Split Thread Signs of the End Times

[Slowvehicle]

I did explain it to you in a way that it should be clear--there is no other way to explain a situation of this nature--men cannot marry men.

You continue to avoid the question.

 

[Jodie]

Well the events are recorded in the Bible--but tell me where did you glean your information from, it was not derived from you own research, was it?

No, it was based on the research done by leading archaeologists from around the world.

 

[Jodie]

Paul, in another thread you were talking about your background and how you came to believe what you believe about the bible. I don't suppose it's occurred to you that your character hasn't fundamentally changed? I'm assuming you sought out religion because somewhere deep inside you knew it was wrong to be the way that you were in the past.

Based on what I'm reading here in your posts you haven't made that change. You're simply justifying the urge to condemn, punish, and judge others through the institution of religion. That doesn't make your words the voice of God anymore than it did the Catholic priests during the inquisition, or the Puritans in Salem, etc....

I'm still stuck on your saying that skin color is affected by drinking the blood of animals. You need to do some serious reading on history, archaeology, biology, sociology, and psychology. After you do all that, then go back and reread the bible and see if you still think it's the word of God.

 

[Craig B]

...demonstrating your own lack of a "working knowledge" of "scripture"...

Do you realise there was more than one set of tablets?

There were, but I suppose PB will argue that they had the same words on them, so they count as one.

However, it is notorious that Catholics, Protestants and Jews don't agree on what the Ten Commandments are! The RCC doesn't include the Second Commandment

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image ...​

because Catholics don't obey that particular commandment of God. On the contrary, they make graven images in industrial quantities, and why the hell not? They therefore simply omit it from the list.

So to make up the Ten they duplicate the last one. Where the Protestants have a single

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's.​

The Catholics have improved this by splitting it into two

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods.​

Both of these changes are improvements 'cos making images is fun is and not a moral failing, while removing wives from lists of possessions and giving them a commandment of their own is nice.

However, it's not difficult to improve on the morality of JHWH. Look at this horrid abomination, from the preamble to the Commandments in Deuteronomy 5

8 Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth​

Omitted by Catholics, as noted above

9 thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation​

That last obscenity, of making children suffer for the sins of parents, is "corrected" later in that same book of Deuteronomy, in accordance with the progressive "moralisation" and improvement of the Torah, undertaken by the hands of more civilised and virtuous later editors and scribes:

24:16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.​

Therefore, contrary to the beliefs of PB:

The Ten Commandments exist in several versions

The denominations don't agree which is the right one

The lists contain both commonplaces and moral irrelevancies, which don't appear to be the Word of an Omniscient Being. This point was made by the last non-Christian Roman Emperor, Julian:

Now except for the command "Thou shalt not worship other gods," and "Remember the sabbath day," what nation is there, I ask in the name of the gods, which does not think that it ought to keep the other commandments? So much so that penalties have been ordained against those who transgress them, sometimes more severe, and sometimes similar to those enacted by Moses, though they are sometimes more humane.​

Against the Galileans, Book 1.

 

[halleyscomet]

Well the tangible evidence of God is all around us in creation--even the four leg insects. Should we refuse to believe because two legs are missing, there may have been an evolutionary process that has brought about a change--you are surely not insinuating that people could not count past four?

That's right ladies and gentlemen. Here we have someone claiming that insects only had four legs at the time the Bible was written in an effort to explain away the fact the Bible is wrong on this point.

I quiver with anticipation of his explanation for the Bible's claim that bats are birds. Perhaps he'll suggest bats once had a cloaca and stopped laying eggs sometime after the crucifixion.

As for whether or not the scribes who wrote the Bible in the first place could count past four, obviously they could, they just didn't bother taking a close look at insects to find out how many legs they actually had. This speaks volumes about the level of fact checking that went into writing the Bible.

 

[Craig B]

That's right ladies and gentlemen. Here we have someone claiming that insects only had four legs at the time the Bible was written in an effort to explain away the fact the Bible is wrong on this point.

I suppose that has been falsified by any palaeontologist who has performed the task of counting the number of legs on the insects found in amber deposits, buried millions of years ago.

Unless insects had six legs millions of years ago, then four legs in Biblical times, then six legs again, more recently. How can we test that? Mmm, well the Egyptians were in the habit of depicting and preserving scarab beetles, and some of these relics must surely be datable to Biblical times. Could we count their legs and settle the matter once and for all? Wait, maybe insects in Egypt had six legs, but in Israel four legs. Mmm, well ...

 

[Vixen]

There are three versions of them in the Torah. Only one of them is described at the end of the list as the "Ten Commandments". Here is the passage from Exodus 34. It is unambiguous. If there's only one version of the Ten Commandments, it's the one in Ex 34.

27 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write down these words for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28 Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.​

Go and read them. Ex 34:10-26.

“Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

OK. I can manage that.

