as the violations of men have now proven, is only meant to preserve life, and that abundant, joyful, blissful life. And most logically, why shouldn’t this Lawgiver have Judicial Jurisdiction in ensuring full compliance to this Law. Then how much more acceptable when the fundamental principle of this Law simply is Love, actual, true, relationships+life valuing, Love, and one which reflects the optimal ideal of this Creator/Lawgiver, that as many others as possible also enjoy such an existence and life. Given a simple comparison with the founding and existence ideals (however inherently or pervertedly flawed) professed by, e.g., the United States of America, i.e. of wanting to provide “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” for any one in the world who desires this, one would readily see that this nation, through its government has the “Constitutional” Right, even Responsibility to do whatever will see that this ideal be realized, indeed also for future generations.
So given this God establishing foundation, here are “rationally resulting” effecting implications for this Divine reality:
c) God cannot just keep re-expended resources to “clean/repair/heal up the messes” of those who choose to not have a loving relationship with him, as tangibly manifested by the violation of His ordering and protecting laws. (cf. 1 John 5:2-3)
g) Indeed cannot have it that such law transgressing (=sinful Jam 2:9) people be able to live forever (Gen 3:22-24) as this would necessitate Him unlimitedly sponsoring their inherently detrimental rebellion.
i) Would just not be in a tangibly truly loving relationship with them if He had to be constantly expressing what He has obviously demonstrated He would like humans to be reciprocally do for/in response to Him, especially as their Creator.
e) Would not even be able to orchestrate an actually concretely determining testing of whether any genuine desire for love exists in that partner if even what He would, towards that testing/gauging end (i.e., signified prophecy Rev 1:3; cf. Matt 13:10-17), be intimating, had to instead be explicitly spelled out. (cf. Dan 12:4, 10). {Indeed God has given His template outline of His future plans (=prophecy; cf. Dan 2:21; Isa 46:11) in these veiled/sealed/signified forms so that the unrighteous and/or unbelievers, wherever they may be, -(whether within Christianity, and even in the SDA Church), may unwittingly/cluelessly, (and thus “blissfully”), indeed just candidly, thus truly, evidence what they are truly about, all the while while still acting their scripted character part(s) in this Wisely devised Prophetic Planning...(e.g., as here[28:08-28:54-29:49], by “blissfully” thinking/claiming that the symbol, actually merely metaphor, “figs” in Rev 6:13 is literally meant, -[or worse, ‘that it thus is actually related/relatable to (claimed) Muslim ideology’], when it is indeed just a descriptive metaphor of a prophesied ‘grand “falling stars” event’ (e.g., Nov 13, 1833 -see this (historically) expounding sermon)...which itself is, especially eschatologically, actually (also) symbolic (cf. Rev 1:16, 20; 2:1; 3:1; PK 188.1 = the Rev 13 Shaking-MOB Test)}
h) In the light of all of this, chiefly including that (a first) death has to, non-influencingly, be the default common fate of all, does have definite “after life” plans to resolve, and that realistically so, all issues of this Great Controversy War. Thus dealing with: the Final Judgement and complete removal of all those who had freely, selfishly, chosen not to live in (also life-valuing) love, of God, or even of others; the temporary residence of the righteous while He, as economically as possible, repairs this ravaged “theater-of-this-war” planet; the future, permanent home for these redeemed, which will again be just as initially planned, thus back on this Earth, before all Satanic Hell was literally allowed to break loose on this planet; and not to mention, His own planned grand measures to ensure that those who had been allowed to witness/taste/experience sin not begin to, even through a candid depression, be tempted to relapse. (Rev 21:3-4; 22:3-5).
So, in summary, to me, all sequitur and pertinent “establishment” & “implications” things considered, the God which the Bible and Biblical Revelation reveals makes much more rational sense than the “god” that Atheists and Agnostics would like to have because such a “God” of theirs either just cannot really exist, or should not exist, for the simple fundamental reason that he would not begin to be Love and all that this “naturally” involves.
So look at all of the commonly, cited objecting examples to God of A&A, e.g. sick and suffering children, world hunger, natural disasters and know that they all directly or compoundingly result from man having a long time ago freely decided that they would order their life according to their own wisdom & preferred (shortsighted) ways...In fact, the “god” of the Atheist and Agnostic merely is a figment of their own will and imagination.
Given all of the concrete adverse effects and consequences of sinful living as seen throughout World History with e.g., contracted, even deadly, diseases, violence, emotional pain and suffering, including the unfailing permissive, even murderous, encroachments upon rightly-living people from those who prefer to be controlled by covetousness, selfishness and greed (cf. James 4:1-3), the existence of a God who has, from the start, been consistently speaking against living this way, has much more realistic plausibility than a God who would be telling people to ‘live however they want’. The camp of Atheists and Agnostics has long failed to make its case. (E.g. even the modern-initiating, radical, Counter-Christianity aspects of the French Revolution [see this presentation] soon began to also self-consume itself.) {And I’ll here relatedly diffuse the common, shallow rebuttal based on the actions of the Holy Roman Empire, which also included the murder to tens of millions of (Protesting Christians), (-which the Catholic Church today has recently recognized was wrong), by pointing out the Biblical fact that the Christian Church was just never given that (killing) mandate by Christ. Indeed, He at best, instructed the Church to expel any unbeliever, letting them live as Gentiles. (Matt 18:15-18) -The Truth and Righteousness perversions (=Dan 7:24-25; 8:10-14) of the first phase “Babylon” (Rev 13:1-10 -538-1798 A.D.): the (Historical) Roman Catholic; is indeed responsible for the founding of the alternate (Religious) Atheistic route....as is, in socio-economic regard, the second phase (Rev 13:11-18): Capitalistic Protestant America.} But it is telling that every new generation of unbelievers think that, especially with advance science, measures and knowledge, they can finally make this societal work only to be confronted with even more virulent and deadly consequences of this bankrupt course. You just cannot wildly sow various seeds of selfishness and expect to harvest an organic rule of love! To think, or endeavor to do so is just pure insanity, and that at a “religious” level, and, as stated above, even unbelievers, as made clear by their various contrary acts, don’t actually “believe” in this....Hence their various, sheepishly timid, yet incremental, retreat to what God had long ago set forth as the Supreme Law (Exod 20:1-19)...because, as with the fantasaical “Creation” of their “God”, however outrightly irrational that is, if they think/believe that they are the ones who came up with these ideas and principles, then it must be the (innately longed for) Authoritative/Determinative, All-Ordering/Righting, Truth.
8. Clip[01:37-2:46ff] - The Dating & Origin of the NT’s|Bible’s Books - Contrary to the confident claim made in that clip segment, the Bible was not: ‘written, selected and edited 300 years after the birth of Christ, by a bunch of politicians, in the city of Nicea’. What actually happened, in historical fact, around the time of the First Ecumenical Christian Council of Nicea (325 A.D.) of Church leaders and Bishops (not “politicians”), -which was merely organized by the then recently converted to Christianity Roman Emperor, Constantine, was the, (actually expandingly, as an NT Canon of 20 books had already been set back around 175 A.D.), formalizing collection into one book, =the Bible, of the various, already existing, manuscripted documents of gospels accounts, letters and epistles. Only writings which were considered to be fully aligned with Christian Theology which had been held for years now, were considered as (Inspired) “Scripture”. The accepted Hebrew Old Testament Canon was also considered as part of Scripture then. No writings were ‘originally written/created’ then, or even “edited”. In fact many books which contained questionable “unorthodox” statements were entirely left out. (=NT Apocrypha). In fact, certain books in the NT Canon, and now better understood to also indeed be inspired/“orthodox”, almost did not make that cut, such as the epistle of James, and the cryptic prophetic book of Revelation.
Subsequently, Cenk Uygur makes the claim that ‘God is against knowledge because the forbidden fruit was from the tree of knowledge.’ Well the full, untruncated, fact is that the tree was “of the knowledge of Good and Evil”. (Gen 2:17; cf. 3:5, 22) Arguably it can be argued/claimed that since both Good and Evil were mentioned here, then that would encompass all knowledge. Well, just seeing from the fact that when Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they then immediate “knew” that they were naked (Gen 3:7, cf. 3:11), then it can be Theologically understood that God did not want them to “know” about Evil at all, and thus, the most innocent knowledge that they would have would not even have to be qualified as “Good”, as it would simply be the only “knowledge”. Just like an innocent child just “innocently” does what he/she does, not considering or choosing between what they know to be good or bad. They just do it because that is all they know to do. It is only later that they need to be thought that some things are good and some things are evil. And the nakedness awareness example with Adam and Eve is perfect, like a little child, they neutrally didn’t considered anything “good or evil” about this. God had intended that man, by only doing God’s will, would naturally, most unconsciously, only know to do what is good. But that transgression removed that innocency, and led them to realize that there was both “good and evil”.
So God was only against ‘knowledge which included the knowledge of what is evil’. Satan used that ‘parental shielding’ to lyingly (fully) claim that: God was holding something back from Adam and Eve, and not letting them be free to also know about evil and make their own “informed” decision. But, wisely ironically enough, that is what that lone forbidden tree/fruit, amongst hundreds/thousands of others, was all about...and thus when Adam and Eve made the tangible and determined effort to eat from it, God honored their (quasi-gamblingly/indifferent/defiant) knowing choice towards death (Gen 2:16-17; 3:2-7) and fully gave them what they had chosen: the knowledge of also Evil...and hence the resultingly “achieved” Natural and Social declined state of this Planet and World today. But once this “Great Controversy” object-lesson experience has done its course, and all will have had an informed and aware opportunity to witness what God’s original, good/righteousness preference is all about, then will God intervene to end this futile pursuit through the detrimental mixing of “good and evil”. (-Matt 24:14).
9. Clip[52:00ff] “Fallible/Errant Biblical Text” - (See also similar claims in the (alluded to) interview with (the philosophically-religious) Reza Aslan) - It is most typical/common to fundamentally find in nonbelievers the belief that ‘the Bible is full of errors and self-contradictory, and thus just cannot be “the word of/from a claimed All-Knowing and Infallible God”’. From a merely surface level of understanding, it is perfectly understandable, indeed even rational, to come to that conclusion, and all that this “rejectingly” implicates, if the text itself was full of errors and contradiction. But, as most evidently is the confusing case in this clip, Christianity itself, does not involve those supposed self-contradictions, nor errors, pointedly Spiritually, because the Christian Religion is incontrovertibly rooted in a Two Covenant Theology: The Old Covenant vs. the New Covenant. These are essentially God’s formal and binding agreements with fallen and sinful man on just how, and on what qualifying conditions He would redeem and restore them back to His original perfection plan. This is a development which God had long planned for (=Jer 31:31-34 = ca. 600 B.C. = Heb 8:7-13). Only God could make such a drastic change of agreement, as only God can change His Law. And, as Christians fundamentally believe, with ample reason, that Jesus Christ was God (the Son) incarnated in human flesh, then He, and His Gospel teachings, did have the necessary Divine Authority to make such Covenant&Law changes. Other religions which accept at least part of the Bible, i.e., Jews and Muslim, do not recognize this Divine Authority of Christ, so they of course do not accept any of His New Covenant teachings, and that is of course the legal pretext that was used to condemn Christ to death, but in fact, the Jewish leaders could not actually refute that Jesus could be that OT ‘promised messenger of/for a New Covenant’ (Dan 9:27; Mal 3:1-4)
8. Clip[01:37-2:46ff] - The Dating & Origin of the NT’s|Bible’s Books - Contrary to the confident claim made in that clip segment, the Bible was not: ‘written, selected and edited 300 years after the birth of Christ, by a bunch of politicians, in the city of Nicea’. What actually happened, in historical fact, around the time of the First Ecumenical Christian Council of Nicea (325 A.D.) of Church leaders and Bishops (not “politicians”), -which was merely organized by the then recently converted to Christianity Roman Emperor, Constantine, was the, (actually expandingly, as an NT Canon of 20 books had already been set back around 175 A.D.), formalizing collection into one book, =the Bible, of the various, already existing, manuscripted documents of gospels accounts, letters and epistles. Only writings which were considered to be fully aligned with Christian Theology which had been held for years now, were considered as (Inspired) “Scripture”. The accepted Hebrew Old Testament Canon was also considered as part of Scripture then. No writings were ‘originally written/created’ then, or even “edited”. In fact many books which contained questionable “unorthodox” statements were entirely left out. (=NT Apocrypha). In fact, certain books in the NT Canon, and now better understood to also indeed be inspired/“orthodox”, almost did not make that cut, such as the epistle of James, and the cryptic prophetic book of Revelation.
So the Bible, OT and NT, is not composed of fraudulently-created writings, but most time contemporarily witnessed accounts (e.g. Pauline Epistles), including many times, original writings of the main people involved therein (e.g. Daniel (Dan 7:1), Ezra (Ezra 7:1), Nehemiah, Genesis-Deuteronomy, Isaiah (Isa 6:1), etc).
Subsequently, Cenk Uygur makes the claim that ‘God is against knowledge because the forbidden fruit was from the tree of knowledge.’ Well the full, untruncated, fact is that the tree was “of the knowledge of Good and Evil”. (Gen 2:17; cf. 3:5, 22) Arguably it can be argued/claimed that since both Good and Evil were mentioned here, then that would encompass all knowledge. Well, just seeing from the fact that when Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they then immediate “knew” that they were naked (Gen 3:7, cf. 3:11), then it can be Theologically understood that God did not want them to “know” about Evil at all, and thus, the most innocent knowledge that they would have would not even have to be qualified as “Good”, as it would simply be the only “knowledge”. Just like an innocent child just “innocently” does what he/she does, not considering or choosing between what they know to be good or bad. They just do it because that is all they know to do. It is only later that they need to be thought that some things are good and some things are evil. And the nakedness awareness example with Adam and Eve is perfect, like a little child, they neutrally didn’t considered anything “good or evil” about this. God had intended that man, by only doing God’s will, would naturally, most unconsciously, only know to do what is good. But that transgression removed that innocency, and led them to realize that there was both “good and evil”.
And moreover/actually, just duly speaking outrightly (as per Pro 26:4) outside of the unbeliever’s idiotic straw-man framing: “Good and Evil” is squarely indeed in the distinct realm of “Morality”, and not “Science/Scientific Knowledge”, -as unbelievers desperately need to mindlessly claim. Adam and Eve did not have to eat of that forbidden fruit to know about the science of, e.g., how their beautiful garden worked, and how it should be maintained...that was actually technical information which was passed on to them by attending angels. (TA 49.2-3).
So, as with many objections by unbelievers, Biblical understandings are (Spiritually) more involved than mere shallow thinking and/or “gotcha” semantics. The ironic case in point is that, Bible writers, in writing out the truth, did not write it for the cynical and jaded mindset of our day, in the sense that they did not know of a need to extra-carefully word things so that people today would not take it wrong. As people have more and more moved away from righteously living, such caveat-proof writings, -as seen in the formulas of contract and laws, which priorly, respectively, were only a verbal agreement and some form of handshake, and “Ten Commandment” (and initially not codified, if even didactically stipulated), had to be more detailedly set forth. This same development is even seen when today’s society is compared with the one just 100-200 years before.So God was only against ‘knowledge which included the knowledge of what is evil’. Satan used that ‘parental shielding’ to lyingly (fully) claim that: God was holding something back from Adam and Eve, and not letting them be free to also know about evil and make their own “informed” decision. But, wisely ironically enough, that is what that lone forbidden tree/fruit, amongst hundreds/thousands of others, was all about...and thus when Adam and Eve made the tangible and determined effort to eat from it, God honored their (quasi-gamblingly/indifferent/defiant) knowing choice towards death (Gen 2:16-17; 3:2-7) and fully gave them what they had chosen: the knowledge of also Evil...and hence the resultingly “achieved” Natural and Social declined state of this Planet and World today. But once this “Great Controversy” object-lesson experience has done its course, and all will have had an informed and aware opportunity to witness what God’s original, good/righteousness preference is all about, then will God intervene to end this futile pursuit through the detrimental mixing of “good and evil”. (-Matt 24:14).
9. Clip[52:00ff] “Fallible/Errant Biblical Text” - (See also similar claims in the (alluded to) interview with (the philosophically-religious) Reza Aslan) - It is most typical/common to fundamentally find in nonbelievers the belief that ‘the Bible is full of errors and self-contradictory, and thus just cannot be “the word of/from a claimed All-Knowing and Infallible God”’. From a merely surface level of understanding, it is perfectly understandable, indeed even rational, to come to that conclusion, and all that this “rejectingly” implicates, if the text itself was full of errors and contradiction. But, as most evidently is the confusing case in this clip, Christianity itself, does not involve those supposed self-contradictions, nor errors, pointedly Spiritually, because the Christian Religion is incontrovertibly rooted in a Two Covenant Theology: The Old Covenant vs. the New Covenant. These are essentially God’s formal and binding agreements with fallen and sinful man on just how, and on what qualifying conditions He would redeem and restore them back to His original perfection plan. This is a development which God had long planned for (=Jer 31:31-34 = ca. 600 B.C. = Heb 8:7-13). Only God could make such a drastic change of agreement, as only God can change His Law. And, as Christians fundamentally believe, with ample reason, that Jesus Christ was God (the Son) incarnated in human flesh, then He, and His Gospel teachings, did have the necessary Divine Authority to make such Covenant&Law changes. Other religions which accept at least part of the Bible, i.e., Jews and Muslim, do not recognize this Divine Authority of Christ, so they of course do not accept any of His New Covenant teachings, and that is of course the legal pretext that was used to condemn Christ to death, but in fact, the Jewish leaders could not actually refute that Jesus could be that OT ‘promised messenger of/for a New Covenant’ (Dan 9:27; Mal 3:1-4)
Now with that necessary, Christianity-realistic/factual qualifying background in mind, it becomes easy to see the spurious logic and thought involved in the claims made in that news story analysis. The news story is the papacy and a synod of bishops pondering whether or not to accept, in some degree homosexuality and homosexual unions. As, as discussed here, the Bible, quite categorically, does not at all give support for the homosexual lifestyle, then this “opening” and attempt by the Pope is, admittedly validly in itself, used as demonstrative evidence that, at least the Roman Catholic Denomination of Christians, is “open” to not recognizing the Bible as the Ultimate Authority....Well that is what the great Protestant vs. Roman Catholic divide is all about. Protestant (currently ca, 1 billion Christians) have (at least historically), been believing that the Bible is the final authority in religious matters and experience. The Roman Catholic Church (clearly still) does not believe so, but instead believes, (erroneously) interpreting and claiming passages like (Matt 16:17-19; 18:18; John 20:22-23) that Christ gave the Authority to His Apostles to change the Bible and Christian Doctrines as they deem fit, and that this authority was chiefly passed on from the (falsely supposed) “first pope” Peter to the current pope. And that is misguidedly how the Catholic Church, has through history, right through this day, indeed made various changes in the Christian Religion with teaching and traditions which, as with this attempt to accept homosexuality, indeed just does not align itself with the already revealed word of God (which is (still) in effect in the New Covenant). (In fact, the Roman Catholic Church similarly also accept evolution as the explanation for origins.) And it is indeed no surprise that such a denomination which thinks itself to be God and the Final Authority in what is right and wrong is most appealing to postmodernists who have a secularized version of such a, (actually Satan-heeding), view....(which is how and why Rev 16:12-16 & Rev 17:8-12 prophesy that the Papacy will be most appealing to the whole world, including non-Christians.) (Protestant) Christians have mainly rejected any such unBiblical changes, dogma and traditions from Roman Catholics, and have, at least previously/historically, most Biblically, seen that the Papacy and RCC have, through such actions, indeed fulfilled the prophecies of the: Little Horn Antichrist (Dan 7:24-26; 8:9-14); Man of Sin (2 Thess 2:3-12) (first) Beast (Rev 13:1-10) Great Whore (Rev 17); Babylon (Rev 18). And in fact, and it is an empirical “fact”, -indeed as most emblematically inclusively depicted in historical|non-fictional and/or “art-imitating-life|culture|society” movies [e.g. in this one], the most indifferently and insouciantly and thus pompously, openly and proudly licentious Christian|Religious people; -including especially in having sexual relations outside of marriage, amongst other permissive vice-sins, as well as, “organized criminality”, are self-professingly Roman Catholics. All because the Church is great at raising up its members as Biblically ignoramus novices (just as during Medieval “Dark Ages” Times) who have a, frankly/factually stated, Satanic theology and view of Sin & Salvation. (Cf. Gal 1:6-9; 2 Cor 11:14 = Rev 8:10-11)[1] Hence why the Papacy is incontrovertibly indeed Satan’s “right hand “Man of Sin”” (=of Lawlessness (1 John 3:4; James 2:10; Dan 7:25; 2 Thess 2:7-8; Rev 14:9-11) & (historically): ‘Mother Harlot’ (Rev 17); and once this AntiChrist Power will be given seemingly Biblical, even powerfully supernatural, assistance by Satan (2 Thess 2:9-10), it will then most easily win to its side, especially, even now staunch, irreligious people, -who, as seen in the present post, already have an “appreciation” for such a: “humanistically” Bible-ignoring|indifferent, apostasied (2 Thess 2:3-4), “blasphemous|slanderous”, counterfeit brand of Christianity. (=Rev 13:3, 8, 13-14).
It is also important to debunk the popular, but merely circularly wishful, myth by/of non-believers that the Bible, especially the New Covenant, through the teaching of Love, is, or must be, accepting of sin, especially Homosexuality. That just is not the case. The same Paul who highly speaks of love in 1 Cor 13, is also clear to stipulate that it does not endorse, accept or take pleasure in unrighteousness, but in truth (1 Cor 13:6) and his other exposition in Rom 1:17-18ff make it clear what this love& truth opposing “unrighteousness” is all about. In fact, Paul rightly prophetically saw that the AntiChrist power, again fulfilled to a “T” by the Papacy, would champion, and as professing Christians, this Satanic deception of making people believe that ‘unrighteousness is to trump truth’ (2 Thess 2:12 NKJV; Dan 8:9-12)!!
So all these moves and actions by the Papacy are most prophetic, including, as fully expected in here (see S06E10), that non believers (naturally/validatingly) would be most attracted to this “baptized unrighteousness and untruth”. The Papacy itself, quasi-whimsically, changing its views and teachings, (e.g., by claiming that the theory of (Macro) Evolution also aligns with Biblical Creation), does not in any way begin to impeach the infallibility and inerrancy of the direct revelation and inspiration of God as contained in the Bible. At best it can only impinge on this, pointedly in the minds of those who are at best, novicely, if even at all, strongly rooted in proper Christian Theology and Teachings. In fact, this spurious “evolving” by the Papacy only, yet again, self-debunks its most fundamental dogma that it, itself, is inerrant and infallible!
As already stated before, God has deliberately designed His prophecies to be most unwittingly (then, doomingly, indifferently/rebelliously) fulfilled by people who will insist on living unrighteously and (in any degree of) opposition to the revealed and standing will of God as seen in, and confirmed by, the Bible. (=Dan 12:3-4, 10)
As already stated before, God has deliberately designed His prophecies to be most unwittingly (then, doomingly, indifferently/rebelliously) fulfilled by people who will insist on living unrighteously and (in any degree of) opposition to the revealed and standing will of God as seen in, and confirmed by, the Bible. (=Dan 12:3-4, 10)
There moreover is no “cherry-picked” ‘hate vs. love’ or ‘exclusion vs. inclusion’ confliction in the Bible, and definitely not in regards to the acceptance of moral, especially abominable, sin. In the Old Covenant God was working to secure a pure and set apart nation of people who would then be Spiritually mature enough to go out an minister to the rest of the world, as then done in the New Covenant. So different conditions towards these ends was included in the respective Covenantal Agreements. But again, the definition or acceptance of (moral) sin was never abrogated by God/Jesus.
