prophecy....

[abaddon]

Cool story, bro, but we were talking about the Bible.

'Destroy them? My copy says 'i will destroy man.' The whole batch.
And not because of evil ACTIONS but because they were evil in their imagination and he regretted their creation.

Nothing about warnings to future believers, he's intent on wiping out all wickedness, with a special case for Noah, who was perfect.

But at the end, he admits he cannot wipe out wickedness. Man, who he made, is wicked intrinsically.


So, yeah, waste of time.

The Tale of The Flood: how God learned a lesson. "Oh, I didn't know that flooding the world wouldn't end wickedness. So I'll smoke on some animals and calm down then".

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

I am seriously thinking about buying a gas smoker for smoking briskets etc. God will soon be my best friend.

 

[Bronzeage]

I am seriously thinking about buying a gas smoker for smoking briskets etc. God will soon be my best friend.

A wood fired smoker and a trimmed brisket can lead you closer to God.

 

[Learner]

Wait a minute. So now... what???

Taking from what I understand,as according to the bible: God did have regrets as we see below :

Genesis 6:6 And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

Does that mean HE didn't know this would happen (doing bad things) ? It would of course seem to contradict the ability of God, having the ability to create prophecies.

Unless , God all knowingly sees variable possible "outcomes", each individual could "potentially" end up becoming, although regretfully allowed it to happen in the first place. Taking for example, the blotting of names :

Exodus 32:32 Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin--; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.

Exodus 32:33 And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.

Deuteronomy 29:20 "The LORD shall never be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the LORD and His jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse which is written in this book will rest on him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under heaven.

Psalm 109:13 Let his posterity be cut off; In a following generation let their name be blotted out.

Revelation 3:5 'He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.

It requires the "free will" to choose and keep your names from being blotted out, since everyones name is "already" written in the book before birth .

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Ezekiel 36
²⁶ A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
²⁷ And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

Jeremiah 31
³³ But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

See also Romans 11, God hardens the hearts of the Jews to not believe Jesus is the messiah. There are any number of verses in the Bible where free will is not something God so values God will not eliminate free will for his own ends.

 

[Lion IRC]

Where the bible refers to the hardening of hearts, it does not mean against their will.

Pharaoh's heart was progressively hardened by God's actions. But that simply tells us that the more God threatened Pharaoh, the more stubborn Pharaoh became. Is that really God's fault?

 

[Politesse]

Where the bible refers to the hardening of hearts, it does not mean against their will.

Pharaoh's heart was progressively hardened by God's actions. But that simply tells us that the more God threatened Pharaoh, the more stubborn Pharaoh became. Is that really God's fault?

On what basis do you conclude this?

 

[Lion IRC]

Scripture.
There's nothing in the text which implies Pharaoh was a victim of some mind-control trick.

 

[Lion IRC]

Why would God do a Jedi mind trick and make Pharaoh stubbornly refuse to free the Israelites, when God was asking Pharaoh to free the Israelites?

 

[Politesse]

Why would God do a Jedi mind trick and make Pharaoh stubbornly refuse to free the Israelites, when God was asking Pharaoh to free the Israelites?

Scripture:

The Lord had said to Moses, “Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you—so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt.”

God explains his own motivations pretty clearly... he desired that Pharoah would stall, so that his signs would be seen and wondered at. Christian literalists seem pretty on board with this in practice; the plagues are indeed seen as important symbols of the magnificent power of god, not sad necessities lamentable in character but required by the petty politics of the day.

 

[steve_bank]

Why would God do a Jedi mind trick and make Pharaoh stubbornly refuse to free the Israelites, when God was asking Pharaoh to free the Israelites?

From the bible god can be quite moody and was not above destroying humans with a flood out of anger or above destroying the life of Job on a bet with Satan...go figure.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Where the bible refers to the hardening of hearts, it does not mean against their will.

Pharaoh's heart was progressively hardened by God's actions. But that simply tells us that the more God threatened Pharaoh, the more stubborn Pharaoh became. Is that really God's fault?

Exodus 7
² Thou shalt speak all that I command thee: and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he send the children of Israel out of his land.

³ And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.

⁴ But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth mine armies, and my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments.

------------

Do you really think that many atheists don't actually know the Bible and know that indeed God tells Moses in this fable that he will harden Pharoah's heart up front? Or is it you who does not know the Bible?

¹³ And he hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had said.

²² And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments: and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, neither did he hearken unto them; as the Lord had said.

 

[Lion IRC]

Why would God do a Jedi mind trick and make Pharaoh stubbornly refuse to free the Israelites, when God was asking Pharaoh to free the Israelites?

Scripture:

The Lord had said to Moses, “Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you—so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt.”

