Why is There Death and Suffering if God is all Loving

[Gilrandir]

The OT laws are not Gods perfect plan, but for a specific time and people coming from a ancient near eastern culture [Matt 19.8]

You are basically saying that:
1. God's plans are sometimes not perfect.
2. God is liable to change his laws depending on the time of application.

we cannot apply today's western standards to OT near eastern Jews.

It is not about US applying standards, it is about GOD using double standards. At certain time killing was OK, at others - not that much.

if they continue in fathers sins, they will be punished. When they continue in fathers sins will cause judgment, otherwise god would relent

Here's what Bible says:

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 of them that hate me

Do show me where "continuing fathers sins" is mentioned. One doesn't have to continue anything. If your great-grandfather hated God, the latter will visit his anger upon you no matter what you think.

Just don't start the context thing.

Eve Was created in the image and likeness of god gen 1 26-28


ccc 370 In no way is God in man's image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes.

A contradiction. How can a spirit have an image? Image of an object or a person is always something visible. Being in visible form a human must by default have an image of a man or a woman.

[total relism]

Thanks for reading my posts and giving feedback.

You are basically saying that:
1. God's plans are sometimes not perfect.
2. God is liable to change his laws depending on the time of application.

No to the first, yes to the second. He works from the situation people are in. So before the fall he made only two laws for man, have sex and eat, one negative, dont eat of a single tree. With noah and the survivors, another, with Moses and Israelite in the land of Canaan surrounded by Canaanites, another etc

It is not about US applying standards, it is about GOD using double standards. At certain time killing was OK, at others - not that much.

All the time murder is wrong, killing is sometimes. If we make that distinction, than the supposed contradiction disapers.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...s-to-the-Bible

Here's what Bible says:

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 of them that hate me

Do show me where "continuing fathers sins" is mentioned. One doesn't have to continue anything. If your great-grandfather hated God, the latter will visit his anger upon you no matter what you think.

Just don't start the context thing.

Before we get to the passage I think you could not make the case from the bible. Think of Abraham, he was a pagan worshiping Canaanite, jethro his father in law, same thing, accepted that day he converted. The egyptians were pagans who converted and follow god. Rahab and her family at jericho, Ruth and naomi, among others. Over and over from the books of moses we have examples of people who converted to god and he did not punish them for their fathers sins. As the same book [also see Ezekiel 18:20] Deuteronomy says

Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.
Deut. 24:16

I used the example from 1 Samuel 15 with the amalakites. They were punished for the sins of their fathers. yet they were the ones doing and continuing the sins their fathers committed, the very same sins of their fathers.


The mistake is to try and take any one passage from the bible and than create a theology from it instead of the bible as a whole. God never had DT 5.9 [the verse you quote] in his bible. Chapters and verses are man made thousands of years later. That is why the whole bible must be considered. This is why i think Christians have so many denominations. They try and build theology from man made verses or chapters alone. Calvinism is a great example imo.

A contradiction. How can a spirit have an image? Image of an object or a person is always something visible. Being in visible form a human must by default have an image of a man or a woman.

Its a good question I will look it up from a study i did on hebrews and Jesus being the image of god. But from the greek/hebrew the word does not mean physical, or at least does not have to. But relationship. I did a quick google search on your question from christian sources

https://answersingenesis.org/genesis...-image-of-god/
https://creation.com/made-in-the-image-of-god

God does appear in human form many times in the ot and nt of course as well.

[Gilrandir]

No to the first, yes to the second. He works from the situation people are in. So before the fall he made only two laws for man, have sex and eat , one negative, dont eat of a single tree. With noah and the survivors, another, with Moses and Israelite in the land of Canaan surrounded by Canaanites, another etc

The bold is wrong. He told them to produce offspring.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number;

So he never mentioned eating, and having sex WITHOUT conception. Moreover, he never called it a law or commandment or by any other binding word.

And as for liability to change laws, why, a time might come when adultory or theft will stop being a sin (a violation of god's law), like it is the case with homosexuality now. Or is it still a sin?

All the time murder is wrong, killing is sometimes. If we make that distinction, than the supposed contradiction disapers.