In fact, in the John 8:1-11 episode where Jesus does not call for the execution of Capital Punishment for adultery, it was all because the whole scenario was unjust: (1) there was no man presented in this supposed “in the very act” arresting (John 8:4), thus it clearly was a manufactured ruse (cf. DA 460.4-462.4); (2) while under Roman Rule, the Jews could not themselves execute Capital Punishment, especially for moral reasons, (3) none of the people wanting the execution were themselves (current practicising-wise) sinless. In/For the New Covenant, which was going to be generously extended to Gentiles, God most fairly allowed for any capital punishments in the Law to be commuted by grace and postponed to the utter end, when, if, through persisted rebellion, still necessary, it will be execute in Hell’s judgement. So New Covenant Theology also here does not actually do away with the (Spirit) of God’s Law. It just involves an added, deeper (gracious) dimension to it, all rooted in God’s fairness and love. Indeed proper exegesis, especially with [proper] Old vs. New Covenant Theology included, resolves all (novicely) assumed "contradiction/conflict" claimed about the Bible.
Also, though it most foundationally should go without saying, unless of course, as with unbelievers, one is working from the wrong premise that the Bible is nothing more than the crafty creation of men: the US Constitution document does not begin to compare with Bible. It does not involves any prophetic communication or revelation from God. It must be pointed out that ca. 25% of Bible is actually such direct/prophetic communication and revelation from/by God, (cf. Num 12:6-7), and these fulfilled/fulfilling prophecies have indeed proven that these statements have come from a source which has the Omnipotent Power to do just what it Wisely has planned to do. But most of the rest of the Bible are teachings and writings which involve some (“lesser”) degree of mere thought inspiration, which however must fully align itself direct revelations or else be rejected as false prophetic claim (1 Thess 5:19-21). And the Bible actually does allow, through the Spirit of Prophecy (e.g. Rev 12:17; 19:10) for God to continue to make additional direct communication and revelation and they validatingly, won’t be in conflict with, or contradiction to, what has already been revealed and validated to be “Scripture”.
What the Papacy is here endeavoring to do, clearly in claimed superceding of the Biblical Text, is just yet another demonstration of its long exposed AntiChrist mindset, and is just another step to it naturally&indifferently fully fulfilling its (unwitting Judas-like (John 6:70-71; 13:21-30; 17:12)) “son of perdition” (2 Thess 2:3ff) character role in God’s testing and exposingly determining prophetic scenario. (E.g. Rev 17:8-11)
What the Papacy is here endeavoring to do, clearly in claimed superceding of the Biblical Text, is just yet another demonstration of its long exposed AntiChrist mindset, and is just another step to it naturally&indifferently fully fulfilling its (unwitting Judas-like (John 6:70-71; 13:21-30; 17:12)) “son of perdition” (2 Thess 2:3ff) character role in God’s testing and exposingly determining prophetic scenario. (E.g. Rev 17:8-11)
...By the way, and it is actually not at all surprising or coincidental, Roman Catholics do, like Cenk Uygur (see e.g. here[00:29-00:41]), believe, (as expressed here[06:06-09:54] ([fuller segment](cf. valid (SDA)-honing comments here)|[full episode])), that ‘the major problem with/within Christianity are the Fundamentalists’...which is most ironic because, as documentedly discussed from here, they are the ones who invented the, not surprisingly, “pompously/boldly” (cf. Dan 7:25) contra-Biblical, “literalistic/fundamentalistic” method of interpreting symbolic Bible Prophecy for their Futurist-Dispensationalist canard all to try to get Protestants (at least then) to stop seeing in Bible Prophecy that they, the Papacy and the Roman Catholic Church, had fulfilled its, as mentioned above, AntiChrist, Babylon, Man of Sin et. al., prophecies....So when, as similarly with the RCC and postmodernists, ‘man is the final authority as to what Truth is’, as Satan needs them to believe, then they are indeed a lockstep, destined, fitting match!! [And it is complementarily enough that the message of “the prophet of the False Prophet”, namely Eugene Shubert’s, Heretically “Omega” Three Angels’ Messages is also in lockstep with the (formal) political aspirations involved in this coalition of the (variously) ‘Biblically Indifferent’. (=Rev 16:13-14; 19:19-20]
Moreover this RCC ideology and theology is at the historical and contemporary root of the ongoing war against (Militant) Islam, starting with the Crusades of historical times, and the present conflicts as they all directly, or (backingly) indirectly, need to “fundamentally” involve ‘fighting for the same territorial (supposed still) “holy land/city”...As I said before, the actual “problem” is just not with New Covenant Christian theological/doctrinal fundamentalists, but with prophetic literalist/fundamentalist...because true/proper/full Christian Theology does not lead to any of what postmodernists desperately need to disculpatingly, blindly, ignoramusly and also straw-manly, fear.
10. (Cf. Clip[03:00:15ff] & here) - ‘YOLG’ - So now unbelievers are going to make a go of it, and formally make their practiced “worship of self” a formal religion; piggy-backing on a depleted “spirituality” heading. Instead of interacting with an independent outside/external power “spirit”, they now formally will make their own psyche and conscience that “spirit”. To them it clearly, or inherently effectively, is the equivalent of what confused Christian have called a (distinct) “soul entity”. (Quite ironic that the Biblical teaching actually is that a bodily living, conscientious person and his psyche is (indeed) a “soul” in itself (Gen 2:7)...but the best lie is indeed the half/partial lie (e.g. Gen 3:4-5, 22)). Clearly this whole exercise of unbelievers is because, try as they may, especially through alcohol/drug-induced amnesias, they just cannot get rid of that “guilt” factor...which Biblically is that innate and persisting ‘conscience “enmity”’ which God has sovereignly, fairly placed in (partly deceivedly) fallen man, -being primarily all the natural offspring/seed of (the deceived) Eve. (Gen 3:15, 20; 2 Cor 11:3/1 Tim 2:14). Clearly their “Old School” Theology to try to find solacing justification for their ruthless behavior within their theory of Evolution has not provided that conscience appeasing relief. As pointed out here, they just cannot “faithfully”, truly/fully live according to a YOLO (“You Only Live Once”) life motto, because, in regards to just one aspect of life, they clearly cannot peacefully “live and let die”....(and it is quite telling that it has typically been “Right Wing”/Conservative, so-called Christians who have (necessarily mindlessly), futilely, tried to “religiously” justify such callously selfish living through a Christianity which is perverted on the other end of the spectrum of this ongoing and honed, likewise “Spiritualistic”, self-worshiping, deception, with Capitalism). So rather than keep fighting that unescapable feeling that they, i.e. unbelievers, also just cannot be/live selfishly, and are repeatedly doing “wrong”, they have decided to self-attribute this unrelenting tugging sense to ‘the innate higher goodness of their being.’...And indeed, even before trying to “scientifically” ‘order, regulate and systematize’ such “goodness”, the distinct Inner Will to be “Moral” must not merely exists, as it innately does, but must be desired to be pursued and cultivated, and that all indeed is in the realm of the Conscious Will and not “Science”...
Moreover this RCC ideology and theology is at the historical and contemporary root of the ongoing war against (Militant) Islam, starting with the Crusades of historical times, and the present conflicts as they all directly, or (backingly) indirectly, need to “fundamentally” involve ‘fighting for the same territorial (supposed still) “holy land/city”...As I said before, the actual “problem” is just not with New Covenant Christian theological/doctrinal fundamentalists, but with prophetic literalist/fundamentalist...because true/proper/full Christian Theology does not lead to any of what postmodernists desperately need to disculpatingly, blindly, ignoramusly and also straw-manly, fear.
10. (Cf. Clip[03:00:15ff] & here) - ‘YOLG’ - So now unbelievers are going to make a go of it, and formally make their practiced “worship of self” a formal religion; piggy-backing on a depleted “spirituality” heading. Instead of interacting with an independent outside/external power “spirit”, they now formally will make their own psyche and conscience that “spirit”. To them it clearly, or inherently effectively, is the equivalent of what confused Christian have called a (distinct) “soul entity”. (Quite ironic that the Biblical teaching actually is that a bodily living, conscientious person and his psyche is (indeed) a “soul” in itself (Gen 2:7)...but the best lie is indeed the half/partial lie (e.g. Gen 3:4-5, 22)). Clearly this whole exercise of unbelievers is because, try as they may, especially through alcohol/drug-induced amnesias, they just cannot get rid of that “guilt” factor...which Biblically is that innate and persisting ‘conscience “enmity”’ which God has sovereignly, fairly placed in (partly deceivedly) fallen man, -being primarily all the natural offspring/seed of (the deceived) Eve. (Gen 3:15, 20; 2 Cor 11:3/1 Tim 2:14). Clearly their “Old School” Theology to try to find solacing justification for their ruthless behavior within their theory of Evolution has not provided that conscience appeasing relief. As pointed out here, they just cannot “faithfully”, truly/fully live according to a YOLO (“You Only Live Once”) life motto, because, in regards to just one aspect of life, they clearly cannot peacefully “live and let die”....(and it is quite telling that it has typically been “Right Wing”/Conservative, so-called Christians who have (necessarily mindlessly), futilely, tried to “religiously” justify such callously selfish living through a Christianity which is perverted on the other end of the spectrum of this ongoing and honed, likewise “Spiritualistic”, self-worshiping, deception, with Capitalism). So rather than keep fighting that unescapable feeling that they, i.e. unbelievers, also just cannot be/live selfishly, and are repeatedly doing “wrong”, they have decided to self-attribute this unrelenting tugging sense to ‘the innate higher goodness of their being.’...And indeed, even before trying to “scientifically” ‘order, regulate and systematize’ such “goodness”, the distinct Inner Will to be “Moral” must not merely exists, as it innately does, but must be desired to be pursued and cultivated, and that all indeed is in the realm of the Conscious Will and not “Science”...
So in this self-made religion, they go by a set of counterfeiting “(Ten) Moral Commandments” which, in their first tier, have themselves as “god”. Therefore, in regards to themselves, whatever they decide is good is what is morally acceptable. Then they “balance” that potentially easily catastrophic tenet with a second tier of Moralistic Law which is controlled by whether or not this pestering conscience of theirs can inconsequentially “stomach”, including through ‘getting as “wasted” as possible’, what they do, or allow to be done to others. This of course falls way short of the All-Knowingly, All-Powerful and All-Wise God’s/Jesus’s own Moral Code (Exod 20:1-17), even in its humanistic/interpersonal second tier of Laws which is at a much higher, and truly/fully altruistic standard of ‘sacrificially loving others just as onself’ (Matt 22:39-40).
So, as patently typical from the tail-chasing exercise of unbelievers, they have once again concretely self-demonstrated that it is futile to try to live outside of God’s Laws. Indeed they have unwittingly inceptively replaced their snazzy “YOLO” motto with a conscientious ‘YOLG’, because they otherwise just cannot “Live” with a crucially attained and maintained inner peace unless they involve (deliberate, even quasi-altruistic) “Good”. (-Inherently as in: Matt 19:17|Acts 10:38...And, as they’ll later fully realize, not even: “Good & Evil” (Gen 2:17; 3:5)).
Telling, and most ironically so, that with all of the innovated and perfected means and measure which man has developed to fuel, facilitate and (relatively) protect&preserve themselves in their sinful activities (e.g. ample alcohol, safe illicit and remedial drugs, contraceptives, virtual communications, etc), that they have not actually fully taken the plunge into a “YOLO” lifestyle...I.e. in the sense that ‘if you really believe that these, optimally, 80-90 years is the only go at life that you’ll ever get and that life is made complete by carefreely taking in as many experiences as possible, that you would not be endeavoring, indeed even through democratic political activism, to craft a personal and collective life which will maximize these opportunities....Oh yeah, you (likewise) do first need to have Babylon’s own (i.e. spurious) Religious & Socio-Economic ideology be “dried up”. (Rev 16:12, 13-16; cf. 17:14; 19:11-19)...
11. Vlog (cf. e.g. here, here, here, here) - Pastor Preaching on Biblical Chastity is “Crazy”, “Judgemental”, and “Attacked Women” - Much like a building demolition, there are two ways to give a rebuttal the claims made in this video. One is, like a controlled (instantaneous) demolition, to provide a summary, overarching response...and then let the rubbled parts be sorted out, if at all. The other is to engage in a piece by piece de-construction of those parts....As per Pro 26:5, I opted for the more “transparent” latter instead of the first which would just require me to make spinning subjective and biased claims, foundationally starting with: “non-Bible believers are crazy”...But what does that prove, demonstrate, or resolve....So here goes:
[00:01ff] - Keeping the focus of Him/Christ/God - This is (indeed) the most contextually determinative part of this sermon: the pastor is speaking in his church, to (professed and even seriously-intentioned) fellow believers. He is not speaking to ‘all women out there’ as the titling here would want people to assume and believe. And that is a patent tactic of unbelievers. They laughably just refuse to accept that Christianity, which is God New Covenant Religion with His (now also Spiritual) Israel, does not call for the capital/full judgements and penalties of the Old Covenant to be enforced by them. At best, NT Christians are merely to disfellowship members from their midst who refuse to live according to Bible and Biblical Principles. Therefore they obstinately go by the hysterical straw man claim that (Bible) Christians are trying to “kill the gays”[2] and ‘stone adulterers’. If they acknowledge that that is not what (True) Christianity is all about, then they would not be able to scare people away from taking it into sober-minded considered. “Straw Man” tactics indeed. (And how can they ever object to Christians having the belief that it is God Himself who will effectuate any Moral Capital Punishments on unbelievers, and that in the utter end, and has not at all called for the Christian Church to do so before that. Most ironically enough, the one Christian Denomination which they ‘highly respect’ and have believed their vacuous profession that they themselves are not fundamentalist, is the Church which persecuted and murdered tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people, for not believing like them, both Christians and non-Christians....Clearly they do not understand that the Roman Catholic Church and its heading Papacy indeed is the ultimate “chameleon” (GC 571.1-2), and will gladly tell you anything to hoodwink you into acknowledging its authority...including telling you that ‘they themselves do not take the Bible literally’ when the fact is that, they are the most fundamentalist of all, whenever it is self-serving, from having an OT priesthood, the reading Apocalyptic prophecies literally, to executing murderous “Inquisitions”. What unbelievers should actually be doing is running away from any Christian group which actually does not properly interpret and apply the Bible, or outrightly ignores/undermines it....because they are thus only doing the work of Anti-Christ, and, as stated before, are just trying to fool you into submitting to them...and the more Biblically illiterate, the better their chances!! (cf. GC 567.2; Rev 16:13-14, 16).
But enough here on this pivotal “foundation”, which is that a pastor preaching to fellow believer is fully entitled to, and right, to teach exactly what the Bible teaches on such topics as modesty and chastity. As the Bible indeed teaches, both in the OT and NT, the house/worship of God is indeed not to be a “flesh show” (e.g., Exod 20:26). Tellingly enough, it is pagan worship which believes and practices otherwise.
But just one more foundational thing, which I’ll merely summarily state: contrary to the premise in the vlog response here, Bible Christian have ample, including rational and intellectual, evidence to believe in, and take seriously, the Bible; particularly (fulfilled) Prophetic Evidence (Isa 41:21-26; 44:6-7; 46:9-11). Unbelievers patently “air-headedly” and childishly immaturely, refuse to engage such evidencing, -which includes the evidence against the various origins and existential claims that merely have jumped to assumptions about. (E.g. about/from the geological evidence of an Ice Age (cf. here) (Easily Biblically and soundly explained here and here from the event of Noah’s Flood); because the fact is that they psychologically desperately cannot begin to think that there exists an God above them who will hold them accountable for all that they have done against His revealed and/or natural will (e.g Rom 1:18-2:16).
[00:08] - Disrespecting the Bride’s Day - For personal observation, again pointedly in the context of a Christian Wedding, including in SDA Churches, -and the pastor again is pointedly speaking to those in his congregation, there indeed seems to be this unwritten law that “weddings ceremonies” are no longer Religious/Spiritual events and “almost anything goes from secular music and entertainment, to “(even) dirty dancing” and other worldly sensual/paganistic practices, inclusively to, this “barely any clothes on” “Jezebellian” parading.
The citing of “Jezebel” evidently triggered a knee-jerked offended reaction with Ana here [00:09]. Well let’s point out what Bible Believers actually understand when the emblematically cite “Jezebel”. As likewise applicably and pertinently done within this post, a “Jezebel” represents someone who lives amongst God’s people, but is actually intentioned on corruptingly imposing, by (murderous) force if necessary her paganistic beliefs and views upon others. (Rev 2:19-23). A “Jezebel” cares nothing for what God has said, and only wants to value her own judgement. But what actually crystalizes “Jezebel” is that, as seen in the Elijah-Carmel showdown episode (1 Kgs 18) she even refuses to accept the manifested, clear evidences of God’s superiority and authority (1 Kgs 18:36-40), but instead insists on “steam-rollingly” continuing in her corrupting ways and influences. And indeed instead embarks on an vindictive exacting course to: ‘treat the prophets and representative of God just like they treated her false prophets’... (1 Kgs 19:1-2)
[00:27] - ‘The video got leaked...’ Really???! “Leaked”...(A) That sermon was preached (before January 24, 2010) sometime back in actually “2008”!!!! (moreover when, as the pastor pointedly cites[18:59-23:06ff], the then (still/mainly) teen-popular MySpace was indeed a sneaky outlet of, and creeping snare for, Christian youth); (B) it was indeed long made publicly available on the internet (probably, originally, by the Lancaster Baptist Church itself); (C) Ironically enough, the sermon was preached during a “Cyber Sunday” service which inherently means/involves that it was never intended to be ‘hidden or concealed’!!!...But so is the circular, self-victimizing, mindset of unbelievers. They are absolutely convinced that Bible Christians are ashamed of their Faith, the Bible and their God and, especially with such controversial things, are “cultishly” trying to hide what they really believe. The Factual Truth is that Bible Christians have a much more informed understanding of the Bible than the preferred straw man falsehoods that unbeliever have victimizingly rile up themselves with...But this non-factual and untrue stance is most key to this willfully-necessarily delusional narrative that (Bible/Fundamentalist) “Christians are out to kill them” (...so let’s run to the (“Skin Deep”) “Progressive/Liberal” Roman Catholic Church...LOL!!)
-And really the only “(secretive) (tellingly, even cultural) cult” here are those who: religiously gather on weekends under the weeding-outly dual cover of late night (cf. John 3:20) to early morning darkness in windowless, cameras-outrightly-banned, herded-confusion, also itself in (predominant) darkness, “nightspots”, -(moreover where, as per their chief existential “evolutionary” tenet: functional order and moral civility is again, necessarily mindlessly, attempted to be “naturally” borne out of randomness and chaos), and just won’t shy from, resort to liquoring and/or drugging up others and/or even themselves especially if they cannot clear-mindedly get their selfishness {=the chief of sins (4T 384.3)}fix for, and week’s fill up from, that night....
[00:32] - “absolute craziness, right?!” - Simply said, “wrong”!!...Because Bible believers are speaking from the other context that the validity and reliability of Scripture, and thus the Existence and Authority of the Creator God, has been satisfactorily, intellectually, evidenced. But as seen later on, it is the unbelievers worldview which is “absolute craziness”, especially if they would ever gather the courage to actually truly live by what they claim to adamantly believe...
[00:35-01:14] - The “filthy dish rag” statement - Well if you are ‘(assuming) “sure” that he also addressed the impure actions of boys in the sermon’, than why fault him when he is then focusing on girls!??? Just be honest....Why this desperate need to invent controversy other than for this crucial, guilt-repressing/assuaging/transferring, victimization motif....
Just skimming through the hour and a half sermon, the fact is the pastor did touch, either exclusively or inclusively, on (prevalent) boys/men sexual purity issues and how this (also later for boys) affect their marriage at: 18:14-18:48; 26:33-27:06-27:45; also 58:08-59:48ff; 01:01:10-01:01-43; 01:11:17ff. He later specifically addresses issues relating to girls/women at 55:56-56:09; 56:45-57:29 & (the selectively emphasized/mediatized statement:) 57:30-57:55ff; Seems pretty pertinently, substantively and strongly, “even-handed” to me....and actually more extensive against boys/men.
Fact is, (and, oblivious to quite observable and empirical data, this needs to be ignored for a gender equalizing agenda), men are much more disposed to engaging in sexual activity with a woman, in fact most any willing woman, than the converse. And that indeed has entrenchedly has all to do with natural factors, mainly with the less risk/responsibility of the male in such flings...i.e. he does not run the risk of getting pregnant, and then having to deal with this development, including on an emotional and moral level. In fact, as with many cases, the male may “blissfully” never, indeed if ever, know that that past sexual fling had conceived and birth a child. Then there is also the “natural” factor that (most) men are physically stronger than (most) women, so, unless they are morally controlled, they are more likely to innately think and feel that they can get whatever they want, and whenever they want it. Which is also why most cases of rape are committed by males.
And so, the act of sexual intercourse does variously have a more tangible effect on the woman, and it does speak to this fact that the best guard of a woman was her, well-aware of, non-permissiveness...because men will indeed likely pursue and/or take whatever they can, (or even can’t) get. So in that realistic context, a woman who is “easy” does naturally disproportionally contribute much more to the lowering of sexual purity...pointedly because most men do not want to consider themselves rap-ish and/or actually be rapist.
Indeed it is not considered adequately, even deliberately glossed over, -for our day and age, that a woman and her sexuality does innately have an authoritative power over a man both to keep them in line, or, to lead them into sexual sin, all in relation to them.
There probably was a worldly hypocritical stance where promiscuous women were frown upon whereas promiscuous men were consider acceptable/normal...but I certainly did not, either specifically or contextually get that from Paul Chappell’s statement or sermon. What he did emphasize here was that an inviting and permissive woman (thus, as a “dish rag” is willing to ‘‘get dirty’ for a (supposed) cleaner benefit’) only facilitated this issue/problem amongst fellow believers. Again I do not see any reason for claiming that this is targeted to ‘all women out there’. The pastor is, as per his God-ordained, and Biblically-mandated, duty, calling to order the people within his congregation and any other like-minded believers out there. If you don’t consider yourself a believer in, even the God of, the Bible, then why at all feel, or “need to” be targeted, by this, or any other similar, Church membership-pointed sermon(s). E.g. I couldn’t care less at whatever the Church of Scientology may claim or preach, nor do I try to mal-construe everything they say as some vital, clear and present, moreover conspiratorial, threat/plot against me!!
Again unbelievers, -if you intellectually dare, engage Christianity itself for what it actually is, and then all you’ll have to care to worry about is the coming, God-executed, Hell judgement that they are warning you of. As patent: unbelievers just don’t have conviction of their professed beliefs and claims.
[01:15-1:30] - (Claim of) Pastor Chappell’s Response??! - Perhaps I missed a ‘journalistic source’, but my internet searching has not turned up where Paul Chappell actually makes a statement in reply to the criticism of his sermon....{but, (if applicable), -adding to the desperate “victimization motif” here: do put (out of thin air) words into his mouth, if/however necessary.