God explains his own motivations pretty clearly... he desired that Pharoah would stall, so that his signs would be seen and wondered at. Christian literalists seem pretty on board with this in practice; the plagues are indeed seen as important symbols of the magnificent power of god, not sad necessities lamentable in character but required by the petty politics of the day.

There's no dispute from me that God knew His actions would harden Pharaoh's heart.
What I argue is that Pharaoh's hardening heart was the result of his own freely decided stubbornness.

God could equally have said "...my actions will harden Pharaoh's heart"
Or..."Pharaoh's heart will become increasingly hardened as I ratchet up the stakes.
Or..."Watch this everybody. Pharaoh's already hard heart will become hardened even more by his egotistical and stupid refusal to cooperate with the inevitable"

God DOES indeed explain His motivations - Set my people free so that they may worship me.
Does God know how Pharaoh will react to the impending loss of all that slave labour?
You bet He does.
Does God know that power-hungry despots just get more and more enraged as reality sets in? Yep. You don't really even need omniscient insight or Jedi mind tricks to foresee how Pharaoh would behave.

Exodus 9
Pharaoh investigated and found that not even one of the animals of the Israelites had died. Yet his heart was unyielding and he would not let the people go.

Exodus 9
The thunder will stop and there will be no more hail, so you may know that the earth is the Lord’s. But I know that you and your officials still do not fear the Lord God.”
...When Pharaoh saw that the rain and hail and thunder had stopped, he sinned again: He and his officials hardened their hearts. So Pharaoh’s heart was hard and he would not let the Israelites go, just as the Lord had said through Moses.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Exodus 7
² Thou shalt speak all that I command thee: and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he send the children of Israel out of his land.
³ And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.

 

[Lion IRC]

Yes.
God did harden Pharaoh's heart.
I get it OK
You're fixated on predestination and election.

One more time just for effect...
"And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt."

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

"There's no dispute from me that God knew His actions would harden Pharaoh's heart.
What I argue is that Pharaoh's hardening heart was the result of his own freely decided stubbornness."

It had nothing to do with what Pharaoh wanted.

And yes, predestination is part and parcel of Christianity's theology. So is election, the choosing of elect and non-elect.

 

[Lion IRC]

You use predestination as a defeater in every single bible debate.

Everything is inevitable and therefore pointless because nobody has free will.
God creates, foreknows and predetermines everything.
God creates evil. God punishes evil.

Moses is a sock puppet.
Pharaoh does what he's told to do even when he is not doing what he's told.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

You use predestination as a defeater in every single bible debate.

Everything is inevitable and therefore pointless because nobody has free will.
God creates, foreknows and predetermines everything.
God creates evil. God punishes evil.

Moses is a sock puppet.
Pharaoh does what he's told to do even when he is not doing what he's told.

The Bible does in fact claim explicitly, God is good, merciful, compassionate, just and fair. God is all powerful. But the theology and mythology of the Bible presents us God who is none of these claimed qualities. God predestines all, who will be elect and damned. God hardens the hearts of the Jews to not believe in Christ as messiah. Why not make all Jews believers if free will is of no concern to God? Why not all men? Is this just, fair, compassionate and merciful? Obviously not. Then we have the problem that many prominent Near Eastern archaeologists have debunked the whole exodus, Joshua history and mythology, faux history. If there is a God, the bible is then, a pack of slanders on God by a pack of billy goat herding savages.

If so many people proclaim their belief in God and love for God, I'd think this fact would cause these God fans to rethink their opinion on the trustworthiness of this mythology. and abandon this mass of slanderous lies about God.

The Bible then has nothing to tell us about God if such a being exists. And if so, what does the present day state of the Universe tell us about the nature of any possible God? Natural theology.

 

[lpetrich]

I like what Greta Christina once wrote: do believers in a tri-omni god act as if they believe that their god has all those attributes? She offers this breakdown:

• God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent but not omniscient: ritualistic sects, because it takes a lot to get God's attention.
• God is omnipotent and omniscient but not omnibenevolent: the more conservative and strict sects. God is always right, but not very good.
• God is omniscient and omnibenevolent but not omnipotent: the more liberal sects. God is like some sympathetic midlevel bureaucrat who can't do much even if he wanted to.

Then there is omnipotent-only, omniscient-only, and omnibenevolent-only, and none of these three attributes.

 

[bilby]

You use predestination as a defeater in every single bible debate.

Everything is inevitable and therefore pointless because nobody has free will.
God creates, foreknows and predetermines everything.
God creates evil. God punishes evil.

Moses is a sock puppet.
Pharaoh does what he's told to do even when he is not doing what he's told.

If his arguments are incorrect, then you need to show why they are in error.

Nobody expects, or needs, you to LIKE the arguments, or their conclusions.

Your first sentence here sounds a lot like Homer Simpson complaining:

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF6SNxNIV08[/YOUTUBE]