You contradict yourself. Murder was never forbidden to Adam and Eve (as you have said, there were only two laws at that time, murder wasn't mentioned in either). So techinically, if Adam had murdered Eve - or vice versa - they wouldn't have done anything against God's will.

Later murder WAS wrong. But, as you have noted, God is liable to overlook his treaties.

As the same book [also see Ezekiel 18:20] Deuteronomy says

Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.
Deut. 24:16

So one and the same book of Bible contains two mutually exclusive quotes. That's what I have been saying on the consistancy of Bible as a source.

Chapters and verses are man made thousands of years later.

Do you realize that this admission turns Bible from the ultimte authority bearing the word of God into a hearsay?

That is why the whole bible must be considered.

Since it contains mutually excluding statements (see above) it is useless.

This is why i think Christians have so many denominations. They try and build theology from man made verses or chapters alone. Calvinism is a great example imo.

The existence of denominations has many reasons (like political, economic, etc.) among which theological ones are among many but in no way dominant.

Its a good question I will look it up from a study i did on hebrews and Jesus being the image of god. But from the greek/hebrew the word does not mean physical, or at least does not have to. But relationship. I did a quick google search on your question from christian sources

So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

This quote shows that god had at least two anthropomorphic images.

God does appear in human form many times in the ot and nt of course as well.

As a male or a female?

[HopAlongBunny]

Just a note.
Since we are talking about strictly OT, we cannot be talking about Christians. You do not have Christians until you have the NT.
To square anything in the OT with the teachings of Christ, it would have to meet (at minimum) the test of the Good Samaritan; perhaps that could be done with a few passages.
IMO keeping the OT around is to provide an excuse for vengeance and desire that Christ leaves little or no recourse to.

[Fragony]

Some people realy deserve it, we do not deserve having to keep them alive, it is not death penalty it is enforced euthanesia. Only when you are really reallly sure

[Gilrandir]

Just a note.
Since we are talking about strictly OT, we cannot be talking about Christians. You do not have Christians until you have the NT.
To square anything in the OT with the teachings of Christ, it would have to meet (at minimum) the test of the Good Samaritan; perhaps that could be done with a few passages.
IMO keeping the OT around is to provide an excuse for vengeance and desire that Christ leaves little or no recourse to.

IMO, since writing of OT and NT is separated by a couple of thousands years, the original language and protagonists those volumes have less right to be considered one book than, say, The Silmarillion, LOTR and The Hobbit.

[Fragony]

IMO, since writing of OT and NT is separated by a couple of thousands years, the original language and protagonists those volumes have less right to be considered one book than, say, The Silmarillion, LOTR and The Hobbit.

Total Realism is a really religious guy and that is ok with me, a moral discussion should be have about death penalty. It is not anything new, the cruelist death=penalty we used to have here was having your arms and legs broken, the 9th smash on the heart was mercy. Does not have to be like it is torture, but I sure like an open discussion on this, I already know how I look at things, and I absolutily think some people should just be put down. Religion should never be a factor, itś as irrevant as the hair on ass, but not everone deserves to be alive

[Crandar]

IMO, since writing of OT and NT is separated by a couple of thousands years, the original language and protagonists those volumes have less right to be considered one book than, say, The Silmarillion, LOTR and The Hobbit.

A couple of thousands of years is a gross exaggeration. At that time, writing wasn't even introduced to the Jewish communities. Even if we take the oldest texts into consideration, it was less than a millennium. In what concerns the newest ones, it was a couple of centuries.

[Gilrandir]

I was referring to today, murder is wrong [and always has been to god and always will be]. In your hypothetical situation it would still have been wrong but Adam simply would not have been guilty for it in front of god.

If Adam (in my hypothetical situation) hadn't been guilty of murder, than murder couldn't have been a sin. Ergo: murder in paradise was legal.

and i have been saying dont look at verses but the bible as a whole and than it becomes a constant source.

A whole consists of parts. If parts do not fit into the whole why are they kept there?