[01:31-02:10] - Purity Pledges are “Creepy” - A church of God is entirely entitled to have “purity pledges” if it chooses to...It is along the lines of Biblical covenants....Indeed just like a Church has ‘monogamy and faithfulness vows’ during weddings...And so, the media indeed has no justification for wanting to impose its secular views on the lawful and moral conducting of a Church. And moreover, I am sure that no one was forced to take that purity pledge. So indeed, do mind your own “secular” business media. And how in the world is a father looking out for the purity well-being of his daughter “creepy”... i.e. as if, as slanderously implied, the father is trying to sexually keep the daughter for himself...So fathers, being men themselves, do actually care that her daughter be comfortable with, and purely secure in, him so that the lure of someone else other than her husband would not sway her into various emotional and even physical pains, “baggages” and burdens. If a father can’t look out for his (underaged) daughter, however he rightly deems it (moreover Biblically) best, then who is. What’s actually “creepy”, -and I’ll say more on that later, is, as personally experienced, the “Joe/Jane Stranger” (moreover opposite sex) Teacher discussing and explaining sexual topic with one’s child, and that inherently, and precariously, at/through whatever warped/immoral mentality that they may have (case in point here, right from the “Hoss’s” (indifferently flipplantly duel-talking) mouth). I personally never need to have “the Talk” with my parents (beyond, allusively, not being alarmed by certain soon coming “issues” during puberty), because I was raised in a moral framework where I knew that sensual lusting, let alone actual sexual activity, was sinful. As a parent, I just don’t want to relinquish the sexual informing/educating of my children to a stranger and whatever warped mindset they have been contextualized in. For me, and as a parent I am certainly full entitled to this preference, my own upbringing was ideal to me where, be it but for being exposed to a secular schooling context starting in the 8th grade, I would not have, and contrary to my desire or will, been forcedly made to very firstly know about sex, even at that age of 15....It literally bothered my world. Biblical teaching on purity was quite sufficient for me to remain sexually pure.
To each (parent/family) their own in that regard, and I certainly don’t want a stranger doing/involved in my (exclusive) parenting/children up bringing rights. And frankly, Biblical/moral education included...one has to have been brought up as dumb and as unprincipled as, indeed, an “animal” to, and especially, a more crucial here, beyond the age of puberty, not even most basically think/perceive that it is even basically normal to have a boy insert his genitals inside of yours (and vice versa).....But more accurately, it is the converse that is “animalistically” more the case: young boys and girls are indifferently exposed by TV shows and movies, and now also the internet, to a wide stream of sexually suggestive/implicit and/or explicit scenes/situations, and so have to, as soon as effectively, yet ironically enough, only slightly a little later (than the beginning of puberty, and much more influentially, after having been licentiously “PG-13” exposed), be “further informed” of the fuller story/implications here that ‘actually doing such things in real life can lead to consequences such as pregnancy and STDs....And so indeed is the mainstream of society today increasingly growing up in an a-moral circumstances...and thus where, absent, inattentive and/or actually shameful/embarrassed, parents cannot even see that they should themselves have such a Talk with their children, if/as manifestingly necessary, and so leave it up to culture and society to look after their children in that regard.
[02:10-03:38] - “Purity Pledges don’t’ Work” - Let’s see the George W. Bush Adminstartion, the (secular) Executive Government Branch of the United States, defunded Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE) in the Department of Education.....and so, otherwise, normative a-morally brought up or corruptingly influence youngster had more instances of teenage pregnancies.....and this prove that purity pledges do not work....clearly because Bush had replaced CSE with imposed Purity Pledges....Sure not informing youngster without, or indifferent to, morals, will surely correspondingly result in more (accidental/unwanted) pregnancies amongst them...but that has nothing to do with purity pledges that parents/Churches may have with their youth. To actually correlate the two, one would “scientifically” have to interview e.g. 1000 people who had taken purity pledges and....actually see if they ended up having a child out of wedlock. I would pertinently limit it to ‘before they became of legal adult age’, since this comparative issue is “teenage pregnancy”, but I’ll maintain this ‘until they married’ parameters, and actually bet that any pregnancy rate with that specific, actually “purity pledging”, group is lower than those national/secular rates. This is all biasedly ‘comparing apples with zucchinis’!! Even “Purity Pledges” vs. Abstinence only educating are not relatable since having an education curriculum which (rightly) teaches that in regards to teenage and pre-marital sex, abstinence is, overall, the better way to go, (though I am actually strongly against having such an inevitably/ultimately moral stance being part of a public/secular curriculum).
...And what’s ‘a little permissive hyperbole’ when one is stoking up an hysterical, conspiratorial, self-manufactured, threatening plot....
In my personal experience, which I have already spoken much on above, I would have preferred to have the non-penalizing choice to opt out of those ca. 5 or 6 sexual education class sessions, (moreover “creepily” from my perspective, taught by a woman)...I would have at the very least felt less uncomfortable and queasy. I personally, just did not need this information, nor did not want to be exposed to it. If later I myself would have decided that I (pre-maritally) needed it, then I would do my on due diligence to get informed. I just was not at all on the same wavelength as the secular ideology and agenda in that public school, and had not desire, nor plan, -even while then having a romantic interest in a girl, to come to need it....But of course, that is all impossible for unbelievers for, as later explicitly claimed, ‘we are all (supposed to be/behave like) mere, and uncontrollable, (a-moral) animals’...LOL
-By the way, from just that CDC “Teen Birth Rates” chart at 03:13, it actually speaks of merely a jump from a rate of 40.5% in 2005 to 41.9% in 2006. That hardly is a “skyrocketing jump”. And it technically could contributively be that New Hampshire also has a higher rate of ‘teen pregnancies not ending in births’ i.e., more teen Abortions, than those Southern states, since the study is evidently pointedly based on “Teen Births” and not actually: Pregnancies. All key, distinct categories... Indeed as seen in the statistic in here [pp. 17|18], in 2010, (thus during the Obama “refunding” administration), New Hampshire had an “abortion ratio” (i.e., “the proportion of teenage [15-19] pregnancies ending in abortion” of 35% [(tied for) #38 of all the States] while Mississippi had a ratio of 14% [(tied for) #6]. The national average was 30%.
-Deconstructing also here, Purity Pledge also do not necessarily mean that theBut of course, as typical with these “pain or pleasure”, “trial and error”, unbeliever ‘creatures’, they then flippantly back-peddle on their priorly claimed mindless and vacuous life philosophies and, e.g. here, bewail when some like Ariel Castro, does “most faithfully” act out on his “(sexual) animalistic urges/cravings” and, as any good “predator by nature”, takes measures to secure his ‘sexual prey’....But of course: ‘he was not an “animal”, he was that [mythical] “monster”’. Again check out how capable/stronger/“fitter”animals “predatorily” and forcefully act in order to satisfy their appetites, including sexual one, and especially most ruthlessly against other (weaker) “animal” not of their own (immediate) kind/family....however “animals” sometimes eat their own young....Surely that all is to be the “model” for human thinking and behavior....child will not be sexually informed/educated, and that by their own parents. Moreover, relatedly, a “purity pledge” between a father and daughter, does not actually mean that it is the father himself who would be doing the sexual informing and educating. (With (presumedly) the higher prevalence of complete home/family units amongst Christians, at least functionally so,) the parents could easily have agreed to keep their children’s actual sexual education gender matching.
[03:38-04:19] - ‘Human are merely, uncontrollable, animals’ - Got to love the way unbelievers try to “scientifically” spin the moral argument of chastity/celibacy before marriage with “natural” and “animalistic”* arguments.....(A) “Conservatives” do not force their, pointedly (‘whenever-they-may-get-married’) adult children to be/remain celibate. They certainly may greatly encourage them to be, e.g. by reminding them of what God’s/the Bible’s clear teaching is in this regards...but what exactly would that be to you personally, and your different choices, in your own life....Again, this is the victimization mentality, like someone who is going way out of their way to get others to step on their foot so that they can cry “foul”. (B) “Conservative” are not telling you how to live your life, they are, if even the case, and if so, probably merely encouragingly so, dealing with their own children and what they think is best for them. Now if they are threatening not to give them their inheritance if they do not comply to this nuptial requirement of theirs, then that is a whole other “pressuring” and quasi-imposing thing. But I have not heard of any such cases. But of course, Bible believers need to be “demonized” in such also straw man ways, and again, not merely towards their own children, but towards all/any other people/strangers out there.
* But of course, as typical with these “pain or pleasure”, “trial and error”, unbeliever ‘creatures’, they then air-headedly back-peddle on their priorly claimed mindless and vacuous life philosophies and, e.g. here, bewail when some like Ariel Castro, does “most faithfully” act out on his “(sexual) animalistic urges/cravings” and, as any good “predator by nature”, takes measures to secure his ‘sexual prey’....But of course: ‘he was not an “animal”, he was that [mythical] “monster”’. Again check out how capable/stronger/“fitter”animals “predatorily” and forcefully act in order to satisfy their appetites, including sexual one, and especially most ruthlessly against other (weaker) “animal” not of their own (immediate) kind/family....however “animals” sometimes eat their own young....Surely that all is to be the “model” for human thinking and behavior....
* But of course, as typical with these “pain or pleasure”, “trial and error”, unbeliever ‘creatures’, they then air-headedly back-peddle on their priorly claimed mindless and vacuous life philosophies and, e.g. here, bewail when some like Ariel Castro, does “most faithfully” act out on his “(sexual) animalistic urges/cravings” and, as any good “predator by nature”, takes measures to secure his ‘sexual prey’....But of course: ‘he was not an “animal”, he was that [mythical] “monster”’. Again check out how capable/stronger/“fitter”animals “predatorily” and forcefully act in order to satisfy their appetites, including sexual one, and especially most ruthlessly against other (weaker) “animal” not of their own (immediate) kind/family....however “animals” sometimes eat their own young....Surely that all is to be the “model” for human thinking and behavior....
-No one is saying that sex is not “natural”...But only in the, indeed “animal” world can what is “natural,” be “acceptably” considered and deemed as the determiner of what is moral. Let Bible Believer use their Higher standards and input for their morality, and let unbeliever continue to look to the animal world...But that’s the problem...they selectively do not...whenever they encounter “pain”, then they retreat back towards Biblically-laid out morality. E.g. “Free Love” was the natural, and thus right thing to do in the 1960's, but then came STD’s and the HIV/Aid epidemic, not to mention outbreaks of sexual violence amongst the promiscuous sexual community, and now variously “freely” sleeping around is longer the generational rebelling cry, to the point where “safe sex also includes taking physical security precautions. That, a-moral, “pain vs. pleasure” approach is indeed “animalistic”, and at the very least, these ‘human-animals’ should have more carefully studied animals to see that they get STD’s from their “natural” promiscuity...In fact they may even resort to violence if they want to have the same mate, or even force if they are adamant about mating...But insist that all “natural”, and so must be how things must morally be...Seriously Unbelievers, (please) do fully live out your professed and advocated vacuous tenet!!!...
[04:20-05:14] Biblical Authority - ...the pastor was not actually/even to talking to you all unbelievers...only to free-willing, likewise Bible-believing, members....Thus, moreover no need to (“want to”) get personal, riled up and vindictive. Women who actually consider themselves to be “women of God” (cf. e.g. here|here, & here) understand God-invested Biblical admonishing authority in His Church and His Church leaders, -nor does the Bible|NT teach that they are under some sort of chauvinistic bondage, so: ‘“all women”, including “their daughters(/children)” do not “revolve around”, nor desperately ‘belong’ to, ‘unbelievers’, -who, indeed, have nothing better to offer than a, tellingly enough: indeed ‘dehumanizing and animalizing’ “enslaving” (=1 Cor 6:15-20; 7:23), -indeed ‘certainly not “free” or “genuine/real”’, lifestyle of e.g. unnatural emotional platonic suppression and erosion, fear-, and (even life threatening) risk-, couched “sadventures, and ‘selfishly (“What’s-love-got-to-do-with-it”) hateful’ relations...(Case in point, just let someone ask those patently hot-air-headed unbelievers who finally achieved their desperate aspiration of finding someone who will have covenanted to ‘love them for the “remains” of their life’ if you can thus/then have sex with their spouse...-since it’s supposedly really as unmeaningful as a shaking their hand!)....So “playing the threatened victim” is actually just being most irrelevantly, hysterically, irrational...Such people without any wisdom, nor any interest in heeding or obtaining it, moreover pumped up by their circularly flawed claims of moronic, myopic and shortsighted, “knowledge”, is what is the public policy threat to society. (Cf. Pro 1:20-33)...
....And that’s what sequiturly happens when ones fundamentally needs to pursue a course which defaultly won’t dare consider the provided evidencing and facts, i.e., in regards to why Christians that a Creator, Authoritative and Sovereign God does exist, and the Bible is & includes His revealed, Moral Will for human. (E.g. 1 Cor 6:9-11; Rev 22:15) So seriously: enough of the “straw man”, “fear-begging” tactics. No “stranger” is actually out to determine your adult choices. As for the choices of parents in public schools which they pay taxes to support, and where their own children may attend, they are entirely entitled to, at the very least, try to have their values reflected.
Frankly the Law should democratically be in regards to public schools that parents freely can choose which public schools/school systems they want their school taxes to be funding. Simple and fair as that. Then there would not be this imposing of value from/upon either sides, and, speaking from personal opinion, it does go both ways. ‘Let a “free-market” divide’...
Ironically, but tellingly enough, the whole point of the Bible’s account of this ongoing, now 6000+ year old, Great Controversy between Good and Evil is there cannot be a co-practising of Good and Evil. Only pure good is conducive to life, and that most abundantly, and therefore that is the only state of affairs that God will “sponsor” with perpetually eternal life. (=Gen 3). So no need for the glib patronizing of religion/Christianity and this “good-parts appreciated”, cleaning up of the selfish messes of variously animally-living humans, also of/from (professedly) “God-fearing Christians” [as if, most likely, these very same and/or other “God-fearers” do not thus also adamantly believe that: God is the Creator of this Universe, are against homosexuality, against abortion; and that Jesus is Coming Back in Judgement (Matt 25:31-46)]...Now I am the one who feels like a ‘used/dirty dish rag’, but since that actually is Jesus’s end goal will (Indeed Matt 25:31-46; cf. Acts 20:35; Luke 6:36-38 {-Tellingly enough, as, (albeit -“daemiongly”(i.e.=4T 384.3)- “selfishly”), “~novelly” realized here} cf. LDE 219.2; WM 315.2b)!!!!
-Oh, By the way, -{and trumpingly contrary to the persisting Möbius follow-up comment&wish made here[07:45ff]}, the Bible/Jesus is what calls for people to judge, but actually here also: only other fellow professing believers (Matt 18:15-18; 1 Cor 5:9-6:8; Heb 13:4), since God Himself will be judging non-believers. And when the “appearances” of fellow believers are way below the Biblical Standards, and thus are pointing towards “evil” (1 Thess 5:22 KJV), then judging according to such evidence is also a “righteous judgement”. (John 7:24) Bible Believers are not here to judge, or coerce, unbelievers, but just to warn them of God’s Judgement. (John 12:47-48; Rev 14:6-7ff)
If unbelievers don’t believe any of this...then just don’t...That pastor, (and most others), did not even think that you/any other non-member/unbeliever, would...
12. Legalizing [which is not the same as (merely) “Decriminalizing’] (Any) Drugs & Prostitution - I wouldn’t be including a discussion of this issue here, as it may seem to be prominently merely a political issue, also since (western) societies do already allow for the greater sin of consensual fornication and adultery & certain drugs such as nicotine, alcohol, and now increasing marijuana, however the heightening claim which, moreover, fundamentally sees existing prohibitions against using any drug or allow for (remunerated) prostitution as ‘religious/conservative people (detrimentally) imposing morals on them’, which, as e.g. (re-)claimed here only serves to empower violence and criminality as seen with drug cartels and pimping, all dovetails perfectly with the chief theme of this blog post that: unbelievers are willful slaves to a preferredly “myopic” way of judging and deciding things, an air-headed mindset which typically does not, nor care to see a need to, see/think further than themselves....i.e., if it is good for them, then it should/will be good for, or with, everyone else. Moreover these unbelievers need to have a quite ditsily naive (cf. Pro 1:22), and willful amnesic, blind and detachedly fantasaical, -clearly all just for non-reciprocal-judging, thus wishfully disculpatingly, simple-minded, “view” of human nature[3], which “sees” and thus claims that once such things are legalized, and thus (somehow, “sheeplely”) regulated and taxed, everything will be just A-Okay.
For starters, in regards to “any drugs”, the prohibition on alcohol in the 1930's is cited as the prime example that, in regards to drugs, legalization is much less detrimental, even less beneficial and constructive, than (any) prohibition. The outbreak of “bootleg” production of alcohol and all of the violence this entailed is also cited as what currently give power to the strong men in the drug underworld. So then let’s (also) “stress test” this “Any/All Drugs Legal” scenario and society:
“Joe” or “Mary Jane” has/reserves fifty bucks to spend on drugs. So, in that “brave new world”, they just walk into a “drug” store, whose name of course now has heightened meaning, and pull a flask of 16 oz of crack (I haven’t bother to check the current/actual (street) price). They take it to the front register; it is ringed up, normative sales taxes totaling and extra $10 are applied to it, and they walk out of the store. Before they get to their car, they are accosted by a young girl who has been tipped by text by the cashier that someone has just bought crack. The girl offers them to get a much better deal on crack of $20 (untaxed) for the same 16 oz. They gladly agree with that deal, and are instructed to just return their unsealed flask of crack at another drug store in the city (so as to not draw attention to the cooperating cashier).
And just here is Rule 101 of legalized vice....as seen with contraband cigarettes, despite them being complicated to produce and not addictive enough, a black market (i.e., which actually not the same as an illegal production and trafficking under a complete ban) will, from mere demand, surely form to provide and lower priced, and untaxed product..and formal/legal business won’t ever be able to compete with this, particularly in a context of (addictively) high demand, thus large market, because whatever formal price they set, which, moreover needs to tack on an overhead for doing legal business, -and there economically exists a limit which they just cannot go below lest they “go under” and their industry collapses, the black, unregulated, untaxed, non-establishment, market will always be able to beat that price.
Now add to this the literal impossibility to police this, now much wider extended, black market. You just cannot deputize, and incentivizingly pay every citizen, nor will the beneficiaries of this black market even want to be. And it just won’t be possible to infiltrate every house to make sure that no black market drugs are being transacted. Nor are you going to ask for a receipt from anyone you may encounter who is high on “legal” drugs, and open a law enforcement investigation on them if they cannot produce one. Well you of course can, but then, the legal sale of these drug will have to be steeply surtaxed to pay for the heightened law enforcement, which would surely be on a level that is exponentially much larger than what has been needed to deal with illegal drugs.
Then Law Enforcement is also going to have to deal with much more home-growing operations. The current “War on Drug” will then only seem to be a mere “Battle” compared to the increased door battering raids that will go on in that appealing DIY-lucrative brave new world. So then, if home/domestic production becomes too risky or problematic. Then why not “outsource” the supplying to, existing and already well-set up, foreign drug cartels. And with the demand “stateside” now being much, much higher and nation-wider, then how much more will both drug cartels and also law enforcement be expanding to deal with that now ocean flow of drugs into the country.....and who is to say that the group of business people out for a weekend stay in Tijuana, did not cross into Mexico with the claimed “not also used” 200 lbs of cocaine they are now reentering the United States with. But wait, you say, Mexico itself is still criminalizing drugs...so they then will have to novelly be checking people entering their country for drugs just as the U.S. had been doing for years....Right, as if Mexico can come up with the funding to meet this Law Enforcement overhead.
So now the drug trafficking will be on both sides of the border, and much more on the side into Mexico, or, merely in a Western Hemisphere context, Canada, or Latin American and the Carribean, because, it can be quite profitingly lucrative to take even legally produced and bought drugs in the U.S. and smuggle it into these other, still criminalizing, countries, and sell it to people at a high price....All of course if you want to deal with the cartels in Mexico for infringing on their turf....Then why in the world would they, also here, diminish the strangle-holding footprint or change their ruthless, self-preserving tactics, as now all of these ambitious “gringos”, are pouring over the border and flooding their territory, and with even drugs they had wholesalely, even “legally” procured/bought from them.
So back to the domestic side of things. Police, on top of now chasing after black market buyers and sellers, are also having to check for drivers who are driving under the influence of any varying type of hard drugs. So they pull Joe over. He seems to be somewhat out of it. Unlike alcohol, they don’t smell anything suspicious, so it most likely is not marijuana. They then defaulty cross-check his name in a newly established and maintained DMV-linked medical history database to see if he has a condition of any condition requiring drugs or also any condition of mental illness...He does not...So they now check through their encyclopedia of various symptoms and indications for each type of drug....About an hour later, being still on the side of the road because they just cannot conclusively shoot down the alibi of Joe that this is his normative state of being. He is still somewhat functional, responsive and cogent, but there is still something seemingly odd about him. But until they can conclusively determine what it is, they just cannot take him in...well at least not now since the State or Federal Bill which would allow for this Constitutional Caveat has not yet been voted into a Law. So now two hours later, Joe seems quite fine by now. The mind-altering effects from “Shrooms” he had ingested 4 hours before had finally all wore out. He however continues to play the airs of ‘this being his normative behavior’ so that the police won’t suspect/detect this drugs wearing off. So then, now 4 hours later, they just decide to arrest him. They bring him to the station, jail him for Driving While Intoxicated, his public defender lawyer comes in, makes a mockery of the complete lack of substantivity and evidence of the charges, he easily gets his client released, and a few months later, Joe walks out of a civil court with a, let’s conservatively say: $200,000 lawsuit award against the Police Department for the violation of his Civil/Constitutional Rights....And that exact scenario took place over 10,000 times on just that day when Joe was “falsely” arrested....So then Government have to add a special surtax to the legal sales of any drugs to cover for all of these Law Enforcement expense and legal losses....and the black market, drug cartels, homegrowers, etc just keep on winning, growing and being empower...much more than ever before, when hard drugs were prohibited.
So then the Police is much more gun shy on making Drug-related traffic stops and arrests, and as any “Joe”, with whatever psychological make up they possess, can now consume these drugs, many incidents of people, on e.g. LSD, PCP, or some illegal mushroom, just freaking out while driving and swerving into other lanes or oncoming traffic to ‘escape the herd of unicorns which had dropped on the road in front of them’ just skyrocket... along with the caused accidents death and injury toll....And the Drugs-Legalizing party is unbashedly not running out of, also “myopic” spins, how all of this is not at all cause-to-effect related...(And it statistically seems manifest to me that even legal alcohol has been both annually and per capita, been causing, and that almost always purely randomly, much more detriment, sickness, conflict, accidents, severe injuries and death than the bootlegging underworld and its era ever did!!!)
Society would like to do something to end this surged scourge, but there just is no public funding to deal with the now 3000% increase in people who are addicted to drugs such as cocaine, heroin, crystal meth....-and these are the populously prime customers of the cheaper, and also, not-at-all restricting/questioning/judging, “black market”. The fantasied detoxication centers just never even began to materialize as any obtained funding, mainly from “respectable, “suit & white collar,” “legally-purchasing” clientele has all been expended on just the Law Enforcement side of things. For-Profit detoxing establishments are at best not economically sustainable, particularly as it main paying users are just some people from that addicted “White-Collar” class who are willing to spend anything to get their former lucrative life back on track...so that they then will continue to have money to fund their one-bitingly, easily re-addictive “legal drug” fancy.
