We're giving the government a reason to regulate homeschooling

Nicely put! I'll have to remember that...lol.

I do think Mandiana had a point about other problems with the bible. Even if one agrees that they should teach their child evolution...or your version of God enhanced evolution (sorry for naming it..lol)..others who have no belief in God will say there are more errors in teaching the bible..like other things taken on faith. They will not care about the fine line you drew...you know? For them it's all the same. I get you are not saying the Bible is being proven wrong..that science is revealing true interpretation...but to a non-Christian it's the bible being proven wrong. So, your distinction will be lost.

 

I wasn't speaking about scientific problems, Steve, but moral ones.

Genesis 22:1-10
Numbers 31:7-18
Exodus 21:7-11
Leviticus 20:13
Leviticus 20:9
Deuteronomy 22:20-21
Acts 5:1-11
Jeremiah 50:21-22

 

wow...sometimes atheists know their bible better than some Christians. I know mine pretty well...but I can't just whip out verses. I'll have to look those up. Did you want discussion on these or were you only pointing them out? I'll be looking these up..I know a few ...but not all by just the verse.

 

I will say this..I notice all the ones you picked are from the old testament, save one...and 1/2 of Acts is NOT written to the gentiles. From just this glance I am seeing that an understanding of dispensations would answer these...

 

Some of the most informed and thoughtful biblical scholars or enthusiasts I've been lucky enough to debate with were folks I found on atheist forums.

 

I wasn't raised an Atheist. I was raised as a fundamentalist Christian and knew the books of the bible in order by heart by the age of 5. I would venture to say a greater percentage of Atheists have read the Bible all the way through than Christians.

I'm not sure what dispensations are. It sounds Catholic?

The verses I listed are just a few where God, or someone who spoke for God, was telling people to rape and/or murder. In the Bible, God frequently encouraged rape and murder. As a parent, I have a hard time wrapping my head around that a being that is referred to as our "father" would do that. It just doesn't make sense to me.

 

BTW... the answer to this that satisfied me as a child was that these people weren't really dead because God might resurrect them and/or they didn't matter because they didn't matter to God or were evil... they were simply not a part of the chosen few (or in today's terms we may say "saved"). But as an adult, I realize, that God wasn't just mercifully putting these people who weren't his chosen few to sleep, he was telling his chosen few to become murderers and rapists.

 

Genesis: Picture of Christ's sacrifice. Isaac would never have been slain by his father. God already promised Abraham that his seed would produce as many heirs as the stars in the sky. Abraham knew this..and trusted this. the whole chapter is a picture of salvation through the blood of Christ.

Numbers: This speaks of the when the Midianites were conquered. Not quite seeing an issue here. It is a picture of the Lord's day of vengeance on the seduction of Israel by the Midianites.

Exodus: concerns the treatment of servants

Leviticus: explains what the death penalty was required for in that time. Things like adultery, incest...etc. The other Leviticus verse is the one used to show that homosexuality is a sin.

deut. We have already established that adultery or sexual sin was punishable by death. That speaks to it as well.

Acts: another time when sin was punishable by death

Jeremiah: Lord's vengeance..more battles and war.

I'm not getting the big deal here...Christians never claimed to be pacifists. Not sure why any of this is objectionable actually.

 

No, not Catholic. Different times in the bible were governed in different ways. God does not change but his dealings with man have...as he had different covenants....Abraham, Noah, etc. There was a time before the Law, during the Law and after the Law. We no longer live under the Law. We live in the age of grace...the church age. Not every book is written to the gentile...not every promise applies to us but may have applied to the Jews or not the Jews and to the Gentiles or to both. Depends on the book...it's easy to tell as the book is already divided by old and new testament..but there are several smaller divisions as well.

During the times you mentioned...the Jews were the chosen people. It was not until the Jews rejected Christ that Heaven and salvation were opened up to the gentile. I see no instance where God wanted a man to rape a woman. In fact, many instances point to men being severely punished for rape. Keep in mind, much of the bible speaks of occurrences...but that they were not all God condoned. For instance...David was punished for some of his acts and Saul is a great example of what not to be. Yes, Jews went to war. Yes, the death penalty was used.

We may not be able to wrap our minds around something but that does not mean God does not exist. We may have had bad teaching and been told something cold like God did not care...but that does not mean God does not exist or that person was not wrong.

 

Most people with a solid understanding of evolution would not expect that.

First, humans didn't evolve from apes and monkeys. Primates (humans, apes, etc.) evolved from a common ancestor.

Second, evolution is not progressive. It's not the climbing of a ladder of the pursuit of a goal. It's simply the process by which mutations are passed one from one generation to another. What determines what mutations get passed on (and over time develops new species) is the environment. Since apes and monkeys have evolved to make a very good living in their respective environments why one earth should we expect them to start evolving into humans?

 

Steve - I can't support you in this. I'm with you completely in your stance on creationism but I'm with Mandiana on the bigger picture. There needs to be a line drawn where the gov't can not tresspass and this is one of those lines. I should be allowed to teach my kids what I deem important, even if it's completely wrong. The gov't should step in when I am failing in my basic duties to my children but if it starts regulating what I teach them as a homeschooler then it's dictating what I teach them in my own house. It has every right to regulate what's taught in schools as those schools are the gov'ts responsibility. But that's where it stops.