You want to ignore section that would clarify your seemingly wanted contradictions.

seemingly wanted = shrewedly detected.

no, it turns gods word into a sectional divided book for quick easy references [not my doing but i do enjoy it]. you by making those numbers elevated to gods word create false theologies and create contradictions [as do Christians].
I am not here to defend mans numbers but gods word.

Bible wasn't only divided into chapters by men, but also written down by men, edited by men, translated by men. Which makes it a hearsay which in turn presupposes existence of mistakes, exaggerations, slantings in it.

Or both were made in his image

So God looks both like a man and woman at the same time?

A couple of thousands of years is a gross exaggeration. At that time, writing wasn't even introduced to the Jewish communities. Even if we take the oldest texts into consideration, it was less than a millennium. In what concerns the newest ones, it was a couple of centuries.

You are technically right. I was never interested in the exact date of WRITING DOWN the Old Testament and I believe it isn't one date, its constituents might have been written at different dates. I meant not writing it down, but historical tradition and events described in it, which go back several millenia BC. Yet thank you for the correction.

[total relism]

Just a note.
Since we are talking about strictly OT, we cannot be talking about Christians. You do not have Christians until you have the NT.
To square anything in the OT with the teachings of Christ, it would have to meet (at minimum) the test of the Good Samaritan; perhaps that could be done with a few passages.
IMO keeping the OT around is to provide an excuse for vengeance and desire that Christ leaves little or no recourse to.

I would disagree for many reasons but a separate topic for another thread. But still, this is more on objections towards the OT as it is still viwed as gods word is it not by Christians?

[total relism]

The bold is wrong. He told them to produce offspring.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number;

So he never mentioned eating, and having sex WITHOUT conception. Moreover, he never called it a law or commandment or by any other binding word.

And as for liability to change laws, why, a time might come when adultory or theft will stop being a sin (a violation of god's law), like it is the case with homosexuality now. Or is it still a sin?

last i checked you had to have sex to produce offspring. But yes you are correct, sex and kids and it was not so much a law as go and do. Adultery, stealing etc moral wrongs are based on the nature of god and are always wrong. After the fall with death know in the world and the world changed, man could than start to eat meat is an example of a change in circumstances leading to a change in law.

Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything
Gen 9.3

You contradict yourself. Murder was never forbidden to Adam and Eve (as you have said, there were only two laws at that time, murder wasn't mentioned in either). So techinically, if Adam had murdered Eve - or vice versa - they wouldn't have done anything against God's will.

Later murder WAS wrong. But, as you have noted, God is liable to overlook his treaties.

Think you caught me, i like you. I was referring to today, murder is wrong [and always has been to god and always will be]. In your hypothetical situation it would still have been wrong but Adam simply would not have been guilty for it in front of god.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...Heard-of-Jesus

Adam was only given the command of not eating the tree so that is the only way he could have been guilty before god. Unless of course, gods law was given to adam and has been around since the beginning but just not recorded as some believe such as messianic Christians.

So one and the same book of Bible contains two mutually exclusive quotes. That's what I have been saying on the consistancy of Bible as a source.

and i have been saying dont look at verses but the bible as a whole and than it becomes a constant source. You want to ignore section that would clarify your seemingly wanted contradictions.

Do you realize that this admission turns Bible from the ultimte authority bearing the word of God into a hearsay?

no, it turns gods word into a sectional divided book for quick easy references [not my doing but i do enjoy it]. you by making those numbers elevated to gods word create false theologies and create contradictions [as do Christians].

Since it contains mutually excluding statements (see above) it is useless.

only so long as we elevate a verse number above gods word [the bible] and create a theology from the man made verse number instead of gods word. I am not here to defend mans numbers but gods word.

The existence of denominations has many reasons (like political, economic, etc.) among which theological ones are among many but in no way dominant.

Agreed. Good point. But I think the chapter/numbers contribute. Go attend a church and you will likely see pastors trying to create theology from one verse or chapter.

So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

This quote shows that god had at least two anthropomorphic images.



As a male or a female?

Or both were made in his image and being in his image is not material but spiritual.


male, as far as i am aware. of course not always as male or human form. He takes many forms.