And did I also mention the scenario where people are no longer being fired for, (as I saw with a former co-worker) working while high because the workforce has become way to depleted from all of these laid off “legal” stoners and addicts who either had been forgetting to show up for work, or couldn’t help but getting high while on their “smoking” break to take off an edge from their stressing work...So now stoned/high people are allowed to work, their salary is duct however to pay for a special supervisor who keeps an eye on them...all...through the establishments camera system...but of course that supervisor cannot intervene in time when he notices that one worker is driving a forklift erratically and so a fridge ends up dropping on the heads of a shopping family, killing the two children and paralyzing the wife....So customers are crucially leary of going in certain stores to shop, and so online shopping is offered as a (vitally) much less risk....and all the while, the surviving husband waits out the accused, manslaughtering worker who is awaiting trial on bail since jails are now so much more overly crowded with all the black market illegalities, and avengingly runs him down with a stolen car to make sure he does not get away with anything less than a death sentence for his “accident”.
Then there is the popularly claimed Portugal and Netherlands “examples” (cf. here|here also presented e.g. here; {cf. here -if drug usage is decriminalized, then, duh, that would significantly contribute to a 2,000 (=14%) decrease in imprisoned criminals}), well, as reported within this related countering study (PDF), -see pages [doc|pdf] 5-6|9-10, 25|29-26|30; see also its underlying 2010 EMCDDA study; on top of drugs decriminalization, and legalization, attempts having priorly failed in, respectively, Great Britains (1970's), and in Switzerland (1987), also in Alaska (1979-1990), better observation, data and studies have instead shown that both the Netherlands and the Portugal “experiments” have been failures, with the claimed Portugal results being from flawed studies as drug use has actually increased in these two countries.... ...Which is all indeed as “naturally” expected because no one therein was also taking a drug to reverse the typicality of human nature....
And compoundingly, persistingly according to these myopicly permissive unbelievers, greed, money and profits, gluttonly obsessed, boundaries-pushingly rogue, self-enterpreneurial, “Fantasy-Dream”-tail-chasing, world leading leisure& “recreational” (versus mainly sickly) abusing American Society (which, furthermore, thus is fundamentally and variously just not at all like those other nations/societies, after all most evil things are conceptualized in America and then peddled to the rest of the world) has never been better, even if now, every neighborhood in America is in some degree involved in a variously enforced, even deathly so, turf war, for a now, at least tacitly permitted Black Hard Drug Market...which now these mindlessly amnesic libertarian unbelievers are also calling to be decriminalized...I mean what more could now possibly go wrong....Never bet on, or against, America or its society itself, because it always (over-)does whatever it can, “lawfully” or illicitly, get away with....It can even overeat itself into chronic diseases, whereas other likewise capable countries just rationally don’t...Premise in point, much of the world’s most ambitious people, literally (invitedly) “congregate” in America.
*Incidentally, thus, the inceptive, serializing-cinematographic “inspiration” for the (independently) Biblically-Prophetic Point Zero Series....Though the similar/paralleling themes of: an increasingly spiraling and expanding cycle of adversities over the first 4 seasons (Rev 8:7-13|Rev 16:1-9), from an initiating (Season 1) major crisis (Rev 8:7|Rev 16:2), all culminating into a pivotal/era-ending, self-inflicting-destructive “nuclear” option in its Season 5 (Rev 9:1-12|Rev 16:10) was interestingly uncanny!!)
And furthermore, since not much Education will need to be wasted upon the long shot, burned out and wasted of legally-consuming youth drug users...as if under-aged people are not now consuming (legal) cigarettes and/or alcohol at will, then perhaps, tax funding intended for education can be redirected to instead deal with either the societal chaos from legalized drugs and/or their non-ability to learn, or make proper decisions given the depleting effect of marijuana smoking (cf. here) since none of these kids (increasingly) “decided” to limit their usage of marijuana to less than 3 joints per day...I mean they are already accustomed to affording and smoking 3 packs of cigarettes per day....and marijuana apparently won’t probably deadly give you cancer like cigarettes...so why not take your chances and see what happens...and (try to correctingly) deal with it when/if ever it does....“YOLO!!!!” Perhaps Education itself can be matchingly “re-wired” top accommodate people who now no longer make decisions with the decision/judgement part of their brain, but rather with, e.g., the “compensating” pain & pleasure or emotional parts...
Here’s a quite foreseeable PSA for that time, {of course, also by an attractively compelling “Rachel Leigh Cook” of that time (clip)}:
-‘This was the libertarian unbeliever’s brain...’
-‘This is their brain on [pot|snow|crack|speed|ice|dust] drugs....’
-‘NO effective thinking/decision-making difference at all... No further questions!!!!’
I may do the same for “Legalized Prostitution” if/when I again have a treble of hours to burn...but you can easily get the paralleling point...unless of course you also want to deputize everyone, including children, into the needed enforcing “Universal Vice Squad”..and mind you, it does not take any “production” capability, or difficultly mastered distribution ability to become a profiting part of this potentially quite lucrative black market. Even the super hot babe who wouldn’t give the fumbling geek the time of day at the club for a consensual, and also mutual-attraction neutralizing hook-up, would be an idiot to turn down his “legal” offer of $1000 for a (protected) one-hour stand....That is if this, or other geek can ever make it to the club without getting mugged by expecting marauding robbing gangs....
I may do the same for “Legalized Prostitution” if/when I again have a treble of hours to burn...but you can easily get the paralleling point...unless of course you also want to deputize everyone, including children, into the needed enforcing “Universal Vice Squad”..and mind you, it does not take any “production” capability, or difficultly mastered distribution ability to become a profiting part of this potentially quite lucrative black market. Even the super hot babe who wouldn’t give the fumbling geek the time of day at the club for a consensual, and also mutual-attraction neutralizing hook-up, would be an idiot to turn down his “legal” offer of $1000 for a (protected) one-hour stand....That is if this, or other geek can ever make it to the club without getting mugged by expecting marauding robbing gangs....
Yes, the problem in all of this has to be with the: “clear-minded”, “far-thinking”, “arbitrarily-restricting”, “human-nature leery”, Christian Moral Conservatives...Right....Because Selfishly-Self-legislating/governing/judging people will “inherently” only be good, even to others. (=PP 37.1, 40.1)
13. ‘The Bible allows for LGBT+ couples to adopt children’
Like Jesus modeled (Matt 4:1-11; cf. GC 530.2): See/Get the Biblical principle from (also) the OT, here in e.g. Lev 20:22-24; Deut 20:17-18 (=Matt 5:17-20; Rom 1:26-30; 2 Cor 6:14-18; Matt 18:6-7) ...Got to love the “Jesus didn’t re-speak against this sin 2000 years ago” loopholing “Christians” (John 21:25)....Sound exactly like the loopholing sinners that Jesus was denouncing who ended up crucifying Him when He wouldn’t go along with their false-righteousness....Maybe, just maybe, God is likewise thus “testing” you... (Deut 13:1-5)
-More Liberal Christian Asinine/Ignoramus “Theology”
Religion News Disservice
“Most marriages in the Bible are arranged and not the result of love. Interfaith marriages were forbidden by law.”
-That’s merely a (wishful) assumption: I bet if you go through every explicit mention of marriage in the Bible (and I may do that if someone out there already has a listing of all of such passages): from Isaac&Rebekah, to Jacob&Rachel, to Moses&Zipporah, to David&(e.g.)Abigail, (Boaz&Ruth); etc, most of these marriages were based on love, on, typically the man proposing to a woman, and the woman accepting. So if most of these explicit mentions are all base on freewill and Love, then it can be extrapolate that the marriage of most Bible people were also like that. There were some arranged marriages, but that's actually the exception, and not the norm, so definitely not “most”.
P.S. (07-09-17): Alright, so such a listing of married people in the Bible has been done/found in the “Biblical Information” site’s webpage. Manifestly this was mainly done by looking for the words “wife/wives” in an English Bible which produced ca. 80 results. (Looking also for derivatives of “marry/married” yields at least a couple more instances. =#55;) Their results listing can be further parsed, tallied and categorized as done in the following charting:
[Click to Enlarge]
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| Charting of Married People in Bible |
From this charting it is seen that of those 82 explicitly cited married people in the Bible, the circumstances of how they came to be married can only be known in 6+9+5=20 cases (=ca. 25%). The very special case of Adam & Eve is not counted as they were the first couple, though it can be said that God Himself “tailor made” the perfect match for Adam...to the point that ‘Adam knowingly chose to sin rather than to be forever separated from his wife.’ (PP 56.2; cf. 1 Tim 2:14).
-Now of the ‘known cases’ of marital circumstances, pertinently (=excluding (mixed and/or foreign) marriages, i.e. which involved a non-Israelite) 5 can be seen/said to have been of “Free Will”, thus purely based on Love. (=#7; 13; 38; 46; 74). As cited above: #7 Isaac&Rebekah, #13 Jacob&Rachel, and #38 David&Abigail are seen as clear-cut examples of two people getting married out of their own free will choices/acceptance. Though #46David&Bathsheba union was forged in adultery, their union may somewhat be considered as free willed, though the position of king that David held almost made it an offer that she couldn’t refuse....and then she became pregnant with his child. God instructing the prophet Hosea to #74 marry, as an object-lesson to Israel, a prostitute (Hos 1:1-3), Gomer, is also seen as a free will marriage because whichever prostitute he had chosen, did not have to marry him, but chose to accept his marriage offer.
-In regards to what is called/deemed “Arranged” marriages in the Bible (=9 explicit instances), the term does not actually accurately reflect what was at times done by Israelites. An arranged marriage, as known/understood today, involves two set of parents coming to an agreement that their son and daughter will, and have to, marry one another. In the Bible, you actually pointedly find the male side acting as his own free agent, i.e. himself not being forced to marry a certain woman, yet at times guided/counseled/recommended, by his parents in which family he could find a proper bride. (e.g. Gen 24:1-8ff the female side (=Rebekah) was actually more free here; Gen 29:9-12). Yet it can even be argued that Abraham’s servant, who was to select a wife for Isaac, was himself free to choose whoever he deemed best. Surely Isaac could have refused Rebekah if he did not desire/love her..but he clearly did not. (Gen 24:62-67)
So a father deciding, agreeing to, or offering, his daughter to be married to an asking/proposing male is being here considered as an arranged marriage. But it can be surmised that the daughter actually had the right to refuse, and the father, who was actually, proctectively looking out for the best interest of his daughter(s) in forwardly doing so, could uphold her refusal if he saw that it was with just cause, or even just because she actually did not want to. (Interestingly, up until recent times, and even in Western societies, it was likewise very common, even expected/required, that a proposing male first determinatively ‘sought the permission for marriage’ from the girl’s father....and if that was refused, they could “elope”).
So even so-called “arranged” marriages in the Bible, were not actually “forced”, but rather merely “guided/counseled/“agencied””. Really only when it later came to kings making and sealing alliances through the marrying and giving in marriage of their daughters can one find cases of actually (intrinsically) “forced” marriages. There are 4 such explicit examples in this listing. The rest of the other 9-1=8 (=Israelite) “arranged” marriages are merely cases of a father deciding/agreeing to ‘give his daughter in marriage’ to a seeking/proposing man.
-Now there were also cases of Procreation marriages (5 explicit). These were done when a barren wife would allow and/or provide for a fertile other woman to marry their husband so that they can have children. As shown later, that was actually perfectly legal (i.e. protectively regulated) in the Bible (Deut 21:15-17), but purely for such bareness reasons and procreation purposes...-if when God manifestly was not going to miraculously intervene (e.g. Gen 25:21).
-But the swinging, “wild card” category in this listing is the ca. 20 times when the Bible merely says that ‘a man took a wife’. It may be assumed that this means that ‘the woman was forced to marry the requesting man’, but the marriages of Isaac&Rebekah (Gen 24:67; 25:20 -discussed above), as well as Boaz&Ruth (Ruth 4:13 -discussed later), which both involved free-will accepting and loving choices and decisions from both sides show that this was not actually/necessarily the case.
So the statistical argument can be made that of the ca. 38 (=5+20+8+5) explicitly-cited, Israelite, marital situations in the Bible: 25 (=5+20) can be seen+surmised to have involved, at least at some point, Free Will decisions from both individuals to be wed, and only 13 (8+5); [10 (5+5) if the dealings between rulers/kings are not included] can be seen/sadi to involved some degree of ‘Arrangement’. (39 other mentions do not have enough circumstantial information to make any determination).
So it can be informedly concluded that: most (i.e. 25 vs. 13/10) marriages in the Bible were not made in arranged/forced conditions, i.e. where either side did not really have any choice but to marry the other.
-In fact, if the “Procreation” situations of Sarah, Rachel and Leah giving their fertile handmaids to their husband to marry and have children with as only seen as cases of forced marriages, as these servants likely were supposed to do what their female master wanted; and the #20 Onan&Tamar is dismissed as them not actually marrying, -as discussed below (Gen 38:8, 11); and it is assumed that in the case of #20 Elkanah (the prophet Samuel’s father) needing to marry a second wife, that both he and Peninnah freely wanted to get married to each other, then the final Free vs. Forced [Israelites, non-king dealings] tally can effectively be seen as: 25 vs. 9!
“Jewish law recorded in Deuteronomy claims that a male rapist should marry his victim (and pay the victim’s father 50 shekels for damages, of course).”
(When someone cannot find & cite the specific verse, you know their knowledge of Scripture is anecdotal, superficial even specious, =ambivalent/indifferent, at best). Deut 22:28-29. The key to that verse is what does “seize/grasp/capture” (Heb. taphas Strongs #08610) pointedly means as it actually literally means “manipulate/played/handled”. Just a couple of verses/laws before in Deut 22:25, a different Hebrew word had been used to say “force” (Heb. hazaq #02388) when speaking of a rape. The actual Hebrew word for “capture/seize/take” is lakad #03920. Then also in this law’s context, Deut 22:24 the “rape whistle/scream” provision is given which applies to any case where the woman was physically being forced to act against her will.
Additionally, the (thematically) related word taph (#02945) means “little ones/girls”, even “baby steps”, and is the root for “mince/dainty/coquettish” (=flirtatious) (taphaph #02952) and therefore does seem to refer to, in such “un/non-manly/adult” terms, to a non-harsh, nor forceful, but ‘childishly soft/weak’, ‘seduction play’; -indeed through “little/babyish” steps, i.e. as the woman had accepted these gradual “advances”. So this was/is referring to a consensual “conquest”, =“seizing/capturing” the virgin’s sexual desire/emotion.
As the underlying working thesis for this linguistic claim, the claimed “thematic relation” between taph (really: thaph)[#02945]/thaphaph [#02952] ~ “flirt”, and taphas/sh [#8610] ~“seduce” can be seen by peeling back the linguistic translational layers going beyond the lexical level derived from Hebrew (2 or 3 consonant) Roots (i.e. th+ph, th+ph+ph & t+ph+s/sh) to the actual source for the consonants of Hebrew Roots, namely their Pictographical Origin: Succinctly presented here:
So this passage is making a distinction with forceful rape vs. manipulated/seduced sexual relations, and it is pointedly specifying what should happen if the girl involved was neither engaged and is a virgin. The passage is applying the other/prior legal stipulations for such (camp/“city”, i.e. populous) situations where the girl should have screamed for help if she did not want to be involved in a sexual relation.
Women, especially young and single ones, were also implicitly recommended to not go away alone in e.g. the fields, to avoid such situations. An engaged/married woman would defaultly be given the benefit of the doubt in such cases (Deut 22:27), but a virgin/unengaged woman would not. So God expected that such women would have a preemptive responsibility here, and would not put themselves in such situations.
Additionally, the (thematically) related word taph (#02945) means “little ones/girls”, even “baby steps”, and is the root for “mince/dainty/coquettish” (=flirtatious) (taphaph #02952) and therefore does seem to refer to, in such “un/non-manly/adult” terms, to a non-harsh, nor forceful, but ‘childishly soft/weak’, ‘seduction play’; -indeed through “little/babyish” steps, i.e. as the woman had accepted these gradual “advances”. So this was/is referring to a consensual “conquest”, =“seizing/capturing” the virgin’s sexual desire/emotion.
As the underlying working thesis for this linguistic claim, the claimed “thematic relation” between taph (really: thaph)[#02945]/thaphaph [#02952] ~ “flirt”, and taphas/sh [#8610] ~“seduce” can be seen by peeling back the linguistic translational layers going beyond the lexical level derived from Hebrew (2 or 3 consonant) Roots (i.e. th+ph, th+ph+ph & t+ph+s/sh) to the actual source for the consonants of Hebrew Roots, namely their Pictographical Origin: Succinctly presented here:
+The consonants th+ph+ph forming the word thaphaph [#02952] have the following individual, concrete meanings:
1. As shown here+vid: The letter th (Hebrew name: “tet”) is the picture of a basket. It has the derived/related/functional meanings of: clay/mud (i.e. carried in it), surround, contain, store, catch (i.e. in fishing)
2. As shown here+vid: The letter ph (Hebrew name: “pey”) is the picture of the mouth. It has the derived/related/functional meanings of: open, edge (=lips), blow, speak, scatter (i.e. ‘fall where it may’)
3. (The third consonant in thaphaph is a repetition of the second).
So it can be seen that the foundational intended meaning of combining th+ph+ph into a depictive representation (=word/expression) was: “to contain/catch something through (merely/only) speaking” The repeated mouth/speech symbol/letter could be to describe/define the type of speech, namely” ‘blow-y/-ing speech’ (soft/pleasing speech) or ‘lips speaking’ (=seductive speech), even ‘open speech’ (i.e. non-binding speech, versus categorical statements) or ‘speech that is scattered’ (i.e. which falls wherever it may (be received)). All such notions would indeed be seen/involved in “flirtatious proposals/advances” in an attempt to seduce someone.
+On the other hand, the consonants t+ph+s/sh forming the word taphash [#8610] have the following individual, concrete meanings:
1. As shown here+vid: The letter t (Hebrew name: “tav”) is the picture of a (locating) mark/marking. It has the derived/related/functional meanings of: sign, signal, covenant, monument (i.e. which typically marked where sign-ificant thing happened (e.g. Jos 4:1-7ff), or a covenant was made (e.g. Gen 28:17-19; 31:44-52))
2. (The second consonant ph is the same as the second & third consonant in the other word above); mainly: “speak/speech”
3. As shown here+vid: The letter s/sh (Hebrew name: “sin/shin”) is the picture of the (two front) teeth. It has the derived/related/functional meanings of: two/both (=number of front teeth) again (=repeated), sharp, press, eat (~consume)
So it can here be seen that the foundational intended meaning of combining t+ph+sh into a depictive representation (=word/expression) was: “to form a covenant through speech of two/both/that is repeated” In other (i.e. expanding) words: ‘a significant/monumental binding covenant was made here through (merely) speech which both parties repeated/echoed (=agreed upon)’. So the “flirtatious advances” of thaphaph [#02952] are here seen to have a more concrete “take” in this binding covenant agreement that was made by the two parties of this taphash [#8610]. In other words, a proposed marriage covenant-like proposition was here agreed and that ‘propositional speech’ was even concretizingly (=hardeningly) “consumed”, as in “consummated”. i.e. a sexual proposal was agreeably consummated. And that made it as binding as a formal marriage (hence the imposed marriage-like consequence/requirement for such a consensual act.)
It may even be further perceived that the switching of the first “t”consonant in these manifestly “thematically related” terms was done to depict a switch in the “binding” level of the terms where the (contained) mud/clay of “tet” letter was replaced for the resulting (free standing and hardened mud/clay) “monument” of the “tav” letter. So when mere “(perhaps harassive) seducing flirts” had become accepted/enjoined/returned and consumed in mutual agreement, that “free clay” no longer needed to be “contained”, but now stood on its own, and as a covenant-agreement marking monument....Furthermore, the continual “flirtatious blowing” may have contributed to this now “hardened clay” state. Likewise, the switching of the final, repeated ph “pey” (=speak) in thaphaph to a sh “shin” for taphash (=both/again) could be indicating that the prior advances which were being express in ‘speech, and more speech’ now no longer had to be continued to be said, as they were instead now being ‘agreeingly echoed’ by the other person.
(It also is easy to impose our present degenerate culture on the Hebrew culture here and believe that such a woman, or a raped woman, was threatened with a weapon and/or deadly force, but that may not have been the state of sinful degeneration in the Israel culture, and even rape/rape attempts did not involve threats of death or even physically battering violence. Yes in cases of physically forced rape it did involve physically overpowering the woman, but that does not necessarily mean that she was being beaten into submission or threatened with death and through the use of a weapon.)
(Pertinently: I am also of the (working thesis) belief that Hebrew vowel pointings, -which are placed “in between” these consonants, and were based on known/traditional pronunciations of these (consonantal) roots, were not merely for correct pronunciation, but rather for pointing out exactly which of the typically several meanings that each consonant had, was actually meant...which in turn is what substantively produced these (meaningful) ‘different soundings/pronunciations’.)
So it should exegetically be understood that taphas/sh is referring to a man who had managed to figuratively seize/capture the will of a woman (who could be of the same age/age group as the man) and convinced her, though not by ‘physical/overpowering force’ to lay with him, thus manipulating/seducing her, and, (thus), she did not scream out in protest. Therefore a penalty for such a case is that the two should be married and the man should pay a penalty to the father. It was not a forced rape, but a mental seduction.
So this passage is making a distinction with forceful rape vs. manipulated/seduced sexual relations, and it is pointedly specifying what should happen if the girl involved was neither engaged and is a virgin. The passage is applying the other/prior legal stipulations for such (camp/“city”, i.e. populous) situations where the girl should have screamed for help if she did not want to be involved in a sexual relation.
Women, especially young and single ones, were also implicitly recommended to not go away alone in e.g. the fields, to avoid such situations. An engaged/married woman would defaultly be given the benefit of the doubt in such cases (Deut 22:27), but a virgin/unengaged woman would not. So God expected that such women would have a preemptive responsibility here, and would not put themselves in such situations.
“Moses commands in Deuteronomy and Numbers that the Israelites should slaughter the Midianites — men, women and children. But virgins should be spared, Moses said, and Israelite men were free to marry these prisoners of war.”
Num 31:9, 17 (Deut ? - Midianites are not mentioned in Deuteronomy so Deut 20:13-14 may have been meant) - First and foremost, do notice that no women or children should have been spared (Num 31:13-16; = Deut 20:16-18). So this is not a normative action, but an injunctive one.
Succinctly said, there was an imperative to assure the future security of Israel here. The male children could not be trusted in these tribally-entrenched days to later become trusted members of Israel if taken in with them, or not reform into an avenging army later, if left alone in their defeated nation to grow up. So their lives were not spared to assure that vital security as they surely would want to avenge their slain fathers.
As for women who were not virgins, as they may have been involved in the earlier sin of Peor (Num 31:16; =25:1-9, 16-18) they could not be spared because they likely had committed adultery. The Israelite men who had engaged in that adultery had already been killed by a plague by God (Num 25:9), so the people of Israel had the duty to also effectuate Capital Punishment for the guilty female party. Only the female virgins could here be “kept alive’ as Num 31:18 literally says (and not “spare for yourselves”).
