BADecker
Legendary

Activity: 4606
Merit: 1422
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March 26, 2015, 01:55:44 PM |
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What about this:
The drastic alteration of Gods personality is the quintessential biblical contradiction. His attitude goes from that of a vocal, evil, and vengeful god in the Old Testament to a silent, benevolent, and forgiving god in the New Testament. Its ridiculous to imagine a perfect, eternal being undergoing this 180-degree makeover at some arbitrary and unverifiable point long in the past. The real reason behind this change is the Bibles allowance of representation by no less than two dozen authors living centuries apart. Since fallible authors void of divine inspiration should have variant perspectives on the nature of God, we should not be surprised when we encounter the anomalous behavior change between the two testaments. Still, this doesnt explain why people were applying this new personality to the Hebrew god at the start of the Common Era. The likely answer to this riddle may be related to the life cycle that all ancient religions have undergone. Belief systems must evolve with their followers or face extinction. Perhaps people grew tired of the threats made in the Pentateuch and felt there were no true rewards or consequences for their actions. Out of their desires for change, they may have created the Christian notion of Heaven. By this point, someone obviously grasped the notion that you could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. As Ive said many times before, we have conflicting opinions on the omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence of God. Hosea would have us believe that Gods knowledge is limited: They made princes: and I knew it not (Hosea 8:4). Pentateuch author J would have us believe that God cannot be everywhere: And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord (Genesis 4:16). The author of Hebrews would have us believe that there are some things even God cannot do: It was impossible for God to lie (Hebrews 6:18). These passages fly in the face of everything that the Bible and contemporary Christians claim about Gods infinite qualities. Similarly, an omnipotent creator would have unlimited power. However, consider this ages old question: Can God make a burrito hot enough that he cant eat it? This might seem silly at first, but it demonstrates a fundamental flaw in the existence of an omnipotent being. If he can eat any burrito he makes, he cant make one hot enough; thus, hes not omnipotent. If he makes one too hot to eat, he cant bear the product of his own creation; thus, hes not omnipotent. As I hope you realize from this illustration, an omnipotent being cannot exist. There can be no power strong enough to make squared circles, duplicated unique items, or any other interesting paradoxes that you can imagine. What about the human qualities of fury and fatigue? Can God experience these feelings? With the new biblical insight that you should have gained over the past few chapters, it should be immediately obvious that God has the capacity to become quite upset at times. Nahum provides us with a nice example: God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the Lord revengeth, and is furious (1:2). Even so, Isaiah unambiguously claims that God told him fury is not in me (27:4). If fury is not in him, how can he experience fury? Even though it may be superficially obvious that God wouldnt experience fatigue, it wouldnt be wise to jump to such a conclusion. According to Jeremiah, God says, I am weary with repenting (15:6). According to Isaiah, however, The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary (40:28). Either God can experience fatigue or not. Either God can experience fury or not. Nahum, Isaiah, and Jeremiah simply presented their contrasting, divinely uninspired, human interpretations of their god. In the process, they inevitably end up contradicting one another. How about those who call out to this mysterious being? Will he always save them? Most Christians believe that God will acknowledge these cries for salvation because most Christians only read the New Testament. After all, Paul proclaims, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Romans 10:13). Contrast that statement with the one given by Micah: Then shall they cry unto the Lord, but he will not hear them (3:4). In other words, Paul claims that God will save anyone who calls out for the Lord. However, Micah provides a specific situation in which Pauls unconditional statement wouldnt apply. Sure, one can try to assert that Paul was referring to the time before judgment while Micah was referring to the time after judgment, but this doesnt validate Pauls statement. He plainly tells us that whosoever calls to God will be saved. If we only had Pauls statement to go on, and we were given the scenario of people crying out to the Lord as described in Micah, we could only assume that God would save them. Such an assumption would be contradictory to what Micah claims. If Paul was simply being careless with his diction, consider what other important information he might have neglected to mention.
This is not a change in God or of God. This is God responding, the same as always, to the changes in people.  What do you mean responding? Like he thought killing people was ok back then but now is not? As an example, if you give your son or daughter an instruction to do something, and that there will be a reward for doing it but a punishment for not doing it... ... then, if your child does what you instructed, but stops halfway through and destroys what he or she already did according to your instructions ... ... what are you going to do? Do you reward them for carrying out your instructions, even though it was only partial? Or do you punish them for destroying the good they did do? Who changed? You or your child? Wake up and see that regarding God, God doesn't change. In the case of God, God doesn't have to formally destroy, since it is He that holds you alive. Since you are fighting Him and attempting to execute yourself by pushing away the only life you have, how long before He gives you what you ask for, even though it pains Him to have to do so? 
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