 

Um - no! The sun does not orbit the earth. The planets do not orbit the earth. Comets do not orbit the earth. Only the moon orbits the earth (actually, the earth orbits the moon too). It's not just a matter of perspective; it's a matter of gravity.

 

Dawninns: How are you??? I have missed you!

Steve: Did you say "gravity"? LOL.

 

I'm not saying that I agree with such an action, should the government be aggressive enough to do so; however, I do see more and more anger against Christians - largely a reaction against so-called Christian activists. It wouldn't surprise me at all if homeschooling is outright banned across Europe in the near future and a child's education highly regulated. The environment may be ripe for that here within a decade. The more we make it a public issue, the sooner the moment will come.

 

Nope. I just wrote it.

 

Try picture yourself doing that with your own child. You don't see this as twisted?

Here are the parts of the scripture I have a problem with:

Now, imagine our army goes into Iraq, kills all the men, women and boys, and then marry the young girls (in my mind marrying children = rape). This is what Moses/God told their soldiers to do.

... you mean the treatment of women who are sold into slavery by their fathers.

I'm not a proponent of the death penalty. Again, why didn't God just have us fall dead when we sinned, why tell people to kill other people? And why should a child be put to death for cursing their parents? What if the girl was not a virgin because she was raped? Does/did she deserve death as well?

Again... God took care of Sodom and Gomorrah... why not take care of these people? Why put his people in a position of becoming murderers?

 

BTW... I'm sorry I let myself get so far into this. I usually keep all these thoughts to myself, lol. For people that find comfort and inspiration in Christianity, I am really happy for them. I'm not really trying to talk anyone out of their beliefs or anything and the last thing I want to do is have you experience negative thoughts about something you are obviously so passionate about and find to be a good thing in your life So, I'm going to respectfully withdraw myself from this conversation.

 

Since we've moved to this topic, maybe I can throw my hat into this ring as well.

1) Some passages are simply misinterpreted. A classic example is Elisha and the bear. He'd just humiliated worshipers of Baal by fixing a city's water supply in the name of Israel's God. The correct meaning of those taunting him is not 'children' but young men between 14 and 30 - think soccer hooligans. It's clear they were out for his blood, so he claimed the promise of God: "I shall bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you." Right then, a bear appeared, probably defending its young. That could have happened to a couple of a Sunday afternoon walk, but the timing made it a miracle and an act of deliverance. This is very different from the interpretation that Elisha called on a bear to maul a bunch of children calling him "baldy."

2) We have an invisible fence in our yard. Its purpose is to keep our dogs safe by defining a boundary for them. When they first try to cross the fence, they get a painful jolt. After a while, they learn not to cross the boundary. Soon, in effect, the boundary becomes a habit and we hardly need the fence at all. This is, in part, why there were such harsh penalties in the OT law. The Lord was calling out a people of his own and defining the boundaries within which they would be blessed. Yes, there were some painful jolts (in the form of death penalties and the like), but soon the people understood the limits and followed them.

3) It's very unfair to judge a culture from three millennia ago based on our current culture. Indeed, we cast judgment on generations in our own culture who lived less than a century ago, and that's within living memory. We very soon forget the context in which they lived. This is very true of ancient times. In an age when child sacrifice was almost the norm among primitive peoples, the practices of the people of Israel were advanced and humane in comparison.

4) We mistakenly believe sometimes that, just because a story appears in the OT, every biblical character was right. Jephthah, for example, committed a wicked act when he sacrificed his daughter; it was not right. David, for example, was a serial adulterer despite being one of Israel's greatest men of God. Yes, the bible does describe some horrific stories, and this adds to its authenticity.

5) Yes, there are sometimes contradictions. For example, there are differences in the listed wives of Esau, if I remember correctly, between two different biblical passages. Yes, this means there are some errors in transcription and translation. It's the original writing that is inspired. None of these issues, though, affect the authority of the bible.

As Dawn mentioned, atheists are often very insightful students of the bible, and we can't just ignore their observations. Once again, it's like science: We must accept the facts and deal with them. To my mind, though, while I don't have answers to every challenge and must rely on faith for now, these examples simply add to the credibility of the bible. Why invent stories of barbarity if trying to woo someone to your beliefs? The records have the ring of authenticity to them - and that counts for a lot.

PS - Just saw your note, Mandiana. I've tried to withdraw myself a few times, but it never works!

 

Mandiana...I don't think you sounded like you were trying to shed a negative light on Christianity. You ask the tough questions...that's okay. I don't have all the answers. I will be very honest and tell you that I don't know why God didn't just allow men to fall dead but had the Israelites kill them.

As far a Abraham...God did not allow Abraham to slay his son. He never planned to. This was a picture of God allowing HIS son to die for us.

Yes, the bible can be bloody. In today's world, we only want to see bunnies and sunlight in the Word. That's just not the case.

 

I 100% agree with your post...except this part..LOL. There are NO contradictions in the bible..and if you see one, either you need to study it further or you are reading a bible tainted by man's interpretation. Of course..that is pretty much what you just said, right? Well, at any rate, this KJV girl needs to throw in a little plug about the KJV...lol...that book has NO contradictions. I used to have all the answers about that...but I have long since studied the details..so please don't bash me! LOL...just putting in my plug as I usually do when the Word comes into play.