And these spared virgin girls did not necessarily become the wives of the soldiers, but could merely have been adopted by them/their families and later on married who they wanted. And as women in Israel were expected to be submissive to their husbands, then it could be expected that these spare women would later be thus ‘held in check’ when they would marry Israelite husbands. And so their lives could be spared as it was less of a future security threat. But that would inherently create a “mixed multitude situation in Israel, and that is why God had seen it best that no one at all should have been left alive from those nearby conquered nations.
“Lots of Bible figures engaged in polygamist marriages — Esau, Jacob, Gideon. Solomon, who the Bible contends is the wisest person to ever live, had hundreds of wives.”
That issue is discussed in this post. Bi/Poly-gamy was only allowed when a married couple could not naturally have children on their own. Of course this is different than from a Gay marriage as these people know that their union could never naturally produce children....
The Bible also is clear to say that Solomon did not always act wisely and dearly paid the consequence for that in inflicted judgement by God, pointedly derived from his unwise and sinful (=contra Deut 17:17) marrying to hundreds of women (1 Kgs 11:1-14ff). Such sinful actions do not set or establish the Biblical norm, nor are prescriptions, but are only relating how even the wisest person sinned and caused great harm to Israel, so that future generations could avoid such sins.
When someone “blindly” is trying to use a sin-relating situation in the Bible to claim a norm, you know they are misguided, and are not being led by the Spirit of God.
“In Exodus, a slaveowner was given the power to force his male and female slaves to wed.”
(Exod 21:1-11): Slavery here, is indentured servitude, i.e. for unpaid loans/services....and I guess part of the repayment cost in such cases could be the marital value that the slave had to the slaveowner. Sort of in the place of a dowry. Such situations of slavery also do not establish the norm. Mind you, these are not people who had become poor and were forced into slavery as Israel were supposed to freely and generously give “welfare” to people who had accidentally become poor (e.g. Deut 15:1-11). This indentured servitude was for people who had chosen to live beyond their normal means and then could not repay their owes/debts. They therefore did come to be fully controlled by those to who they owed. But such situations were avoidable if one lived within their means.
There also was the case of foreign slaves from captured/subdued nations, and in those cases, this would be done as part of keeping these ethnic and religious foreigners in line...i.e. so that they would not go wayward in God’s Israel, and also so that they would not become an economical burden/detriment on Israelites, but their taken in would remain beneficial to their Religious and Socio-economical Society.
“In Genesis, a widow who had not given birth was required to marry her brother-in-law.”
Wrong! “In Genesis”, (i.e. Gen 38:6-10), the brother-in-law was (manifestly) merely required to give her children, which of course was through natural procreation means. Onan, of course, infamously tried to game this requirement for merely pleasure and was punished by God, and it was pointedly because Onan knew that the offspring/child would not be his own child (Gen 38:9), but that of his brother’s wife/household (=Deut 25:6), that he chose not to fully go through with this.
In the (ensuing) Law for this (Deut 25:5-10), it likewise did not actually “require”, i.e. not insist, that the two be (automatically) married. It was only if, first of all, the two brothers lived together (Deut 25:5a), and then, if the brother-in-law “desired” to marry his brother’s widow. (Deut 25:7ff; cf. Ruth 3:12-13). He could refuse, and for whatever preferred/subjective reason (e.g. Ruth 4:6) albeit at the cost/peril of (volitional) public shaming, if any (Deut 25:9-10). The widow then would have to seek a “family/name posterity” outside of her deceased husband’s family. (Deut 25:5b)
...So, nice (sophomoric/novice) try (Liberals), but the Bible does not set as the norm any
sinful, or non-natural, marriage. There is therefore no model, template or principle to “excuse” same-sex unions as acceptable Biblical marriage. That would only be trying to create a gross loophole through mis- and mal-construing the Bible.
a. Clip[31:24-32:08] - Existence of Moses - Moses was a known Hebrew-born&raised adoptee (Exod 1:6-10), who later, at ca. age 40, became capitally wanted for (deemed) murder (Exod 1:14, 15) and therefore had to flee from Egypt for 40 years...only to come back and complete humiliate and devastate their religio-economy. Seems clear that researchers have assumed way too much about Moses, perhaps even having a Cecille B. DeMille dramatizing license grandeur view of Moses. As a known adopted Hebrew, Moses indeed most likely never had arisen to any lasting or entrenched trusted or “notable” prominence, especially over any of the other, actually grandchildren of the ruling Pharaoh.
Case in point, the only-mostly reliable extra-Biblical historical account of Moses [see other accounts from here, and cf. other mentions of Moses by some secular writers in here], namely in the writing of Josephus (at Antiquities 2:9.6 [#230]-2:11.1. [#255]), also do not paint any such entrenched embracing, grandiose, notable/admired and glorious view of Moses by the Egyptians. Indeed quite to the contrary, Josephus relates (also, if his extra-Biblical anecdote is true, -cf. Acts 7:22) how much the Egyptians distrusted and even hated Moses right from the start, even wanting to kill him, as Moses had been shown to their diviners [likely, if true, by Satan: in order to eliminate Moses (cf. PP 242.1)] to be a threat to their government, and Moses, from a child, had manifested such (already and/or innately inculcated) great disrespect and disdain for the Egyptian crown/throne/government (Ant. 2:9.7-10 [#233-#237]). The only recorded incidence of acceptance, prominence and potential notoriety of/for Moses by/from the Egyptians mentioned by Josephus occurred when the Ethiopians were successfully oppressing the Egyptians. The Egyptian diviners receivers visionary instruction [here, if true, likely from God: in order to favor Moses (cf. Gen 40-41)], to call upon Moses to aid them by being their general in this battle. (Ant. 2:10.1-2 [#238-#253]). Moses was indeed successful in this military expedition, -and reportedly even consumatingly accepted a peace-settling marriage offer with the Ethiopian King’s daughter (“Tharbis”) [#252-#253] (cf. Num 12:1). However Josephus next (Ant. 2:11.1 [#254-#255]) goes on to relate how this military success by Moses only served to heighten the prior fears and murderous intents of the Egyptians towards Moses. Though Josephus, manifestly shieldingly, does not relate the Biblical incidence of Moses killing an Egyptian (Exod 2:11-15), it may indeed be the success from that expedition which crystalized in Moses that he was in the best position to be that long awaited deliverer of the enslaved Israelites and so he began behaving along these lines which served to make the Egyptians continue to be against him.
These are all historical details which do not indicate that Moses ever began to come into a position to be “commemorated” by the Egyptians. Indeed, from all of this, why would Egyptians, and contra consequential customs of the day, ever begin to make, much less keep, notations of in their annals or “in (commemorating) stone” the name/record of, e.g., a ‘traitor, foreign slave-born, prince who greatly ruined their thriving and prowessing (slavish) economy, dented their hegemony and humbled their kingdom’!??
Relatedly, even the nation of Israel itself did not keep great extra-Biblical records of the famed King David. There, however, as seen in the Ron Wyatt documentaries (from) here and here, is ample discovered archeological evidencing/corroborating of the major events during Moses’ life such as: the Red Sea Crossing and drowning of the Egyptian Army; (Actual) Mount Sinai; the Rock which produced water (Exod 17:1-7); and the Ark of the Covenant. The proof of the veracity of the Bible goes way beyond the mere existence of a person, what that person said, claimed, taught and did is really what is determinative of Truth itself. (E.g. John 12:47-50; 10:37-38) And here, the Religious, Political, Social and Economic foundation why, actually God, laid, through Moses, still continues to pass all “truth-testing”...even unbelievers eventually, and ultimately surely will, defeatedly, (i.e., after their failed “pain or pleasure” experiencing”) go back to what is found the 5 books of/about Moses (as still valid by the teachings and theology of/about Christ).Post Script: That all said and concluded above from the information that is available about Moses in Egypt in the Bible and the account of Josephus, another source of information, this one prophetically inspired, namely the “Spirit of Prophecy” (Rev 19:10) writings of E.G. White, provide some additional, filling in, details which need to, and can be, reconciled with what is found in the Bible, and also Josephus’ account.
First of all, in PP 244.1, EGW corroborates Jospehus’ statement in Ant. that ‘Moses was 10 years old when he appeared before Pharaoh for the first time.’ The SOP says that Moses’ biological mother, Jochebed, “kept the boy as long as she could, but was obliged to give him up when he was about twelve years old” “10 years old” and “about 12 years old” are indeed corroborating accounts and this is fillingly significant as one could assume from merely the Bible record that Moses came to be in the custody of Pharaoh’s daughter, thus in Pharaoh’s court, as soon as he was weaned (Exod 2:7-10), thus at ca. 1-2 years old...or from a seemingly normative Bible times example cited in 2 Macc 7:27 - 3 years.
Then in PP 245.1 (cf. 3SG 182.2) the SOP states that:
Then in PP 245.1 (cf. 3SG 182.2) the SOP states that:
“At the court of Pharaoh, Moses received the highest civil and military training. The monarch had determined to make his adopted grandson his successor on the throne, and the youth was educated for his high station. "And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds." Acts 7:22. His ability as a military leader made him a [great] favorite with the armies of Egypt, and he was generally regarded as a remarkable character.”
This SOP statement can easily be reconciled with what the Bible and Josephus have said about this period of Moses’ life. First of all, Josephus related how people in Pharaoh’s court were almost immediately leery of the ‘ca. 12 year old’ Moses given their dreams that they had had about what he would do to Egypt and as ‘confirmed” by how the youngster Moses had then just slighted and desecrated Pharaoh’s crown and throne. So it would indeed have taken a ‘determination’ by Pharaoh to, notwithstandingly, endeavor to make his, moreover adopted grandson, his successor, perhaps even bypassing a natural heir son of his. For some reason, likely by strong Divine Impression, Pharaoh wanted Moses to succeed him...And, as the SOP goes on to say in that paragraph, that allowed for Moses to get ‘the training and education he would technically need to become the future leader of God’s people’.
The SOP goes on to specify that Moses was a “favorite”, but, pointedly, “with the armies of Egypt” and was merely “generally (i.e. not wholly/unanimously) regarded as a remarkable character”. So that could mean, or allow for, other people and officials in Egypt not so likewise admiring and regarding Moses, but being jealous and/or still leery of him, and despite Pharaoh’s own favoring partiality towards him.
In 3SG 182.2 the SOP states that: ‘Moses was “was honored because he conducted warfare with superior skill and wisdom”’...This would imply Moses having several military experiences and striking victories....And so, while Josephus only mentions the War that Moses lead against Ethiopia (Ant 2:10.1-2 [#238-#253]), which, as stated above, did “wisely” win, Moses may indeed have had several other battles and win, and he would have received various honors for these, -(though the expedition against Ethiopia may have been his greatest achievement), and this honoring could have resulted in Moses’s name to be written in, and inscribed on, official Egyptian government documents and physical memorials [some which may yet be archeologically found]. But if/as no such records or inscriptions have (yet?) to be found, then it is indeed likely that upon’s Moses’ “treasonous” and most damaging actions against Egypt, the memory of his name and life/achievement were all erased from Egyptian records/history.
So taking all of this available data from the Bible, (Jewish) History and the SOP, this latter conclusion would be the one that is best supported by those facts.
So taking all of this available data from the Bible, (Jewish) History and the SOP, this latter conclusion would be the one that is best supported by those facts.
The Ipuwer Papyrus - Notwithstanding the (as of yet) absence of (‘retained’?) Egyptian records citing, documenting, let alone lauding Moses and his exploits against the Egyptians as in the Bible, there is the existence of an Ancient Egypt, known as the Ipuwer Papyrus which greatly seems to candidly relate a state of unique and unprecedented great chaos and disorder which Egypt had ten fallen into. As “modern research suggests that the papyrus dates to the much later 13th Dynasty”, and with, as discussed more above (cf. here), Ancient Egypt’s 12th Dynasty having been the one under which the Exodus took place, and actually ended its Dynasty, and with the various main details and descriptions of the problems in Egypt then dovetailing perfectly with the Israelite Exodus, its reasons, its damages, and its aftermath implications, it is most evident that the author of this Papyrus, likely making an appeal to his god, -‘perhaps Atum who was thought to not be a mortal god’, to lament the abysmal and threatening conditions in which Egypt had suddenly been plunged into and with no manifest remedy in sight. Combine with that, that a Canaanite/Semitic (a.k.a. “Asiatic”) power known as the Hyskos is said to have taken over Egypt then, and in a battle-less cakewalk, for the 13th Dynasty, it is further manifest that Egypt did indeed suffer a major weakening and power-shifting blow to end its 12th Dynasty, -which the Bible states as its Pharaoh also [i.e., contrary to Cecil B. DeMille’s depiction] and all of the armies of Egypt having been drowned in the Red Sea as they chased after the Israelites with no of them surviving the Divine Judgement. (Exod 14)
A phrase-by-phrase commenting on the text of the Ipuwer Papyrus would be great here, but for now, only a commenting on its main, comprehensive, highlights which pointedly corroborate the Bible’s Exodus event. [Cf. this Rabbinical comparison; and also, e.g., here] . In fact upon reading the text, I have not seen any statement which would be in contradiction to being associated with the Exodus and the only such claim which I have encountered being made is the one stated in here which claims that: ‘Ipuwer laments an Asiatic (Semitic) invasion rather than a mass departure’. But that claim is not true for, in the only two mentions of an Asiatic people, firstly in Section XIV of the text, Ipuwer is actually saying that the (native) people who are in Egypt are themselves overrunning the country as if they were (an invading enemy) Asiatic people; and in Section XV he actually mentions that the news of what has befallen Egypt is alarmingly reaching Asiatic people and with the Nubians (=neighboringly South of Egypt modern day Sudan) and Libyans (neighboringly West of Egypt) now vying for its power (Section XIV). And the enjoined statement that these desert people are in fear of such news, is all contemporarily akin to a situation today where the United States of America would have suddenly come to be in a state of total and unreignable anarchy, with its government being completely “decapitated” and non-functional, with rivaling factions trying to gain power, and with its entire military complex and fighting force having been total decimated. World Powers like Russia, the UK, China, etc, would certainly become greatly alarmed by this situation, pointedly in greatly fearing that now any world power/force can unopposedly march into Washington and take over the command and control of the still potent nation. So these Asiatic, as the Hyskos would do, soon decided to sweep in and take control of Egypt themselves.
-Section II - ‘the (Nile) River is blood, yet men drink of it’ - A couple of key corroborating observations from the Bible: First of all, the Bible states that the Nile was turned into blood as the First Plague and would become difficult to drink from it’ (Exod 7:18, 21, 24) to the point that the people dug for ground water surrounding the River (Exod 7:24a) but overtime, that now main source of ground water is either bound to be used up and/or is likely to also become blood. So it may be that later on, all that the Egyptians had to drink was nothing else but blood as water. And to that extending state of things, perhaps because Pharaoh’s magicians could also (by the power of Satan) make the Nile water turn into blood and the Egyptian people had manage an initial workaround that Plague, that Pharaoh showed no concern for it (Exod 7:22-24), nor, as with many other plague which did not have a natural end, i.e. when their destruction was fully accomplished, did Pharaoh entreat Moses for that Plague to be withdrawn or lessen. So the state of the waters of the Nile being blood ma have extended as such way beyond the departing of the Israelites, and that is what Ipuwer was writing about in his lamentation.
-‘Slaves, Poor, Oppressed now in power’ - A citation which recurs throughout Ipuwer’s Lamentation is the fact that now the servants, slaves, poor, oppressed of Egypt are the ones who are in charge and in control of means and wealth, and the formerly rich and powerful no longer are. That of course is exactly what had occurred with the uprising of the Israelite slaves, who also proceeded to easily convince the Egyptians to given them much wealth as they were leaving. (Exod 12:35-36), just as God had “reparations-ly” intended (Exod 3:21-22). And it would seem a most natural consequential development that, with the Israelites just having done this to their Egyptian masters, that the poor Egyptians, and those in servitude* who had remained in Egypt, would now, indeed with no Pharaoh in power and no army forces to fear, would emboldenedly likewise seek to do the same thing....and that led to the literal overturning of things in Egypt which Ipuwer mainly laments.
* As the purpose of the Egyptian enslavement of the Israelites was to try to suppress their astonishing growth rate (Exod 1:7-14), it very well may be that the hard labor and field slave tasks were reserved for them, -including the women and children, while the in house servitude work were given to slaves of other nationality and fellow enslaved Egyptians.
So, in conclusion, the Ipuwer Papyrus does indeed perfectly corroborate all that had befallen Egypt during Israel’s Exodus, and thus could be seen to relate what occurred when Egypt’s 12th Dynasty was suddenly wiped out, leading to complete chaos in the land, and leading to an invader power of Canaanites forming the 13th Dynasty, and actually sharing power with another people group of Canaanite or West Semitic descent which also including Nubian rulers forming the 14th (Co-)Dynasty. It is not until the well-known (i.e., which included “King Tut”) 18th Dynasty that the Egyptians were able to fully expel the Hyskos and regain their former native rule.
a1. Joseph in Egypt - There also is strong (circumstantial/corroborating) evidence that the second in Egyptian rule Joseph (Gen 37-41) was the revered historical figure Imhotep. See here and its summary clip. (cf. here). [Quite comical that this attempted “rational”dismissal can, at best, moronically retort against the many similarities of Joseph to this Egyptian Imhotep figure is: “Oh yeah, the (mythical) Bible says so...”...That’s the whole point!!...]
b. Clip[...01:18...] - “The Bible Does Not Define Marriage” - ....Yes it does....the Creator God does so at its/the very beginning (Gen 1:27; 2:24, 25; cf. 1:28); and then He (Heb 1:2) reaffirmed this binding template (Matt 19:3-6ff).... He just did not have to “retardedly” repeat this most logic and natural, basic instruction for every new generation. It was only when certain people (unwarrantedly) likely would, or did, violate this template that He had to preemptively and/or redressing specially address these perverting deviations (e.g. Gen 13:13; 18:20|Jude 1:7|2 Pet 2:6; Lev 20:13 (cf. Rom 1:26-27); Deut 17:17a; Matt 19:7-12). BTW, Jesus nor other preachers in the NT just do not ‘abolish the marriage/family template’. Their teachings just debunk the perverting, idolatrously (Exod 20:3) religious, myth that: ‘the marriage/family is to have priority over, even the ‘pressing’ (=Matt 11:12), duties of the Kingdom of God.’ (=Matt 10:34-39; Luke 14:25-26; Matt 6:33). (Cf. E.g., this Biblical teaching; presentation & book by pastor/preacher Francis & Lisa Chan).
c. OT Law vs. NT Grace Covenant-Relationship Approaches - To complement the thought made in the comment here that: “Believers now have been given much more grace, and all so that they can better effectuate God’s earth-redeeming will...with God banking that such greater loving grace will awaken greater wilful faithfulness in return (E.g. Rom 5:20-6:2ff, 15-19).” -Indeed by God wishing that He could now trustingly, literally “win the heart” of His Israel by, through this “great(est), faith-based, grace”, appealing to their emotions, whereas before, in the Old Covenant, He had had to try to accomplish this loving trust by trying to intellectually reason with the Israelites. (Cf. Deut 4:5-8) -Which is why being a scholar/lawyer/master of the OT Law was a foundational requirement to an Old Covenant relationship with God in that (limited), (stipulated) knowledge & awe/fear approach (e.g. Exod 20:1-17 & Exod 20:18-21ff); -all in the undergirding prominent background/context of His (agently|representatively through Christ (e.g. Col 1:16; Heb 1:2|Exod 23:20-23)) evident and tangibly experienced, Creative and All-Mighty Power, whereas for the New Covenant, God would Himself take care to inscribe these laws on the hearts of believers as they entered by faith & love (e.g. Gal 5:6; 1 Thess 5:8) in that relationship (see Jer 31:31-34|Heb 8:7-13); -now all in the undergirding prominent background/context of His (effectingly|visibly through Christ (e.g. John 10:37-38|John 14:9-11)) witnessed and felt, Redeeming and Self-Sacrificing Love. (Rom 5:6-8; John 3:16-17)
d. “Confused” (Christian) View of Death - Succinctly said, as the perfect example of how the Satan-achieved, Historical and now Eschatological, “Babylonian”/Confusing Christianity masterfully has been, and continues to be, what really is at root of, and fuel for, Atheism & Non-Christian-belief in the world today through its many false/contradictive teachings (e.g. Present&Eternal Hell Torment) and futile, even God-impeaching, worldly, (especially socio-economically), ways and practices, in the commenting here[02:19- 02:30], Cenk Uygur actually rightly mockingly exposes the foundational cognitively dissonance with the popular Christian heretical claim (cf. 2 Tim 3:7) that ‘the (righteous) dead immediately go to Heaven...but Christians can resurrect them [as they actually can, if God wills], to thus bring them back down to live on this chaotic world. See a similar, Church-based, more protracted, exposing here[01:09:31-01:10:33-01:11:26] {Not sure though, as per Sizemore’s probably misspeaking therein, how: ‘all of the (non-martyred, nor OT-ascended or resurrected), Patriarchs and Prophets (e.g., “Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Elisha”) would also be in Heaven’...-not even through Matt 27:52-53|1SM 304.2; 305.3; 306.4 as that occurred starting a little later}.. The actually True/Biblical teaching about Death (the Soul, and Hell), (cf. Acts 2:29-32), makes much more logical sense.
e. Clip[01:53-2:19] ‘We Don’t Worship Satan” - LOL... Unbelievers espouse the exact same views as Satan (cf. the Satanists & Celebrities in here), yet they insist that “they don’t worship Satan” (cf. e.g. here[01:34-1:46])...It is just not as (explicitly/directly) gory, bloody and sadistic as you were led to only think. From the very start of his rebellion, Satan has known to not grotesquely present himself or his views in the ultimate suffering and death ways that they can only end up in. And seen in the Bible, Satan is like the mafia, in that he works best when one does not think/believe he exists. (By the way, the Bible itself does not teach that ‘Hell is eternal’ “forever” in the Bible does not defaultly mean ‘for eternity’, but only as long as something can, or is permitted to, last. And people will indeed be tortured in Hell until they thus self-confess that life without God is not at all pleasant and God did not have to “sponsor” their existence which did not want to live according to His Law of Life (DA 20.3-21.1))
Notes
[1] Most emblematic case in point, as see in this (personally shot) video of a Catholic Believer seeking to obtain forgiveness of her sins through the penance of going up the hilled (Montreal) St. Joseph Oratory’s (reserved) stairs on her knees. [2:20ff] Contra e.g. 1 John 1:9; Eph 2:8-9; Heb 4:14-16; cf. Acts 8:18-23. (By the way, that Catholic Oratory is the largest church building in Canada.)
[2] Perfect case in point, this TYT video/commentary clip claiming that North Carolina Pastor Charles Worley had ‘called for gays and lesbians to be electrocuted’....He surely did not. He instead called for doing the self-exposing experiment that indeed reveals that homosexuality is not conducive to life. And clearly, (which actually initially surprised me as being counterintuitive, -since I was expecting, “as (biasedly) primed”, that the pastor would call for the electrocution of these people), the pastor said that the people would be fed...Which means, (somewhat like prison inmates condemned to life), that they would lived out their own natural life...but just would not be able to reproduce. Indeed if gays and lesbians constrained themselves to their own life “prison” of homosexual relation, they would not have any (natural) offspring. But of course they “sin against their own beliefs” and just do not. In fact, contrary to Cenk Uygur’s vacuous retort, if agreed upon and/or less costly, they may actually have heterosexual relationships in order to have such (natural) offspring. Surely he does not actually naively think that ‘homosexuals cannot have heterosexual intercourse’, indeed even flings, -pointedly, as per the context here, when in such a situation where they would want to reproduce...Just ask all of the self-converted former gays and lesbians out there....It incontrovertibly is ultimately all just a matter of choice...and even for the heterosexual....again just as all of the “experimenters/dabblers” out there...Indeed if successful reproduction was the condition, ....or not..., for being liberated, the mixing of the gay and lesbian group would either way, surely or likely result in heterosexual activity.
