re: Would you support government or Christian’s in the United States?

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Jesus spoke in parables to help them understand. A teaching tool. Not to make it cryptic.

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Have you read the Gospel according to “Mark”? His disciples didn’t understand his parables. They were dolts, even in the later redacted gospels. Derrr Jesus derrr how many times must I forgive my brother who sins against me? Derrrr…

Good morning. I apologize for the way I have responded to you.

1 Peter 3:14–16 (NASB95): But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you ?are blessed. And do not fear their ?intimidation, and do not be troubled,
15 but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;
16 ?and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.

I have not been acting with gentleness, nor reverence, toward you. You are a fellow image bearer, and I have failed to treat you as such. I make no excuse, and I promise to do better. I hope you accept my apology, and hold me to my own professed standards. I hope we can put the past behind us, and begin a fruitful discussion at some point.

PS,
You might find this interesting. Switching gears a little because if I made a new thread it would be deleted or anchored.

Have you ever thought Genesis 19:24 sounded funny? Why does it say the LORD twice. Seems very awkward and redundant.

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Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven

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I believe one of those “LORDs”, probably the second one, was originally “Elohim”.

Then look at Amos 4:11. The LORD is speaking, uses “I” in the first person and then references “God” in the third person. God here in Hebrew is Elohim. YHWH compares what he personally did to what Elohim did.

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“I overthrew you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, And you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze; Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the LORD.

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Compare to Deut 32:8-9. I know I’ve made the argument before but this is relevant. See how it reads that the LORD (YHWH) is one of the sons of God (Elohim) who is giving the LORD his inheritance. You can’t inherit something from oneself.

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8When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. 9But the LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.

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Then you have 1 Cor 8:6. God - Theos - is Elhohim in the OT. Lord - Kyrios - is YHWH in the OT.

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yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

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Paul wasn’t the only one who thought this way. Clement of Rome held the same views, and wanted to reiterate that the LORD Kyrios and God Theos were separate beings and both were important.
1 Clem 29:2

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For thus it is written: When the Most High divided the nations, when He dispersed the sons of Adam, He fixed the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God. His people Jacob became the portion of the Lord, and Israel the measurement of His inheritance.

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Why was this so important? It wasn’t heretical at all. There was one God and one Lord. The Bible literally never ever states that YHWH is the only deity. YHWH is constantly compared to the other deities and judges them - it just says no other deity is as badass and special as YHWH. It’s propaganda- why else would YHWH be jealous of them if they weren’t his peers? Nevertheless, people who read the passages and ignore the references to the other gods and cherry pick verses like this:

Isaiah 47:10

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You felt secure in your wickedness; you said, “No one sees me”; your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray, and you said in your heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me.”

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Have to come to grips with language such as this. Now, Nineveh wasn’t the only city in existence. This is simply a boast of propaganda. A “boast of incomparability” as the late Dr. Michael Heiser puts it.

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This is the exultant city that lived securely, that said in her heart, “I am, and there is no one else.” What a desolation she has become, a lair for wild beasts! Everyone who passes by her hisses and shakes his fist.

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If Isaiah literally means that YHWH is the only deity, then you’d have to acknowledge Nineveh was the only city in existence. The same literally Hebrew is used in both passages word for literal Hebrew word in the same order.

Ever heard of Philo of Alexandria? Lots have been written about him but he also expressed the “two powers of heaven” argument, and was a Jew, not a Christian. He lived right before the alleged time of Jesus. Paul and Philo’s lives overlapped.

Christianity didn’t come from rabbinic Judaism. It came from a Judaism that believed in multiple deities, one being an invisible spirit and one being a being that had human form but was divine. Philo believed God formed man in the image of YHWH. John doesn’t contradict the OT when he says no one has ever seen God - because he’s talking about Elohim or Theos. The deity wrestling with Jacob was YHWH. Philo believed all things were made by Elohim and all things were made through his agent YHWH. That’s precisely was Paul believed about Theos and Kyrios. And that’s why Jesus is never ever once stated to be the son of Kyrios… because he IS Kyrios. He’s the son of Theos.

ETA: then if you argue that Theos and Kyrios, aka Elohim and YHWH, aka the Father and Son are “one in essence”, then you have the makings of the Trinity. There’s no need to force the Trinity though because the Bible never says there is one deity. Quite the contrary for anyone who actually read the Bible. YHWH doesn’t even prohibit the worship of other gods in the first commandment - he just says not to put those other gods “before him” or on a higher level of importance.

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Do you consider yourself to be open minded?

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Yes

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Unbiased?

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Probably. Less than most. But see response above.

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that every time an opposing view is expressed- you automatically assume the person is ignorant or intentionally misleading?

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It’s natural. You do the exact same thing.

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your worldview being false?

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No

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Again , what does each of us, with opposing worldviews, stand to lose if one of us is wrong?

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What is Pascal chose the wrong bet? What is Mormonism is the correct one?

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I do, however, agree that he baited Dawkins into a confession- that he is not opposed to intelligent design; he is opposed to God being the Designer

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He has shown ID, on planet earth, to be false. He is not and cannot outright reject the possibility of an intelligence seeding life. Totally different. Ben is conflating the origin of life to evolution, which is misleading. I believe it’s intentional. It doesn’t change that on planet earth, all known life is related genetically. We all share a common ancestor.