 

[snoop_doxie]

<respectful snip>

Natural Selection and random mutation. As people migrated the environmental pressures on them changed and, over time, so did they. There's no mystery behind it. Dark skin is a survival advantage in a place like Africa. It's not an advantage in a place like Norway.

You have absolutely no evidence that drinking the blood of a primate will turn your skin dark and modify your DNA to change the color of your descendants. Is this belief unique to you, or was it taught as "fact" by people in South Africa when you were growing up?

Has Paul Bethke addressed the rampant problem of skin cancer in
South Africa?

http://theconversation.com/the-cost...-africa-is-spending-more-than-it-should-57445

Like Australia, New Zealand and several South American countries, South Africa faces a particular risk of skin cancer because of its location. It is relatively close to the equator and experiences the effects of ozone depletion in the spring and summer months. This means that the sun is harsher during this time and could increase people’s risk of developing skin cancer.

Maybe Paul should consider eating blood, to protect himself from skin
cancer.

Why would God put white people in South Africa when it is so very dangerous
for them?

My father, could be described as "Black Irish". He had black hair, blue eyes,
very white skin, and would grow a red beard. He developed a melanoma
on his nose that had to be removed, like Hugh Jackman.
(My father did not enjoy the outdoors, he was living in Fayetteville, NC)

Could it be a sign from god that white people do not belong in South American countries?

What is the reasoning for taking over and lording over those who were meant
to live there?

This conversation is very educational about religion (as answers or questions
to Paul) and I have been reading for a couple of months.

I was raised Catholic, but have decided atheist is best for me.

 

[Craig B]

“Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

OK. I can manage that.

So you might well think, but the complex Jewish dietary regulations involving the separation of meat and dairy products are derived by exegesis of this passage, and these rules are only too easy to infringe.

 

[Jodie]

From a health perspective, why would it be unsafe to cook meat in it's mother's milk? You get the gamey taste out of game by soaking it in milk.

 

[abaddon]

From a health perspective, why would it be unsafe to cook meat in it's mother's milk? You get the gamey taste out of game by soaking it in milk.

According to the bible, it would be perfectly OK to use a different goat's milk so long as it was not the mother's milk.

It's just another example of the arbitrary nature of the bible.

Attempting to rationalise it leads into a big pot of nowhere much.

 

[Craig B]

From a health perspective, why would it be unsafe to cook meat in it's mother's milk? You get the gamey taste out of game by soaking it in milk.

It doesn't have anything to do with health, but may be a symbolic recognition of the bond between a mother and offspring, which the culinary practice would abuse.

Writing from memory, I seem to recall that in his Guide For The Perplexed the medieval Jewish scholar Maimonides hypothesises (among other suggestions) that cooking a kid in its mother's milk might have been part of a pagan Canaanite ritual, and says that he had perused old "Sabian books" to discover if that was so, but had found nothing relevant.

In fact he seems to have been right. In 1928 some old clay tablets turned up in archaeological excavation of an ANE settlement, Ugarit, and their text includes references to boiling a kid in milk as part of a ritual meal.

Health issues are probably not the main motive for Jewish dietary laws, any more than they are the main motive for other ancient tribal taboos. Although no doubt they have had some influence on how these rules have evolved over time.

ETA I couldn't resist looking that up, and I found this reference to Maimonides, and also to the Ugaritic text.

 

[Paul Bethke]

You seem to find it absolutely impossible to answer a simple yes or no question with a simple yes or no response. I will assume then, that you mean a man may carry on banging even if his rapist is not executed, since the rape did not constitute marriage.

What I would like to know now (though I do not expect to actually receive a clear answer) is, why the blatant double standard? What is the difference between a rapist inserting his penis (assuming a male rapist here, for ease) into a man against his will, and a rapist inserting his penis into a woman against her will? How do you justify claiming that a woman must remain chaste until her rapist is executed, but a man may go happily on his banging ways? I'm going to go ahead and assume it is because you still think of women as property, and rape is straight-up property damage.

Again, I don't really expect a clear, sensible response from you on this, but I thought I'd try asking anyway.

I have explained that there is no marriage between a man and a man that is an abomination in the sight of the Creator, so that should be clear.
If a man rapes a man he must be put to death, the same as when a man rapes a woman.

My initial purpose is to show how important marriage is and what is marriage---but now we have to deal with violence in this respect, and how to deal with violence concerning marriage.

So when a man has sex with a virgin, then the man and the woman become one as stated in the Scriptures, one meaning that they are joined together through the hallowed act of sex. As this act is sanctioned by the Creator, anything outside of this marriage covenant becomes adultery.

Although sex is the act of marriage, when a man rapes a woman, this sexual act is against the will of the virgin who has now become a woman, but judicially this is rape. So how can this sexual act be deemed nullified is by putting the rapist to death.

When a married woman has sex with anyone but her husband that is adultery— so when a married woman is raped that is adultery, but it is a violent act which judicially become a crime of rape, so the rapist must be put to death.