[3] Reminds me of the emblematic comical anecdote of Richard Gattling and his flawed hopes for his invented Gattling Gun. See here[26:36-28:31].
d. “Confused” (Christian) View of Death - Succinctly said, as the perfect example of how the Satan-achieved, Historical and now Eschatological, “Babylonian”/Confusing Christianity masterfully has been, and continues to be, what really is at root of, and fuel for, Atheism & Non-Christian-belief in the world today through its many false/contradictive teachings (e.g. Present&Eternal Hell Torment) and futile, even God-impeaching, worldly, (especially socio-economically), ways and practices, in the commenting here[02:19- 02:30], Cenk Uygur actually rightly mockingly exposes the foundational cognitively dissonance with the popular Christian heretical claim (cf. 2 Tim 3:7) that ‘the (righteous) dead immediately go to Heaven...but Christians can resurrect them [as they actually can, if God wills], to thus bring them back down to live on this chaotic world. See a similar, Church-based, more protracted, exposing here[01:09:31-01:10:33-01:11:26] {Not sure though, as per Sizemore’s probably misspeaking therein, how: ‘all of the (non-martyred, nor OT-ascended or resurrected), Patriarchs and Prophets (e.g., “Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Elisha”) would also be in Heaven’...-not even through Matt 27:52-53|1SM 304.2; 305.3; 306.4 as that occurred starting a little later}.. The actually True/Biblical teaching about Death (the Soul, and Hell), (cf. Acts 2:29-32), makes much more logical sense.
e. Clip[01:53-2:19] ‘We Don’t Worship Satan” - LOL... Unbelievers espouse the exact same views as Satan (cf. the Satanists & Celebrities in here), yet they insist that “they don’t worship Satan” (cf. e.g. here[01:34-1:46])...It is just not as (explicitly/directly) gory, bloody and sadistic as you were led to only think. From the very start of his rebellion, Satan has known to not grotesquely present himself or his views in the ultimate suffering and death ways that they can only end up in. And seen in the Bible, Satan is like the mafia, in that he works best when one does not think/believe he exists. (By the way, the Bible itself does not teach that ‘Hell is eternal’ “forever” in the Bible does not defaultly mean ‘for eternity’, but only as long as something can, or is permitted to, last. And people will indeed be tortured in Hell until they thus self-confess that life without God is not at all pleasant and God did not have to “sponsor” their existence which did not want to live according to His Law of Life (DA 20.3-21.1))
As stated before, God has provided Satan now over 6000 years to make his case in a “Great Controversy” showdown, and it has shown to be utterly bankrupt, especially if death would not have been part of the equation as God imposed (Gen 3:22-24) because eternally living wicked men who could not die would only produce a ‘dominance of the strongest/wickedest’ world filled with strife and violence (as in Gen 6:5-6, 11-12 with people then living up to 1000 years). LOL, even unbelievers today are inherently greatly afraid of their own Godless-living community. So good luck if you want to bet on a losing course and cause. As challenged before, have the conviction to truly and fully live out your own worldview claims and stop trying to find solace in the Biblical worldview. Indeed, at best, what unbelievers need to do, is to absent-mindedly ignore all that their professed lifestyle inherently entails, but that only comes to be detrimental to them...if they actually do believe those various self-deceptions...And not to soberly think about such things, moreover by variously just repeatedly lying to yourself about the futility of Godless living, -with, as stated before, indeed unbelievers just, upon yet another “painful defeat”, variously ending up scurrying back to try to live according to God’s own laws and plans (e.g., getting married; eating and living healthily; being disciplinarian parents; among many others such concession), is not at all “smart” neither by you, or by Satan which you are “worshipfully”, giving kudos to, but is precisely what the Bible defines as being a “moron“ & “fool”...and God acting to take away any blame for such persisted choices from unbelievers is what Hell’s torment will be all about. Satan opposing the Creator with a worldview that he himself came to recognize was bankrupt (see PP 39.1ff), is anything but “smart”...and less smarter are those who continue to worship him. (Cf. Rom 6:16-23)
f. Clip[03:12-03:18] ‘Jesus was a failure’ - Jesus was not trying to win over the entire world before His death...only the people who were part of Israel then. (Matt 10:5-6; 15:24). It was only, complicatedly enough, after His death, (and resurrection (see also here); -which not all his followers actually (initially) believed (Luke 24:36-43ff; Matt 28:17)), that He set out to evangelize the whole world (Matt 24:14), and entrusted that mission to His followers (Acts 1:8). And given that currently ca. 2.4 billion people, = one-third of the world (at least claims to) believe in Him, pointedly in the most free and advanced nations of the world, is testament enough to the truth and power of His message. There indeed are ample various types of evidence demonstrating the truthfulness about God, Jesus and the Bible; such as (wise and/or predictive) “prophecy” (i.e. expressions/revelations directly from God 2 Pet 1:17-21; Isa 46:9-11), soundness of teaching and (at least foundational) Judeo-Christian societal impact, validated personal experiences, including radical life-changing ones (e.g. this one). No other religion, (including Islam and Judaism (itself)), has been able to have the positive impact that (True) Christianity has had on the world beyond just mere converts/believers. (And, as discussed from here at Rev 9:1ff, God did purposefully indirectly allow for, and make strategic use of, Islam in order to deal with (Historical and Eschatological) false/apostate/Babylonian Christianity).
f. Clip[03:12-03:18] ‘Jesus was a failure’ - Jesus was not trying to win over the entire world before His death...only the people who were part of Israel then. (Matt 10:5-6; 15:24). It was only, complicatedly enough, after His death, (and resurrection (see also here); -which not all his followers actually (initially) believed (Luke 24:36-43ff; Matt 28:17)), that He set out to evangelize the whole world (Matt 24:14), and entrusted that mission to His followers (Acts 1:8). And given that currently ca. 2.4 billion people, = one-third of the world (at least claims to) believe in Him, pointedly in the most free and advanced nations of the world, is testament enough to the truth and power of His message. There indeed are ample various types of evidence demonstrating the truthfulness about God, Jesus and the Bible; such as (wise and/or predictive) “prophecy” (i.e. expressions/revelations directly from God 2 Pet 1:17-21; Isa 46:9-11), soundness of teaching and (at least foundational) Judeo-Christian societal impact, validated personal experiences, including radical life-changing ones (e.g. this one). No other religion, (including Islam and Judaism (itself)), has been able to have the positive impact that (True) Christianity has had on the world beyond just mere converts/believers. (And, as discussed from here at Rev 9:1ff, God did purposefully indirectly allow for, and make strategic use of, Islam in order to deal with (Historical and Eschatological) false/apostate/Babylonian Christianity).
-By the way, Jesus could easily have convinced all of (Ethnic) Israel, (including Judas), if only He had given into the based desires of their unconverted hearts (John 2:18-22; 6:14-15, 25-26ff, 60-71|DA 383-3984; Matt 16:1-4). Same principle still holds true today (Jer 29:13; Jam 4:6).
g. Clip[03:19-03:35] Straw Man Bible Claims - If you just can’t and/or won’t engage the historical and factual formulation, let alone properly set forth substance, moreover predictive prophecies, of the Bible, but instead desperately resort, and hang on to, moreover buffoonish and idiotic, (outright lying) straw man claims, then that is proof in itself that the claims and worldview that you ascribe in opposition to the Bible just cannot stand such intellectual tests of truthfulness. Simple as that to the thinking mind. How desperate indeed!!....The patent telling sign that someone’s claim/view is wrong is when they dare not engage it in a sustained intelligent scrutiny, and moreover also do not dare do so, with here, the Bible’s worldview.
By the way, your “respected” Roman Catholic Church does wholesalely and undiscerningly accept most Apocryphal Biblical accounts. Protestants know that at best, these are to be judiciously gleaned for any valid, especially historically-wise, statement. (16MR 34.3) Anyone then was free to write an account of what they claimed to be the Gospel, but for True Christianity, only what came to fully align itself with what had been passed done from Jesus and His Apostles from the start was accepted as (inspired) Scripture. (Jude 1:3-4; cf. Gal 1:6-9; 2 Pet 1:21; Isa 8:20)
g. Clip[03:19-03:35] Straw Man Bible Claims - If you just can’t and/or won’t engage the historical and factual formulation, let alone properly set forth substance, moreover predictive prophecies, of the Bible, but instead desperately resort, and hang on to, moreover buffoonish and idiotic, (outright lying) straw man claims, then that is proof in itself that the claims and worldview that you ascribe in opposition to the Bible just cannot stand such intellectual tests of truthfulness. Simple as that to the thinking mind. How desperate indeed!!....The patent telling sign that someone’s claim/view is wrong is when they dare not engage it in a sustained intelligent scrutiny, and moreover also do not dare do so, with here, the Bible’s worldview.
By the way, your “respected” Roman Catholic Church does wholesalely and undiscerningly accept most Apocryphal Biblical accounts. Protestants know that at best, these are to be judiciously gleaned for any valid, especially historically-wise, statement. (16MR 34.3) Anyone then was free to write an account of what they claimed to be the Gospel, but for True Christianity, only what came to fully align itself with what had been passed done from Jesus and His Apostles from the start was accepted as (inspired) Scripture. (Jude 1:3-4; cf. Gal 1:6-9; 2 Pet 1:21; Isa 8:20)
h. Clip[05:33f] “SDA’s also believe in Extra-Terrestrials” - Let’s make sure to have the fundamental facts here straight. (A) The Bible (itself) is clear that God/Jesus did not only create this planet/galaxy, but that there are other similar (lit.) ‘creation ages’ (Gen 1-2) (=“habitable worlds”) out there (in other galaxies) (Heb 1:2; 11:3 -See the exegetical details within Note #5 in this post.). (B) From the prophetic visions given to EGW (~2 Cor 12:1-4) she was shown the inhabitants of these other worlds. (EW 39.3a) But they were not, e.g., like Spielsberg’s "E.T." character, or people with two heads and three legs, but were in the same, but more ‘nobler, majestic, lovelier’, form, as(|than) humans on this planet. And that is all because these other worlds, -(by now, i.e. 6000 years on, ca. 312,000), were also created by God as this (very first created) one was, but people in these other worlds, perhaps cautioned by the news and consequences of the Fall of this planet (Gen 3), themselves never failed God’s (simple) loyalty test (Gen 2:16-17) and sinned (EW 39.3a) (=Luke 15:1-7ff|COL 190.3).
And relatedly, in the SOP vision (EW 39.3) discussed here, EGW did not actually see, as mistakenly popularly assumed and claimed, that there were humans on other planets in this galaxy. (I.e., Jupiter and Saturn).
So Biblical revelation does indeed reveal that: we (i.e. “Earthlings”) are indeed not the only ones out there...but really we are the only ones in regards to this “Milky Way” galaxy, manifestly all as a means of God quarantining sin and/or shielding its, even galatic detrimental/entropic (also through Divine-non-upkeeping) effects from those other sinless humans and worlds. (Cf. this “Is There Life On Other Worlds?” presentation (cf. this brief SDA article)).
i. Clip[23:45-27:53] “Terroristic” Plagues of/on Egypt - LOL, most pertinently ironically enough, it is comical to hear the infantile, uninformed and defaultly, and “smugly-blissfully”, moronic “reasoning” of unbelievers: No...the funny thing with the Plagues sent by God on Egypt was that, as stated in Rom 1:22-23, humans “professing to be wise” made gods out of each of the 10 creatures/things that was remonstratedly targeted by God with the 10 Plagues, all to objectively demonstrate that not only these things were not God, but they’ll actually can also ruin your life and even kill you. All not unlike what occurs today, particularly with naturalism evolutionist, as humans today variously prefer to live ‘like animals’ and other man-made gods....Which thus is why God purposefully sends the Seven Last Plagues. And “Why does God step in to, indeed, “harden”, people in their choice for sin...all to bring about due Justice ({Exod 4:21-23} =Isa 6:8-13; Matt 13:10-17; Rom 1:18-32; Rev 18:24!!
I.e. Ever see a Law Enforcement agency tipping any criminal that evidence is being (covertly) collected against them for a Judicial Case.....Certainly not...In fact, you definitely repeatedly see Law Enforcement “assisting” such criminals in their unlawful activity all to deservingly condemn them, all for the perfect happiness and security of Law Abiding Citizens!!...(~Job 4:17)).
...By the way, I do gather from all of this that when God irreversibly executes these Seven Last Judgments (Rev 22:11-12), you (all alike) then will likewise be instead slanderously calling him a “terrorist”, then “(even more “actively”) opposing Him (particularly starting at His Fifth Series|Plague (portentously (International) Nuclear Holocaust) unrestrained-human-passions-allowed “Darkness”=Evil (cf. Isa 45:7) developments)...as if He didn’t (most objectively provingly) see that coming (Rev 16:9-11; 9:20-21... As the saying is: “One person’s “terrorist”; is another’s “Freedom Fighter” John 8:31-32, 44; 10:10; Rev 19:11-21...Rev 15:4)...And even then, as past with Egypt, and as still then future with “Hell’s Torture|Torment”, God then, past that long-delayed and warned of, point of forbearance, is indeed not even interested in getting you’ll to change your minds...quite to the contrary...It’s just: “judgement (execution)”. (GC 627.2) No wonder right-about-then-suddenly-realizing people will be ‘cursing Him and trying to die’ (Rev 9:6)....
...It is all what, indeed long/millennia-ago-spoken-&-recorded Biblical prophetic plans are all about (Isa 46:9-11); -(which, as discussed above in Claim #1, like the Root Cause/r of all Existence&Intelligence, unbelievers desperately need to tunnel-visionedly “blissfully” ignore); in fact all so that people would not “blaspheme” (John 10:33; Isa 41:21-24, 25-26) God (Isa 42:8-9; 44:6-8).
...And most relatedly, (contra. the carefully & selectively ignoramus and/or ignorant “blissful” (all-conflatingly slanderous) diatribe here[08:48-13:20]), when a God can so precisely “prophetically” forecast the future dispositions and (re-)actions of unbelievers (cf. 1 Kgs 8:39; 1 Chr 28:9; 1 Sam 16:7; Luke 16:15), then any of His commanded & executed (Old Covenant) judgements (cf. 5T 208.1-2), however seemingly unfair to unbelievers, can defaultly be trusted as Justly Righteous and indeed (For the (actual) Greater) Good....Ironically, but Theologically, enough, just as long as there are unbelievers, there will need to demonstrably be God’s True “Religion”...-and that all to tutoringly&disciplinarily, vitally: “(externally) help keep them in (viable) line” (Gal 5:19-25; cf. Matt 22:34-40; Rom 5:20; See Issue #17 here)...Indeed without the merciful intervening of God and His presence in this World via His True Followers, “unbelievers” would long have fully and unfetteredly shown what their, as-being-exposed-above, ala. Neo-Babylon (Rev 18:2), ‘fundamentally bankrupt, selfishness & hate, worldview’, -which they themselves do not dare ingenuously own up to, let alone, live out, is all about. (=Gen 6:5, 11-13).
1 Tim 2:12 - Because women were defaultly not at all educated in those times. Only if they were prophetically inspired were they considered knowledgeable and thus reliable enough to teach. -More on the Bible’s actual teaching on Role of women here.
Lev 26:29; Deut 28:53 - The people, will desperately of themselves resort to Cannibalism due to the beseiged hardships from another assaulting nation that God will allow to happen to them. This is not God commanding them to eat their offspring. And Cannibalism did indeed happen at least 2 times during Israel’s/Jerusalem’s history. In the Babylonian Siege of ca. 586 B.C. and the Roman siege of 70 A.D.
Deut 25:11-12 - Cutting into the “palm of her hand” (Hebrew: kaph -Strongs #03709) and not “cutting her hand off” (Heb.: yad -#03027)...And it will grow back. Her, the indiscriminate “wife of one”, grabbing the other guys crotch was clearly to give her husband a physical, as well as psychological, advantage to win this (“consenting”) physical struggle. She didn’t have to intervene, and in that calculative sexual assault way. If a woman did that to a man fighting with her husband today, the guy could also successfully prosecute her for sexual assault. (Different penalty of course, i.e. perhaps fine, jail time and/or Sexual Offender’s Registry listing). But God’s judgement were always aimed to best preempt the proscribed offensive behavior.
Lev 20:13; 18:22 - As discussed in greater detail here, (cf. within here): Most naturally Homosexuality is indeed a Capital sin as it does not advance life and probably is foundationally responsible for the decimation of the aids scourge also into heterosexual relationships.
A Twitter Religion/Creationism Exchange
The following is an adding to a discussion about, eventually, mainly Creationism, which was started by this controversial tweet. See all my Replies here (at June 1-8, 2015), and click on them to see their context of the questions/comments I was responding to. (I haven’t sacrificed the time to respond to all the comments/questions, but most of them have been addressed).
With its 140 character restraint/limit, and poor discussional structure, Twitter is the worse place to have such an involved discussion.... I here provide the protracted answers to priorly not answered, (due to lack of a proper accommodating forum), claims:
1. June 8, 2015 (James Green @Jim1810)
Ok now you're just using words wrong. Keep it simple you || will sound much smarter.
No...and No...just not enough convenient space or format on Twitter to state/expound definitions instead.
It is you who ignoramusly doesn't understand what is involved here. So let me spell it out for your petulant self:
intrinsically: ‘the inherent nature of my view' necessarily involves the fact that the God of the Bible has proven Himself in (historicistly) fulfilled Bible Prophecies. Therefore Bible claim of His Creative Power are deferentially trustworthy. Pointedly when both sides of debate actually ultimately need to have faith in an unknown.
substantively: Creation Model (a) involves this likely Supernatural Causation (e.g. Global Flood) =Case Theory; and (b) still satisfactorily scientifically explains present observation in that light.
Unlike Creationists, you Evolutionists typically just ignore, or merely declaratively dismiss, both elements of the Creationists side here, but that just makes no difference at all to our valid "hypothesis" & "scientific explanations" and it comprehensively much more logical than what you likewise claim and propose.
2. June 8, 2015 (James Green @Jim1810)
You think creationists are smarter than scientists?
Indeed smarter because” ‘they are apt enough to “intrinsically” and “substantively” engage the other side.’ You guys just want to pompously insist that you’re right by just mere, but smug of course, declarations and no engaging refutation....and clearly your answering of Creationists shows that you all feel challenged & threatened by their position. I.e. if we were claiming e.g., Zeus or the Mad-Hatter, or Athena, Thor and/or whatever superhero you all make time and expend money for, instead, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
3. June 8, 2015 (Born free 1979 @bornfree1979)
Anyone with restrictions of thought will be more stupid. || If you don't allow to think big then you'll be stuck.
I certainly don’t restrict my thoughts, I engage and factor in all what I have experienced and discovered: such as (verified)signs, miracles, prophecies and revelations.
It is you all are desperately, and obtusely, close-minded, =“stupid”, to such added and testingly verifiable wider reality elements
And as those verified Evidence of God anchor the validity and truth of the Bible, the Creation+Flood Model is a viable hypothesis whose substantiation is scientifically unimpeached.
Also, there is a drastic differentiating reality between Christian Belief vs. Unbelief that those who have actually experienced God through His Holy Spirit are virtually “sealed” into that Truth. It is just something that the unBeliever just cannot understand, and the (sealed) Believer just cannot deny. (E.g. 1 Cor 2:6-16). So you all ignoring that reality of the Believer, and moreover trying to pass of your “scientific” philosophies as “God”, is just laughable to us. So it’s futile to skip/dismiss that part of our experienced reality.
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And as already discussed and debunked, your various unexegetical and inaccurate claims about/against the Bible have not disproved anything.
4. June 8, 2015 (James Green @Jim1810)
And thinking you know the answer before you understand the || question is pretty restrictive.
Nothing wrong with misunderstanding a question...(especially on Twitter where it curtailedly was likely not well expressed). I’ve seen that done plenty of times by many during this thread....What matters is what one does after the question is rightly understood...You all just desperately/necessarily play dumb....
...Moreover this was all just my uncaring equivalency retort to you all doing the patent thing of indifferent postmoderns who (selectively) most silently ignore whatever they do not have an answer to, but still continue to push forward their viewpoints as if they are still supposed to be considered right/true.
5. June 8, 2015 (Born free 1979 @bornfree1979)
And I DON'T claim spiritual is big. || What I mean is an open mind will go further than a closed/relig || Religious people pick stupidity for comfort ("knowledge")
I actually think way “bigger” than you. You all are comparatively just going around in circles in your actually indeed: subjective circular reasonings with your whimsical “(pseudo)science/philosophies”.
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My mind is not at all closed. You have had your chance to substantively refute my responses but instead mostly/patently chose to quibble on the insubstantive.
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Well I myself have ample reason to duly know&do so....And you all have actually, but spuriously, tried to refute the basis for Belief by Christians/Creationists, it patently is just that when they substantively, and detailedly/systematically debunk your refutation and you all have no further plausible response, you just remain silent...but, =delusionally, continue to claim you are right. You all just merely *want* to be right, than you care to (concretely) be right.
6. June 8, 2015 (James Green @Jim1810)
You ever hear the argument that people like religion used || to defend its veracity?
You know, I’ll give you that many religious people are not well-versed in their Faith...You can “triumphantly” pick/prey on them, or engage head-on the actual Christian scholars, thinkers, and theologians....
7. June 8, 2015 (Born free 1979 @bornfree1979)
Saw ST rel. people hated atheists because reminders of death. || People don't want to be reminded/taught death is final & coming
For me personally, given all that I now intellectually and experientially know on this issue from Biblical Revelation and Testimony, death is not at all any problem to me (Matt 10:28; Mark 8:34-38; Phil 1:19-26) because God is just in everything He allows and does. The history of the Christian Church is filled with hundreds of millions of Believers who, like Jesus Christ (Isa 53) most peacefully faced death at the hands of demonically vexatious pagans, then apostates, because they had been variously sealed by the testimony of God’s Spirit in their Belief in, and Ultimate Triumph and Vindicating Justice of, God. (1 Pet 2:20-23).
For unbelievers and Christian apostates who do not have this knowledge and experience with God, they of course can never understand this and so, at best, live out a sheltered/secured existence of various forms of mere self-preservation.
8. June 8, 2015 (James Green @Jim1810)
Death sucks. Doesn't make god true, it's not difficult
Because God has amply proven Himself through (properly interpreted and applied = Historicist, then, now, (in applicable cases) Eschatological) Bible Prophecy, then Believer can rightly understand that (the First) Death (Rev 20:6, 14) is not the utter end. And the Historically credible resurrection of Christ, which is today corroborated by many convincing circumstantial/residual evidence of what clearly was indeed direct & eye-witness evidence in 31 AD is another testimony that what the Bible says about the possible vanquishing of death through belief in Jesus Christ is indeed reliable (1 Cor 15).