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Sure it is. Natural selection and adaptation are- but universal common descent is not observable and repeatable. It is assumed.

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You really should read one of Dawkins books.

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Even if life started by a “god”, it still couldn’t have been from any of the many deities described in the Hebrew or Christian scriptures,

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How can you possibly know that?

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Because the entire book, written and redacted by hundreds of scribes, maybe thousands, is riddled with errors, contradictions, and scientific falsehoods. Do we really have to get into the firmament like a solid cast metal mirror, the sun standing still, the windows of heaven, the stars falling out of the sky, flat earth on pillars, positive evidence of a global flood never happening, sickness caused by demonic possession instead of germs, etc.? Come on, man.

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Again, how could you possibly know that?

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When most of our DNA is junk, and every morphological feature is a documented gradual bastardization of an existing feature, and since we can document how and why changes happen naturally, and there’s no evidence of an intelligence guiding anything, and there’s evidence against intelligent design because if there was intelligence it would’ve been done a lot better, and there’s no evidence of a god period, then that is my conclusion.

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Switching gears a little because if I made a new thread it would be deleted or anchored.

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No doubt! This one has been. I’m ok with it, at this point, because I think we’ll have a better conversation with some privacy and less distractions.

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Have you ever thought Genesis 19:24 sounded funny? Why does it say the LORD twice. Seems very awkward and redundant.

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It does marginally pique my interest.

Your post has a lot of content. Content that I am not educated enough to provide a suitable response to. I will say, that I like Heiser. I think he meant well, but, I’ve read that he gets a lot of his interpretations and consequent theology from the inter-testamental writings (and maybe apocryphal and pseudepigraphal?). I don’t have a problem with the divine council, etc, but I haven’t seen anything by him that lends credence to any of the gnostic theories you espouse. Marcion, and the like, were thoroughly refuted by Irenaeus in the second century. Forgive me for not being knowledgeable enough to swiftly respond to your impressive barrage of claims. Maybe slow down for me, and let’s take it one claim at a time, and then see if we can tie it all together.

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Prodigal Son

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OK.

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I guess Foo is not going to comment on dinosaurs on the ark. I think you are doing yourself a disservice supporting that guy’s biblical interpretations. He’s a fruitcake.

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Still waiting on you to show where my other argument was viciously circular. If we can get to some form of conclusion on that (either prove your point or admit that you were just speaking out of your hind parts), then perhaps we can move on to what you want to talk about.

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I’m making a negative claim.

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You're right. I was thinking about "positive" in terms of the person making the assertion, not the nature of the assertion, itself (is vs. is not). You made a negative assertion/claim, but in terms of what I'm getting at, you were the one who made the claim that God does not exist, and this is what you should not have done if you didn't want to prove your claim.

The initial burden of proof always lies with the person who makes the claim. When you make a claim that God does not exist, you need to be able to prove that, or change your claim.

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Overwhelming majority of historians, scientists, ethicists, philosophers, psychologists, and such.

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Can you support your claim that an "overwhelming majority" exists whose field of expertise has bearing on the truthfulness of the subjectivity of morality?

Many people in many fields may believe that morality is subjective, but they have to provide reasoning for it. I don't think historians, scientists, psychologists, "and such" can adequately address this issue

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It might seem like it to you, based on your distorted reality, but it is closer to 50:50. There is no consensus. Do you, like, watch or read news at all?

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I said "it seems that the cultural consensus is that abortion is the acceptable (i.e., moral) thing at this time", and for the most part, that is absolutely true. Only a small portion of people in this country agree that abortion should be banned in all circumstances (my position). That means the vast majority of people support abortion in at least some circumstances, which means that the cultural morality has deemed abortion as acceptable, as I said. There may be no consensus on all aspects of the issue, but very few people in this country actually believe that it's immoral to have an abortion for any reason.

But you've missed my point, as usual; you keep focusing on the trees and not the forest. My point is that if morality is entirely subjective and based on cultural norms, then logically speaking, to go against society is to be immoral on a definitional level. If society believes that abortion is acceptable in at least some circumstances and creates laws to reflect that thinking, then to believe that abortion is not acceptable in all circumstances is to be "immoral" and dare I say, "evil", from a societal standpoint.

A cultural basis for subjective morality makes the abolitionists evil in their time period, the suffragettes evil in theirs, and the pro-lifers who reject abortion in totality evil in ours. It is definitionally immoral to oppose what is acceptable in your current society in that view, and that was my point which you haven't addressed.

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The closest thing to an authority is the government, who does attempt to legislate morality based on the cultural norms of society.

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Again you missed the point. I'm talking about standards, not law enforcement. If societal desire is one standard of authority for judging morality and the golden rule is the other standard for judging morality, then which standard wins out when the two are in conflict?

This would be telling, if SHTF. This would feed a Revolution.

The Mosaic Law only covered those that were of Hebrew origin - Babylon captivity caused chaos amidst the tanak. Jesus, a Jew, was prophesied to die for us, so we wouldn’t feel God’s wrath. He created a way for all man to live and sort affairs by his New Testament witnesses. Something we should all share.