If a man has sex with a man, that is an abomination, but when a man rapes another man that is a crime and the rapist must be put to death.

So now we start at the perfect state of marriage and have to consider the crime against this perfect state. If man as it is, changes the penalty for rape as has been determined by God, then there is no complete justice.

 

[Craig B]

If man as it is, changes the penalty for rape as has been determined by God, then there is no complete justice.

This has been determined by God, as the penalty for raping an unbetrothed virgin, in Deuteronomy 22. So it must not be changed?

28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, 29 he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.​

 

[Paul Bethke]

Yet they do, without regard to your injunction. And nothing happens to them from a divine retribution point of view.

Not at this stage, but they have chosen a way contrary to what the Divine Creator has decreed, so they are destined to end up in hell. So in this life they seem justified by the approval of men, but in the sight of God the Creator it is an abomination.

Jude_1:7 In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion.
They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

 

[Paul Bethke]

If you would stop with your pathetic nonsense, that would be thanks enough.

After all, with your pathetic nonsense you are only making a fool of yourself. Also, if you are trying to convert people with your pathetic nonsense, then you are being quite counter-productive.

I do appreciate your advice.

 

[Craig4]

Not at this stage, but they have chosen a way contrary to what the Divine Creator has decreed, so they are destined to end up in hell. So in this life they seem justified by the approval of men, but in the sight of God the Creator it is an abomination.

Jude_1:7 In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion.
They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

Maybe your god should mind his own business and get his nose out of other people's bedrooms. Why are you so impressed by such a pervert?

 

[Paul Bethke]

Why do you keep lying about having answered questions when you clearly have not?
Does that ploy work in your personal life?
Are you intentionally trying to gaslight?
"Not relevant to me" does not constitute a "yes" or "no" response and I think you know it. Would that response work with the police if you were being interrogated as a "person of interest" in a criminal investigation? This is particularity true as you wrote:

Edited by Agatha: 

Removed breach of rule 0

You explicitly said you did "not see the need to answer" but are now claiming that sentence was a "clear" answer.

Because as I said it has no relevance to me—If you asked, did I ever drink alcohol, which has relevance to me I would answer “yes”

I've been advised by the moderators that I can keep asking you questions about the 613 Mitzvot but need to not harp on it when you refuse to answer one. I find this a reasonable restriction and I hope my efforts to discuss your refusal to answer any MORE questions on the 613 Mitzvot didn't cross any lines.

Well if you are going to go through every one of the 613 Mitzvot, we can rather consider going through all the laws in the Torah, as I stated in a previous post which you seem to have ignored, that I teach the Torah as a basis of faith.

To that end, I'm not going to ask you again for a clear "yer" or "no" answer on the kidnapping question. You clearly don't want to GIVE a clear answer yet you are pretending you HAVE GIVEN a clear answer.

I have given a clear answer which you seem not to be able to comprehend!

 

[Crossbow]

I do appreciate your advice.

Why thank you so very much.

I (and I expect that everyone else on the Form and much of the world), does not appreciate the nonsense that you constantly spout.

 

[Paul Bethke]

Again, your Biblical illiteracy comes into play.
Go read the Wikipedia article about the Ten Commandments. Your claim that there's only one set of them is flat out wrong. It's easily debunked nonsense that betrays your completely lack of familiarity with the texts and with the origins of the "Ten Commandments."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments#Traditions_for_numbering
There's even a handy chart listing the variances between the Ten Commandments between denominations.
So why then do you keep going on about the Kosher laws?
Oh dear God I hope you don't try to teach anyone about the Bible or any portion of it. Based upon the Biblical knowledge you've demonstrated here the resulting education would be full of hubris and misinformation.

What with the dear God—well you are plainly no acquainted with the Scriptures, to know the truth—I teach from what is recorded, you just like to be derogatory.

The Ten Commandments cannot be change no matter what Wikipedia says, there are all sorts of false accusations committed, which ignorant people believe.

Denominations have changed a lot of things that are in the Scriptures because it does not agree with their doctrine. Basically there are those commandments that are reiterated elsewhere, so it is easy to make a comparison.

The Ten Commandments are the first ten of the 613 commandments given by God to the Jewish people. They form the foundation of Jewish ethics, behaviour and responsibility. These commandments are mentioned in order twice in the Torah - once each in the Book of Exodus and the Book of Deuteronomy.
________________________________________
1) I am the Lord thy god, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
2) Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.
3) Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
4) Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
5) Honour thy father and thy mother.
6) Thou shalt not murder.
7) Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8) Thou shalt not steal.
9) Thou shalt not bear false witness against they neighbour.
10) Thou shalt not covet anything that belongs to thy neighbour.

The kosher law are those laws of God adopted by the Jewish believers, which we who have faith in Christ have also adopted as an integral part of faith.