9. June 8, 2015 (Born free 1979 @bornfree1979)
I've had 30+ years accepting it. || They have had x years of propaganda it's not real and final ;D
It is quite comical to me how Atheist & Darwinist just can’t live by what they have been claiming is “Truth”. If you really believe that this is your only shot at life and if you believe that you have achieve all this progress and advancement by self-interested, survival of the fittest, action, then your actions just do not at all demonstrate such a belief. In fact prior generations, which you all think “evolved” would greatly fault you for having impeded & delayed progress. But I’ve got to say that excusing the slaughtering of infants so that you can more economically do ‘advancing scientific research’ is most true to form and belief.
Indeed perhaps if you just rolled over all of the weak, i.e. cut all social programs except for policing & National Defense, and used that money for research, you just may figure out a way, in your generation, to perpetuate your lives indefinitely.....but you rather die...Makes no sense to me at all....and I am sure glad that I am a Believer in God instead because I sure would have to “logically” live like you all are supposed to be living....
The intangible thing here that unbelievers can’t understand as to why they are not living like wild animals is just what Paul said in Rom 2:14-15. It is an “instinctive” manifestation of the historical influence of God’s Law which is managing to assuage your bothered conscience. The only way to get out from under that influence is to live in callous rebellion to it and its various detrimental consequences which you have managed to delusioningly, surfacely do in certain cases....but without failure, ultimately, pointedly when you yourself are involved then again, your actions just betray your claimed beliefs...E.g., when you have a child then you (likely) don’t want to abort them, or when you are in a relationship/married, then adultery is (usually) just unacceptable, unless of course you further sear your conscience and become “swingers”.
Frankly unbelievers should just stop trying to mimicking True Believers and instead truly and fully live out their Godless and Satanic belief as pagans before them used to more unreservedly do.
10. June 8, 2015 (Filthy Monkey Man @DannytheInfidel)
So you are saying that Xains used to me much smarter than they are now?
No....Plus Christians are relatively just as smart today to not be derouted by you all’s philosophies and pseudoscientic claims which cannot be scientifically demonstrated, nor reproduced, moreover being berated upon others.
Also Christians back then having intelligently and wisely established, and with comparatively quite primitive/rudimentary resources, the science which people today are mostly just upbuildingly/applyingly “tinkering” with, shows to me that not only they were smarter, but that groundbreaking intelligence was probably Divinely inspired/assisted. (Cf. Psa 19:7; 119:130)
Quite indicative today that researchers, scientist and inventors today deliberately go by an “evolutional” way of arriving at new discoveries, whereas those who had discovered and related the laws of modern science practically did so “out of the blue” (tellingly akin to how God miraculously created “out of what is not seen (by the naked eye: e.g. atomic mater/particles)” (=Heb 11:3))
11. June 8, 2015 (Jesus Chrisn't @LOLatJesus)
genetic mutations - which give the parent an advantage in passing on its genes will more likely get passed on. Disadvantageous.. || .. genes are that are less likely for the parent to pass on are not. Natural selection. || if there is no advantage or disadvantage a species will remain the same as long as it's environment does so.
“Genetic mutations” - Oh so that’s why certain human parents “decide” to pass on cancerous genes to their children....
“Natural selection” - Funny how your “natural selection” ends with humans, but not all of them, when the “advantage” involves killing another human...Even animals don’t have that issue, even within their own species as they strive to get the best for them in their life.
12. June 8, 2015 (Steven Hamblin @BehavEcology)
Ah, "so-called science". Great. Then perhaps you'll stop using all the.. || benefits of our so-called science? All of your technology and ... || medicine, for a start.
Evolution is indeed at best psuedo-science. You all have no qualm making sweeping pronouncements against the Bible without clearly any (proper) knowledge or understanding of its elements (pointedly Prophecy) which validate it. Morever, the very best of you Evolutionist, e.g. Bill Nye, have candidly and honestly admitted that their theory comes up against an unsurpassed dead end at the Big Bang Theory. So given the actually surpassing Worldview and Explanation from Biblical Revelation, why should I then dumb myself down and pay any deference to your “dead end”, not to mention, dysfunctional and dissonant Evolutional view!?!!!...You all need to get out of your carefully crafted Bubble and engage the evidence and arguments which counter your evolutional claims.
LOL, such stemming petulantly offended and vexed reaction reminds me of how (see here[27:32ff]//here[01:13:55ff] former (“rising star”) Evolution Professor Walter Veith became cognizant that this Evolution thing was actually/effectively a religion by the vexatious reaction by his staff colleagues when he simply started to, unanswerably, question some of its fundamental claims and tenets.
In regards to those wishful technology & “medicine” claims:
A) Not at all..like I said from Eccl 2:6, you all unbeliever have been given this ‘trial and erroring’ task of developing such technologies so that, if ever necessary, others like many true believers who have been busy with their time working to fulfill Christ’s commission can then make use of it once your done. Especially since you all have this wasteful and unnecessarily drawing out, capitalistic, evolutional and idolatrous approach to development.
B) And yet in that mean time, while you all get your appointed act together, God has given his people ample guidance and resources, -which all can be supernaturally supplemented and/or effected, which, as the testimony of many believers can show, make whatever technologies you develop really either optional or completely unnecessary. Case in point: Speaking here to someone who is, (as indicated in my profile), of a denominational background (Seventh-Day Adventist) of those through whom God gave a revolutionary, and still effective, indeed much needed today, Health Reform Message, Instruction and Guidance way back in 1863 which has not only made its impact in American Society (e.g. Kelloggs breakfast cereals; and see a comprehensive accounting (by Anil Kanda) here[28:24ff]) but has been leading those who faithfully follow it to have an average life expectancy which is 7-10 years longer than the average American, and with these extra years being in quite good and fully functional health.
As God said in Exod 15:26 faithfully following his Health Law would lead His people to avert the many common diseases which affect other people. And also those who follow God’s Health reform Message are greatly known not only for preventive medicine, but also for very successful natural remedies curing....Whereas you all “medical scientists” are having pill popping parties which do nothing to correct the cause of the problem, but merely muffle and mask its symptoms....all so that Pharmaceutical drug dealing companies can keep on making money from chemically addicted clients.
So until you all, and all your great research can begin to make things right, or have enough generosity to make more widely and freely available whatever successful remedy you have developed, God’s people will continue to make successful use of the guidelines and solutions He has provided.
And the fact of the matter is, if God’s people had been more faithful in trusting in Him rather than in worldly scientists and methods, the results of His Ministry of Healing would have been that much more glorious, effective and reknown. Because ultimately, God is indeed the Healer (E.g. Isa 58:6-8; Exod 15:26)...
13. June 8, 2015 (Filthy Monkey Man @DannytheInfidel)
God will heal.
...Another key thing here is how unbelievers, especially of the postmodern kind who are conditioned and trained to look no further than their nose for an answer is this notion that, whenever self-serving of course, history began the year they were born.
So: As Walter White would preface: ‘You clearly know nothing about Christianity/Christians, so let me clue you in...:’
Just to disabuse yourself of this notion that ‘because of their belief that God is the (ultimate) healer, they have no interest in doing medicine’, then just get in your car, go to a large city, especially in the U.S., and drive around and count how many hospitals you come across which have a denominational name attached to it (e.g., Presbytarian, Methodist, Baptist, Seventh-day Adventist, Jewish....Hospital/Medical Center), and then which those that don’t, go inside and find out if they have a denominational founding and/or affiliation, -as many have not indicted so on their sign so to as not spook you all unbelievers, and then compare that with the Hospitals and Medical Centers which were not founded or affiliated by a Religion/Christian Denomination, and you’ll have your empirical answer that it is Christians, who have, and are doing more towards medicinal treatment than any other societal entity (e.g., secularists/atheists).
Indeed most of these hospitals and medical centers were established long ago by Christians (and also during the 19th and early 20th century’s “Age of Faith”; -thus when most of these Believers were much more “Fundamentalist” than today; and several still are just as much (e.g. SDAs, Baptists)). But of course you all, as typical, need to ignore all of these historical and contemporary facts, to broadbrushly dismiss all Christians by the examples you may find of deluded Pentecostal Christians, who, by plainly unexegetically misreading & misconstruing the Bible, -and by the way are not practicing Healthful Living to start with, have sensationalistic “healing” sessions where the only people who get “healed” are just planted frauds or liars. Sorry to burst your bubbling unbelief bubble and fantasaical narrative, but that just does not represent the vast majority of Christianity.
So: As Walter White would conclude: ‘.... We’re [likely] the ones who’ll be treating YOU [Atheists/Secularists]!!!
-It’s indeed quite telling and counter-narrative that while Christian contribution to Science has been for practical (e.g. health, nutritional) purposes, what atheists and secularist have mainly pursued and achieve in science are whatever they think will validate their origins theories (e.g., extraplanetary travel; “Big Bang” source); and/or assuage/pseudo-justify their sinful lifestyle (contraceptives, STD prevention, aborted fetus organ harvesting; stem cell research; cosmetic/sex change surgeries). So from their faith in the testimony of God’s Word, Christians know better than to waste their time pursing to go beyond the moon, or trying to find a “life” on other planets.
14. June 8, 2015 (Born free 1979 @bornfree1979)
Why are this stupidity just continuing?
I don't read and NJK is stupid.
Sure....because someone knowing what you either do not know, or can`t understand, must be because they are stupid. Your declarative cop out has no substantive effect on the Truth of the matter here.
15. June 8, 2015 (Steven Hamblin @BehavEcology)
Scientists who are Christian doesn't make ID science. Complete rubbish.
Your response just reflects your ingrained biased. First of all, any “Scientist” doesn’t make up what is Science. Science itself stands alone on its own objective proofing. “Intelligent Design”, as far as I’ve heard, or rightly understand, has never been claimed as a “Science” in itself, but at best, as a (Scientific) Theory for the ultimate source and cause of the Creation that exists. Evolutionists have their own Ultimate Origin and Organizing Theory, it is, at best for them, the “Big Bang” Theory and Natural Selection.
Most Evolutionist just cannot admit, let alone stomach that what they are evolutionally claiming is just not science, but mere theory, because they cannot either document or observe not reproduce through experiment what they are claiming. So all that someone can logically do in the face of such proofless claim is simply “believe”. And as I have found the Bible’s claims and God+Creation+Flood model to generally and specifically most cogently provide an explanation for such issues, including the question of purpose, then I easily choose to believe in God & the Bible.
16. June 8, 2015 (Jesus Chrisn't @LOLatJesus)
not devolving, however evolution doesn't always mean more complex. Evolution is a progression - even if that progression.. || gets simpler.
As seen in technology today, e.g. computers, if/when something that was priorly complex “progresses” and get “simpler” it is because someone has figured out a way to make the prior complexity more simple. Still that complexity is still present, just in a different form. Another example: “Brick” Cell Phones in the 1990's and earbud cell phones today. Another example is how the human brain seems so simple yet there is just not enough resources in this world to fully reproduce what it can do (i.e. via computing).
So even ‘simplifying progressing evolution’ inherently involves factored in complexity. If not, then you substantively actually haven’t progress but regressed, and also devolved....E.g. I can claim that I have developed a simpler automobile because I assembled four wheels on a flatbed, but it surely is not a “progression” nor “evolution” from a 2015 model automobile.
17. June 8, 2015 (Steven Hamblin @BehavEcology)
Which you follow with sweeping pronouncements. Seriously, read yourself.
I do “read myself” before I say what I am thinking. The observable developments did indeed warranted a sweeping pronouncement. If you don’t know how to, or just can’t/won’t accept that, then that’s your unaware problem/issue, not mine.
18. June 8, 2015 (Steven Hamblin @BehavEcology)
Amazing how you can dismiss the work of thousands of scientists because || you just don't like it. We didn't just make this stuff up, we did the .. || work, wherever it led us. If you did the same, you might be useful.
I can indeed wholesalely dismiss such claims because they are all built up on what has been shown to be a faulty and subjective basis. I certainly do let valid work, including my very own, lead me to whatever the truth actually is on a matter....and it certainly just has not been to you all’s conclusions. Once you have proper Biblical Theology and Prophecy (which you guys have chosen to ignore) as part of your foundation, you are not swayed by the many spurious theories out there, no matter how many people buy into them.
19. June 8, 2015 (Steven Hamblin @BehavEcology)
You know, you're right. This is pretty pointless.
You all have long need to ignore the various points (e.g., Bible prophecy and, as already cited, the Theology (cf. here) for the necessity of an Original Source) which is why you can’t comprehend why I don’t give deference to your, at best, pseudo-scientific claims which are ultimately anchored nowhere, including, not in rational/logical reality: i.e. Something, and certainly not everything, just does not come from nothing...You all blissfully are, -as Bill Nye tacitly confessed, at a total loss on that foundational point...I, and other True Bible/Creation Believer are, -and still unimpeachedly so, not!!
20. June 8, 2015 (Filthy Monkey Man @DannytheInfidel)
Steven, don't waste more time on NJK. She don't want to learn/andurstand.
A) You all are wasting my time,
B) I would like to get a glimpse into the rationale that made this guy jump to the conclusion that ‘I must be woman’, whereas using a generic/gender inclusive “he” would have actually been more appropriate.
21. June 8, 2015 (Jesus Chrisn't @LOLatJesus)
sorry. Meant to say Catholic but God(I mean autocorrect) changed it.
Nahhh...What actually happened was that your computer’s/phone’s auto-correct feature mistakenly auto-corrected it, and God’s Holy Spirit indeed led me to assume the best and think that this was probably so sort of (however remote and wild) typo for “Catholic”. [cf. Luke 20:25]
22. June 8, 2015 (Born free 1979 @bornfree1979)
“Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
The “idiot(s)” here are those who cannot fully engage the other side and their full point of view.
23. June 8, 2015 (Born free 1979 @bornfree1979)
Guess in this case shouting hasn't happened so not really suitable.
See that’s clearly what you are smugly expecting...Bible Believers to be so impressed by your claims that they have nothing left but to resort to shouting....In my experience, and as seen in this Twitter thread, the insulting and desperate shouting down always starts from the side your on....Indeed, tellingly, just make and allusion to “sin” and “hell”....
24. June 8, 2015 (Jesus Chrisn't @LOLatJesus)
and you are right because? You say you are.? A bloke wrote a book saying he was an atheist.?
Nope...because just as the Bible proves that Catholicism (which murders tens of millions of Bible Christians in the Middle Ages =Rev 13:7) is not true Christianity, but indeed the Anti-Christ entity known as Spiritual Babylon) it likewise proves that Hitler’s actions were not ‘according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ”: Ergo also not (true) Christianity. The Bible is the standard of True Faith & Doctrine here (cf. Isa 8:20).
25. June 8, 2015 (Steven Hamblin @BehavEcology)
Yeah, I've blocked it. Thanks. :)
Great..I continue to believe what I know and believe; and you continue to believe whatever you selectively can handle...What can possibly be wrong here with these Free Will choices: Rev 22:11-15|Isa 6:8-13|Matt 13:10-17!!
26. June 8, 2015 (Filthy Monkey Man @DannytheInfidel)
NJK is to afraid to ever admit that she can be wrong. Fear of death I think.
Why should I be afraid of death... “I (concretely) know in whom I have believed in”...You’re the ones who live “like you’re on Number 9” ...And you should also take “Pascal’s Wager” (cf. this derived presentation): It’s just not worth it to ‘crash then burn” instead....
...But also speaking of this vacuous claim of a non-fear of death...you all atheist do fear it....-and so much so that you just shudderingly don’t want to think or talk about it...perfect case in point, while you all were, as typical, self-preservingly cowering in your bubbled-corners, it was mostly, if not only, Christian doctors and nurses who risked, and several lost, their lives by going to Africa to help those infected with, or threatened by, Ebola their.
27. June 8, 2015 (Born free 1979 @bornfree1979)
"Arguing on the internet is like running in the special olympics - Even if you win you're still retarded."
Well...only if you are actually retarded to start with....
28. June 8, 2015 (Jesus Chrisn't @LOLatJesus)
like the Westboro Baptists then.? They must be the most Christian of them all.?
In terms of not shying form pointing out the sins of people: Definitely...even in terms of timing. E.g. would anyone be “bothered” enough to talk about them if they held their protest at any other time!??
29. June 8, 2015 (Jesus Chrisn't @LOLatJesus)
like the Christian crusaders followed deuteronomy. I get it.
Well since they were ignoring the superceding New Covenant principle/teaching/command of Christ in e.g. Matt 5:38-48, then they evidently were not “Christians”. Christ sent His followers out to preach and teach (Matt 28:18-20; Acts 1:8) and not to “crusade” at the point of a (literal) sword. (Heb 4:12-13)
30. June 8, 2015 (Jesus Chrisn't @LOLatJesus)
pseudo is your opinion. I rather take Hitler at his word. I don't think he was embarrassed about his opinions.
Nope...That’s how the Bible exposes him... Sorry you are evidently not Biblically literate & Spiritually discernible enough to make that difference...Which I can only presume is quite convenient for you and your ideology...Unless Hitler was clinically mad, he surely did believe that what he was doing was right, including in accordance to whatever Christian faith he thought he had....But the objective Biblical fact was that he was plain wrong.
31. June 8, 2015 (James Green ?@Jim1810)
Different rainfall patterns, different soil, different place. Silly comparison.
Typical, and quite representative, patent postmodernish answering which harps on a fraction of what you had posed to them which they knee-jerkedly think they have an answer to, ignore everything else, and then pompously go on to add insults. In the Twit-verse that is an A+ type of responding.
My full/comprehensive question issue was:
as expounded in blog post:
-vast Sand-duned deserts
-very little (green) vegetation
-huge oil field
e.g. sub-Saharan Africa has just as hot climate, but not so vegetatively barren
He just explained the “vegetation” part with what actually is one side of what is a “chicken or the egg” conundrum as it is the land composition and relief which greater determines what an area’s rainfall pattern will be, as wind patterns are affected by this, and thus streams of wind which move about rain clouds are resultingly patternedly directed.
First of all, an areas climate is determined by its location from the earth equator (or poles). And that results in an equal climate all around a climate band of the same latitude spaces right around the globe. And with the Earth spin at a n equal rate, thus not slowing down and dwelling longer on Middle Eastern region, this all makes it most odd that not all other regions at the same latitudes around the globe do not have the same land and vegetation affectations from having/sharing the very same climate.
So the question remains: what caused the Middle East region, unlike any other region on Earth, to have such a vast and wide spread, desertification. And additionally there is the issue of the sand dunes if you convert that into soil, through abundant rain mixed with organic matter, you’d actually have at best rolling hills as a terrain, and not a flat layer of soil. So, and as a region’s dry climate would, over time, transform regular soil into parched soil, but hardly not into sand, and as seen on any beach, sand is gradually deposited over time by the inflow of water which carries sand from the sea floor up continental shelves and leaves them behind on its and out flow, then that is an indicator that at one point, the Middle East region had a similar major inflow of deep sea waters onto it, which later flowed back to its place, but left all that sea floor sands behind. Again that present observation is best explained by the “weighted Bible Flood destruction” model during which “fountains of the deep” burst forth, with enough strength to ‘hurl massive boulders into mid air like pebbles’, -heavy enough to ‘bury themselves deep into ground upon falling back’, onto the land above, incessantly over 40 days&night. (Gen 7:11a; 8:2a; PP 99.1) That ‘forceful geysers scenario’ definitely who have gushed up great amounts of sand from the sea floor and dumped them on land masses.
And the reason why this type of destruction would have been done around those more inhabited areas would be to be able to keep the bodies of the people and animals who were going to drowned in the flood concentrated in those areas so that the Flood currents wouldn’t transport them elsewhere, which would have forced the post-Flood deeper burying of these corpses by a strong wind to have a much larger swathe, and thus more Middle East like terrain destructions around the globe.
And according to the Biblical Creation&Flood Model, the Earth was initially a single land mass, but that was broken up by the forces involved in the Flood, e.g., rifts caused along inland rivers. So that splitting up of that single land mass first occurred, and then came the weighted Flooding then destruction upon the regions (=Middle East) which were inhabited and populated by then.
Now, of course James Green’ response needed to completely ignore my cited joint element of the Middle East’s special huge oil fields. Perhaps he actually believes that all the vegetation needed to be buried and pressurized underground to turn into oil had come from vegetation which had grown underground in that region...but died when the region no longer had enough rainfall to replenish the groundwater. Of course that is naturally completely impossible and preposterous, yet at the very least, I would have expected James to make the patent “accident” retort of Evolutionist, which to them explains most every catastrophic anomaly: namely that an asteroid had struck the region. That is only close to the Truth in the sense that many hurled boulders in that region would have produced part of this destruction. (And the “asteroid” claim of evolutionist is additionally also dubious to me because, somehow, it specifically struck the Earth where all of the dinosaurs and most of the under-evolved homo sapiens where then living...So that’s why these mostly became extinct then.)
The Bible Flood’s answer from Genesis for the present observation here is rather, as discussed and documented in this post, that after the ravaging Flood waters had subsided, there still remained much due to the heavy population of that region, many dead bodies of people and animals strewn about the ground, which, if left unburied would have resulted in an even more catastrophic plaguing blithe upon the Earth rendering these parts, and other areas due to airborne contamination, uninhabitable. And so God caused a strong wind, as seen in hurricanes and pointedly its spawned tornadoes, to upheavally blow over that region which resulted in the violent furthering uprooting, destruction and burying of all of this organic matter. And then overtime, these pressurized and decomposing materials became crude oil reservoirs.
It is also indicative to me that, (at least, as far as manifestly known/explored) thus far, most of these oil fields are not found in areas where there are great sand dunes, but in areas where the land relief, while also being desertified, does not have such a vastly thick layer of sand over it. This would indicate to me, according to the Bible’s Flood Destruction Model, that those burying winds/tornadoes ended up pushing away all of the dumped on sand in those areas away from the areas where organic matter had to be buried, thus resulting in Sand Dunes and little if any Oil Fields in some areas (e.g Western North Africa), but little or no sand accumulation/stacking =dunes but huge oil fields in other areas of the Middle East (e.g. Iraq, Arabian Peninsula).
So, in this case here, it is the “chicken”, as in the “accident” of a cataclysm, which unnaturally changed the regions land mass composition and relief, and ensuingly resulting in weather and rainfall patterns which are in harmony with the influences from such a region, which, especially comprehensively, best explains the presently observable data/results. So here also, the Biblical Flood Catastrophe and Destruction Model is a much more satisfactorily and acceptable answer.
32. June 8, 2015 (James Green @Jim1810)
You model don't work and do not explain the data. It just ignores it.
Nope it does explain the data...It is just not what you accept...Still does not make or mean it’s wrong.
Speaking of “ignoring the data”, The testimony by former ‘rising star’ (Genetic) Evolution professor Walter Veith referenced in here is quite telling:
33. June 8, 2015 (Atheist Advocate @AtheistAdvocate)
I'm sorry you trust @AiG as a source on geology. They're suggesting 1000-foot deep canyons were cut through basalt in *weeks.*
The incredible power in a cataclysmic global flood sweeping throughout the earth can do just that in that small amount of time. @AiG foundationally is not going by your circular ‘billions of years’ theoretical basis.
34. June 8, 2015 (Atheist Advocate @AtheistAdvocate)
It's funny your source is a couple people driving through, especially when the surrounding features also disprove a global flood
35. June 8, 2015 (Atheist Advocate @AtheistAdvocate)
The Columbia River Basalts sit on the John Day formation, which is sediment & ash accumulation (which don't occur underwater).
36. June 8, 2015 (Atheist Advocate @AtheistAdvocate)
And below that sedimentary rock is more lava rock. Entirely inconsistent w/ global flood.
http://www.nature.nps.gov/geology/parks/joda/index.cfm
37. June 8, 2015 (Sir John Tapps @JaTapps)
So nothing but rhetoric?
Nothing real?
38. June 8, 2015 (Carlton Whitfield @CarltonWhitfie8)
how old is our planet?
39. June 8, 2015 (Carlton Whitfield @CarltonWhitfie8)
do you believe the first hippo appears on earth from nothing ?
40. June 9, 2015 (Jesus Chrisn't @LOLatJesus)
1 no they haven't. 2 that's irrelevant to this conversation too.
41. June 9, 2015 (Jesus Chrisn't @LOLatJesus)
"note" doesn't mean it's the truth.
Never said/meant that it did. That equivocation clearly is necessarily only in your defensively wishful imagination....
42. June 9, 2015 (Jesus Chrisn't @LOLatJesus)
so let's discount what they all said. What are you left with? A common geological feature on a hill.
43. June 9, 2015 (Jesus Chrisn't @LOLatJesus)
https://twitter.com/LOLatJesus/status/608169167175450624
so anything published in a book is true? Lol. That's funny.
No..You’re tellingly “funny” for jumping to that mal-construing conclusion...I said ‘(probably) “vetted”’ (=“examined carefully” ...i.e., that the one claiming that he had said that before his death was credible.) There just was no way of further vetting that claim since the guy was dead by then.
44. June 9, 2015 (Jesus Chrisn't @LOLatJesus)
no, he - after examination of the evidence with geologists he stood in court and declared that it
wasn't an ark but a common.. || geological feature. It doesn't matter if anyone claims he changed his mind before his death because. A) we have no way of... || ... testing that claim and b) the evidence that it is a geological feature still says it's a geological feature.
...not according to the examination of other geologists
--
Sorry that you aren’t allowed to think that I could/would...
--
A) The credibility examination (=vetting) of a witness’s testimony, -even in relation to a dead person, is a perfectly admissible and acceptable form of judicial evidence.
--
b) Again not according to the article which I had long linked to (see pointedly “THE DOGMA OF GRADUALISM IN GEOLOGY” section) ...which you clearly need to hoodwinkingly ignore...Engage and refute its claims head on and then your, now merely smug, claim of being right can be deemed “admissible”.
Also a very possible theory for that present formation could easily be that a landslide and/or volcanic flow had afterwards occurred over that site, and flowed over, and into the still standing ark, and would have been molded into the present observable formation by the frame of the ark but also causing significance to it. And that damage would have led people who priorly had known about it and visited the site, to now go ahead and help themselves to its material elements (‘given that clearly God Himself had not acted to preserve it’), yet whose, Josephus says, remains were still present and being shown in the 1st Century A.D.
Other comprehensive links of Interest on this topic, -as that claimed Durupinar site for the location of the ark indeed has much more corroborating/circumstancing other elements going for it:
45. June 9, 2015 (Born free 1979 @bornfree1979)
"I don't believe life come from chance and progress. I think it came from mud shaped by a god!" || ... "because that make more sense to me!"
With all of the various, validated reasons there is to believe that there is a God who can do such things....not to mention that corpses do disintegrate back into dirt/dust, then of course, that make much more sense then chance and supposed “progress”
46. June 9, 2015 (Carlton Whitfield @CarltonWhitfie8)
or you could simply answer the question.
47. June 9, 2015 (Carlton Whitfield @CarltonWhitfie8)
so you simply don't understand science or you just avoid it?
48. June 9, 2015 (D'squarius Green Jr. @SocietalCanary)
Maybe you didn't understand me. Even if ALL the ice melted, ALL the underground water || magically came above ground, and ALL water vapor in the atmosphere condensed, there STILL || would not be enough liquid water in existence to flood the world. Completely impossible.
-Pre-Flood = single land mass then continental drift caused by Flood forces
-not present high mountains (35,000 ft) due to continental drift compression
-perhaps 75% land and 25% water distribution pre Flood
-as with hail and snow depot (Job 38:21-23) God manifestly drew Flood rain water from other terrestrial planets in Galaxy - Mars, Also to prevent their colonization and thus check spread of sin in this fallen galaxy
-reason why God won’t destroy Earth again with flood (Tsunami or Fire yes)
49. June 11, 2015 (Oklahoma Geek @AnOkGeek)
Do you any evidence that Egyptian dating is wrong? Your references merely assert it. Pt. 1
Probably because it is by now a well-known/acceptedfactor in scholarly circles.
50. June 11, 2015 (Oklahoma Geek @AnOkGeek)
The numbers AiG gives makes it _worse_ than I offered you. They give 1445 BC ([=less than]1000 AF) as the 12th dyn. Giza=4th pt2
The dating of Egyptian Dynasties is indeed very sketchy given the evidence of common, indeed governorship-type, regnal and/or dynastic coregencies, and so still stringing them up consecutively, as many chronologists still want to do, is wishfully very naive. The following reconstruction by Donovan Courville which also has the 12th Dynasty as involving the Exodus years of ca. 1445 B.C. is indeed a very possible, indeed most probable, chronological reconstruction.
-Good related resource on the Pharaohs: Unwrapping the Pharaohs by John Ashton & David Down: Summary Video || Online Book || Videos Presentations
-Good related resource on the Pharaohs: Unwrapping the Pharaohs by John Ashton & David Down: Summary Video || Online Book || Videos Presentations
51. June 11, 2015 (Oklahoma Geek @AnOkGeek)
I offered 1K yrs, at generous growth, and the entire human race to build Giza. There are still not enough people. pt3 || I dare you to provide a model with the Flood at 4300 years ago which populates the world fast enough to build Giza. pt4
Just going by the fact that when Israel exited Egypt after being slaves there, they numbered 600,000 men (20 years+) (Num 2), thus at least 2,000,000 people in total (women+children), and were engaged in building up Egypt, including its pyramids, then it would only, at a very large extent, take at least 600,000, and up to 2,000,000, people to be able to build the pyramids. Then considering that it was only 70 Israelite males (Gen 46:8-27) who had first settle in Goshen in Egypt (Gen 47:1ff) about (as Biblical Chronology reveals) 215 years before then that growth rate can be used to approximate population growth then. So quite roughly calculating, from the 8 people who survived the flood, and 1000 for growth, you’d have 2,000,000 men and ca. 10,000,000 people as a total population. So there’s enough people ca 200 years in to build the pyramid, especially considering the likely fact that not all ca. 600,000 Israelite slaves were involved in just building pyramids, but just a fraction of them, e.g. 50,000.
Then the Biblical info also includes that people live much longer then (up to 1000), including for a few generations after the flood, and were fertile for most of those years. E.g. they could have children every 1-2 years for up to at least ca. 400 years e.g. 160-550. So they could potentially have 10x more children than today during their fertile years. So the total world population earlier on after the flood would have been growing at a much faster rate than the later rate when Israel became slaves in Egypt and people then lived up to, comparatively, only around 140 years.
So there were more than enough people, in just Egypt, to build up pyramids after the Flood.
Added to those estimations, the people’s size and strength also diminished as their lifespans did, so it would have taken less people to build the first pyramids after the flood than later given their greater strength and stature. That may explain why such grandiose constructions were attempted and built then, and it would be later, smaller and weaker generations who had to expend more effort in order to keep up with that prior grand standard while themselves being smaller and weaker, and thus needing more manpower.
Alternative Resolution 1
Egypt + Pyramids built before the flood & some survived
7th Dynasty missings
Alternative Resolution 2a
Genealogical subtractive editing in Masoretic text
Alternative Resolution 2b
Genealogical additive editing in LXX
52. June 11, 2015 (Oklahoma Geek @AnOkGeek)
When facts threaten creationist conspiracy theories, ignore not just the facts but the math. #CreationistCommandments
That’s either a baiting/taunting statement or just wishful ignorance....Properly resolving these genealogical issues in the various validly competing Bible texts is literally a dissertational matter, which takes much time and work.
Bill Maher versus a (partly) Biblically Literate/Correct Christian (Ralph Reed) video
...So Bill Maher (actually) has, and “repeatedly” so, engaged a (more than less) knowledgeable Christian: Ralph Reed....If Maher really want a challenge, then, -as long already challenged, engage a Christian who is purely a minister (i.e. a full time Pastor-Theologian like John MacArthur) instead of a Christian who dilutes his time operating as a political operative and thus is (clearly) not as sharp as he could be about what the Bible says/teaches:
[00:00] Maher: “Why is Faith a Good Thing?” (BTW...it is not ‘about you’ Ralph)
-Well if one is to argue in the unbelief vacuum of Bill Maher, where he is posing his question from a premise that ‘God doesn’t exist; then Faith vs. non-Faith doesn’t matter. Just do whatever you want and think is best for your life & conscience. If however one believes in God, and that God will judge the entire world according to what He has said is right vs. wrong, then it is not a matter of faith vs. non-faith, it is a matter of consequential Obedience vs. Disobedience.
But again, as with those who rightly understand the Bible’s issue of Creation such as the people at Answers in Genesis, I always find it LOL ridiculous how these Atheist/Agnostic will get all “blue in the face” when you don’t find their Evolution theories and claims scientifically (i.e. demonstratively/provably) valid...Yet they themselves keep “sinning” against the chief tenet of their belief by not acting in a “survival-of-the-fittest (=richest)” ways by trying to act good towards others, pointedly others who are in need compared to them.....(unless of course when it comes to abortion, because then, ‘that is a perfect, in fact necessary way to control the population’...but then they complain about people letting others die of starvation...Why isn’t that (Survival of the Fittest) “Population Control”...Only because, unlike unborn babies, they can see those others who are suffering and dying and that hurts their sensibilities and conscience...So then, they want to do what the God (and not Evolution) has said in the Bible, and want to help such less fortunate people. Make up your whimsical/subjective minds: Evolution or God....
[00:51] Trying to believe in Heaven without (which of course no one has seen, except people who have had Biblically valid prophetic vision) without having studied and verified that the Bible is True and Trustworthy, is literally: “putting the cart before oxen”... Christians have “faith” that there is a Heaven primarily because the One who they believe in has said there is...and he is in charge of it (e.g. John 14:1-3ff). So asininely trying to ridicule someone for believing in Heaven when they have already stated that they are a Believer in Jesus Christ is like trying to ridicule someone who said that they will get $1 million dollar from their uncle for Christmas when their uncle is Bill Gates...Start by trying to disprove that: (1) “Bill Gates” is not rich, (2) that he is not their uncle, (3) that he didn’t make that promise to them..and then, if all that is first done, you can “jump” to (vulgarly) ridiculizing them for believing what their rich uncle had promised them. Simple honest/sincere/respectful discussion logic....Seriously, why can’t you all engage a Christian without defensively becoming so (passive-)aggressive towards them...Do their “fairy-tales” threaten you so much???? Don’t see you all unbelievers getting so bothered and emotional with people who believe in actual fairy tales, even Scientologists for example (unless they have used their psychologically manipulative tactics to get you to get upset at them).
The actual only (basically) honest non-believer that I have come across is that guy who was offering $1 million to anyone who can demonstrate/prove the supernatural....If I remember correctly he included fulfilled Bible prophecy (or I was going to challenge his offer with that)...but no engaging response...
[01:05] “If I die in my sleep it is only going to get better”...Well isn’t that the reassurance and peace of mind that God/Jesus wanted to give believers in Him....especially as He knew that pagans and heathens would (sooner or later) murderously persecute them for such beliefs...because they are the sock-puppet pawns of Satan. Give unbelievers (including “Babylonians” (Rev 18:2&3): the prophesied confederacy of “Papists, Protestants and Worldlings” (Rev 16:2-4ff) enough time as their worldview is inevitably defeated and shriveled up by the honestly undeniable* Biblical Truth, and they will resume resorting to murderous violence. (DA 306.1-2)
* That is why the “New Atheist” does not bother to reasonably nor intellectually honestly engage a Bible Believer, they instead need to be flippant or defaultly dismissive about them. Just admit that you rather ‘die not knowing’....not that that “willful ignorance” is going to help you in your still future Judgement....
[01:14] You do have “faith” if you are/to be a Good Person..and it is certainly not Faith in Atheistic and Evolutionary Theories/Beliefs...As Jesus said: “Only God is Good” (Luke 18:19) Funny how atheists only started to “be good” when it was all to easy to reject their worldview because it was defaultly/inherently bad/mean/immoral/selfish/evil. So they then started to, literally, whitewash it. (E.g., there was a(n early) day when all porn websites were black background)...and on that subject: Unbelievers are only “good” in the “pain vs. pleasure” way..In the 60s and 70s they declared that “being good” was to have “Free Love”...until they epidemically because sick with STDs, HIV and AIDS by the 1970.....Now being good is “Safe Sex”...until, at least some of them with any dignity, got tired of being either used (=abused) or outrightly rejected in their (one night stand) lifestyle...and now they are back to getting into marriage bonds....
[01:41] I Biblically see that Capitalistic Christians are Evil, as in Babylonians, and are just shirking/curtailing the Socialistic Mandate that Jesus has given them, but I am indeed still waiting to see the first e.g. “Atheistic Medical Center/Hospital” (i.e. private), even for just the first 1000 Catholic/Protestant/Jewish ones that exist out there....And don’t claim “public/state hospitals”...because those Christians/God-Believers also pay the taxes for those public institutions...on top of funding their private ones...
[01:52] It is Unbiblical Religion that has led to, or instigated, all of those bad thing, Prime Example the Medieval Catholic Church....just as the Bible had prophesied (Rev 13:7; 18:24)...and that is because it has been taken over by Satan. As shown here by (former atheist) David Wood, the New Testament is crystal clear that (True/Biblical) Christianity is to be a religion of Peace.
Net tally: Good/Biblical Religion has saved more lives than Bad Religions has taken...and going by the fact that aborted infants are viable lives if they are not so “terminated”, Unbelievers and some Fake Christians are presently murdering over 60 million people per year....Now that’s an uncomparable number (Rev 9:21)
You have to believe in God (and not “Magic”), one who will hold people accountable for harming even “the least of these” (Matt 25:45) to not be deceived into believing that abortion (i.e. after conception) is not murder.
[02:39] So Ralph Reed is right on in stating that the Bible was speaking of indentured servitude and not racial/ethnic/chattel slavery. And (so) the ‘submit, no matter how harsh’ was in that context that the slave had a debt that he had to repay and if he didn’t want to work or “hard enough”, the owed-master was indeed allowed to “force” him/her to. The Bible did not give a license for master to unnecessarily beat and abuse their slaves, but they did have the right to discipline them so they can pay off what they owe...or else they were stealing.
Again, in Israel, people in need were to be freely be taken care of by those with means (Deut 15:1-5ff)..So someone only became a slave if they had chosen to live beyond their means and had borrowed money and now couldn’t pay it back. So like today’s credit system which can seize your assets or garnish your income -thus forcingly making you work for them (~slavery), people who did not pay their freely opted to debts, were to be diligent to work for the person they owed it to in order to settle that debt....And yet by every 7th calender year, all debts, and thus slave, had to be released and God would, and did, severely punish Israel for violating that seventh year/sabbatical release law (Jer 34:8-22; cf. 2 Chr 36:20-21).
In the New Testament Paul does give a counsel to a certain escaped slave Philemon, who apparently was being cheated by his (Roman) master, to go back and serve continue serving him. That was in agreement with what Jesus himself had counseled (Matt 5:40-42, 43-48|Luke 6:27-30ff) and that was all in the pertinent context of the day that it served no greater good for Jews/Christians to engage in open confrontation with the ruling power then: Rome and Romans. It was the Zealot faction of Jews who wanted to engage in Militancy against Rome and Romans and it ended up in the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple. So Jesus’ peace approach was indeed the best, even in the face of murderous persecution, and it was indeed that peaceful approach which ended up conquering the Roman Empire by the 300's A.D. (Then the Roman Catholic Church ignore all such principles of Christ and began using Rome’s military might to (forcefully) “advance/spread” Christianity...and we are still fighting those wars today....)
And, the only slavery in the Bible related to ethnicity (more than race) was when Israel had conquered another nation [i.e. one which had become a tangible vital threat to them and/or humanity e.g. the infectious-disease-ridden, promiscousness+homosexuality+bestiality practicing Canaanites] that those foreign people were allowed to be enslaved....because, believe me, they would not submit to Israelites by choice and they could not be trust to roam around freely, neither could/should they now become an economic burden on Israel)
Again it was only “Bad Religion” which led moronic and idiotic, selfish and greedy falsely so-called “Christians”, -completely mal-reading the Bible, to go kidnap people in Africa to come and do their field and house work for them...And it indeed was Christians correctly reading and understanding the Bible who ended up defeating this Slavery System.
(Good) Slavery still exists in America Bill....just don’t pay your debts/bills and try to continue living at your current income earning....Not going get away with it....even if they have to physically lock you up....or let you stay out of jail so you can work to pay your creditors back.
-Oh and by the way, as certain Bible rightly emphasize, in Matt 5:43 it was the Pharisees who had added “and hate your enemies” to God’s command to “Love your Neighbors”...Like all other things, Jesus was correcting that Pharisaical misrepresentation.
And relatedly, Jesus made the clarification of the OT Law in Matt 5:38 by pointing out that it was “evil” people who should not even be resisted in the eye-for-an-eye way because such people would not allow themselves to be subjected to justice but would instead use force to oppose it which could lead to the death of the wrong person...so better to just let it go and let God Himself deal with that evil person. (That was Christ counsel to Christians then under the iron rule of Romans and eventually Christianity did conquer Rome.)
(Telling how unbelievers indeed patently just spray their moronically and idiotically simplistic claims about the Bible and Bible Believers have to spend much more time properly explaining them in their exegetical/wider context...but then those unbelievers typically moronically mockingly dismiss such responses because it is not a simplistic one.)
[03:41] ...And the man who had sex with that woman also was to be stoned to death by these men... (At least the women were spared from having to do the stoning). Again. The All-Wise and Holy God said: no fornication nor adultery...And for people (i.e. Israelites) who had freely Covenantly said that they would live by all that God had said’ (Exod 24:3), which included both such Laws against sexual immorality and its punishment, then that was just the/their deal. Again, if you don’t believe in that God, and thus are posing that question from that atheistic premise, then there is not even any reason to pose it. If however you are trying to claim that ‘that God is being unnecessarily unfair, then just consider what problems and compounding issues are the result of sex outside of marriage: from unwanted pregnancy, abortions, marital cheating, divorce, single parenting, “illegitimate” children, STDs, Epidemics, emotional hurt, etc..That’s all the hurt, sickness/disease, suffering and death that a Loving and Wise God was trying to spare the People who had said that they wanted to live by His Ways. That’s what the actual “context” of that Holy & Perfect Law of Love & Liberty (Psa 19:7; Matt 22:34-40; Rom 7:12; 13:8-10 James 2:8-13) actually is (See DA 308.1-4ff)....Actually encompass and engage it if you can/dare....
[03:57-06:17] Succinctly said, as shown above in [02:39] : Jesus did not “contradict” what His Father God (actually through Jesus (i.e. Michael) Himself -Exod 23:20-23, 32:34; Judges 2:1) had said in/for the Old Covenant. Jesus either elucidating brought out the Full/Right-doing/Spiritual meaning of those Laws of the OT and/or was just rejecting the Unbiblical man-made teachings, traditions “Case Law” that the Religious Leaders had tacked on to those principal Laws of God. (Matt 5:17-20; See DA 307.2-4)
With the woman caught in adultery in John 8...clearly it was a set up if she had been “caught in the act” as claimed...because the man was not also brought forth...So Jesus knew, contrary to what the law on stoning required, that these were sinful/corrupt, and thus invalid accusers, and thus the case, could not be prosecuted. Jesus did not “correct His Dad”, He corrected scheming sinful men....Jesus never said that the woman couldn’t be stoned, as the OT Law said. He just pointed out that the case wasn’t a righteous/valid one as the Law required.
(As typical with Christians still in Babylon, Ralph Reed is very foggy in regards of the New vs. Old Covenant...and it is indeed the confusion of Babylonians which, as with the French Revolution, “inspires” heathens to rail against God and reject the Bible.)
[06:19-09:15] Democracy should be able to withstand people using their money to support whatever political view they want. It indeed is a Free Speech issue. And, on the flip-side, what should be tax free with churches is (indeed) actually money used in humanitarian charitable work (indeed homeless shelters).
[09:16-10:35] Dognald Drumpf is indeed an AntiChrist. The worst thing about him is that he is delusionally convinced he is “the best Christian”
[10:36-11:57ff] Dognald does lie like the Devil, as a good Antichrist would/should (John 8:44)... Only “Babylonian” are deceived by this (Capitalistic) charlatan “man of sin”....
[11:58-13:13ff] LOL (as I have been saying)..Now if (New) Atheist easily see someone as an “AntiChrist”, it is guaranteed to be true...however they are easily deluded by Pope Francis. (See at Ezek 39:24)....
[13:29ff] Dognald Drumpf has said “he is a great Christian”...and yet never has asked for forgiveness (=AntiChrist mentality/talk)...but only believes in “eating crackers”... (more AntiChrist mentality/talk) any great Christian would know that the Communion wafer is not for forgiving sins...Only an utterly confused, poor man’s Babylonians, would even know that Biblical fact.
::Ralph Reed got schooled in that second interview...Typical Babylonian: passible on Gospel Issues....Satanically deluded in regards to Christian Economics....
Notes
[1] Most emblematic case in point, as see in this (personally shot) video of a Catholic Believer seeking to obtain forgiveness of her sins through the penance of going up the hilled (Montreal) St. Joseph Oratory’s (reserved) stairs on her knees. [2:20ff] Contra e.g. 1 John 1:9; Eph 2:8-9; Heb 4:14-16; cf. Acts 8:18-23. (By the way, that Catholic Oratory is the largest church building in Canada.)
[2] Perfect case in point, this TYT video/commentary clip claiming that North Carolina Pastor Charles Worley had ‘called for gays and lesbians to be electrocuted’....He surely did not. He instead called for doing the self-exposing experiment that indeed reveals that homosexuality is not conducive to life. And clearly, (which actually initially surprised me as being counterintuitive, -since I was expecting, “as (biasedly) primed”, that the pastor would call for the electrocution of these people), the pastor said that the people would be fed...Which means, (somewhat like prison inmates condemned to life), that they would lived out their own natural life...but just would not be able to reproduce. Indeed if gays and lesbians constrained themselves to their own life “prison” of homosexual relation, they would not have any (natural) offspring. But of course they “sin against their own beliefs” and just do not. In fact, contrary to Cenk Uygur’s vacuous retort, if agreed upon and/or less costly, they may actually have heterosexual relationships in order to have such (natural) offspring. Surely he does not actually naively think that ‘homosexuals cannot have heterosexual intercourse’, indeed even flings, -pointedly, as per the context here, when in such a situation where they would want to reproduce...Just ask all of the self-converted former gays and lesbians out there....It incontrovertibly is ultimately all just a matter of choice...and even for the heterosexual....again just as all of the “experimenters/dabblers” out there...Indeed if successful reproduction was the condition, ....or not..., for being liberated, the mixing of the gay and lesbian group would either way, surely or likely result in heterosexual activity.
[3] Reminds me of the emblematic comical anecdote of Richard Gattling and his flawed hopes for his invented Gattling Gun. See here[26:36-28:31].
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