Dont be so hard on satan

by gringojj 67 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  daystar

  *sigh*

  I said

  Then I don't want to see you quoting the Bible, which is generally just as reputable as any source I cited, deal?

  To which you said

  I have yet to quote a single verse even though you accuse me of it (not to say I won't start)

  Nowhere did I accuse you of having already quoted scripture.

  I can see already that we are going to get along beautifully.

  these references in question have no weight with me (and apparently you have no concern for the Bible).

  I note that you did not mention the one from the "Catholic Encyclopedia". In any case, will nothing have any weight with you if it challenges your pre-conceived notions? I suspect that to be the case.
• 

  mdb

  Nowhere did I accuse you of having already quoted scripture.

  Granted. I jumped the gun here.

  As for the Roman Catholic Church, they pray to and bow down before statues of Mary (idolatry) and pray to deceased saints (consulting the dead) and are not of the faith. I don't want to get into talking about the Roman Cathilic Church so I avoided the reference.
• 

  greendawn

  Narkissos, I've checked those verses in Jezekiel 20:25-26 and reading from my Old Testament based on the Septuagint not the masoretic text I can't see how you concluded that God told the Hebrews to make human sacrifices. Reading from verse 21 we see that God is severely criticising the jews for failing to obey his commandments and it is within that context that we should see verses 25-26: because they stubbornly refused to obey him and acted immorally he handed them over to a spirit of vanity or insanity so that they would kill their own first born, as a punishment.
  
  
  That's different from asking obedient god fearing jews to sacrifice their children. For that human sacrifice is an abomination to god.
  
  
  As for the genocide of the Canaanites I say if, if they really as a nation committed such abominations as child sacrifices on a large scale and were unrepentant about it then yes they deserved anihilation so as to stop burning children alive in the tophet (place of burning.
  
  
  Now I don't think the Hebrew and the greco-roman writers accused the Canaanites and their Carthagian colonies falsely on the issue of child sacrifice just because they were historical enemies.
  
  
  In the Carthage tophet, archaeologists found vessels containing the ashes and bones of many children mainly 2-3 months old as well as those of animals, that's the proof for the above accusation.
• 

  Narkissos

  I've checked those verses in Jezekiel 20:25-26 and reading from my Old Testament based on the Septuagint not the masoretic text I can't see how you concluded that God told the Hebrews to make human sacrifices. Reading from verse 21 we see that God is severely criticising the jews for failing to obey his commandments and it is within that context that we should see verses 25-26: because they stubbornly refused to obey him and acted immorally he handed them over to a spirit of vanity or insanity so that they would kill their own first born, as a punishment.

  I'm afraid the LXX won't help you much here: apart from a (contextually poor) temporal shift to the future in v. 26 it doesn't change much. The commandments by which they would not live are still those which God gave them (egô edôka autois) and "the spirit of vanity or insanity" is just something you read into the text.

  That's different from asking obedient god fearing jews to sacrifice their children. For that human sacrifice is an abomination to god.

  Indeed, substitute "disobedient" to "obedient" and you have it. God asks for it nonetheless.

  As for the genocide of the Canaanites I say if, if they really as a nation committed such abominations as child sacrifices on a large scale and were unrepentant about it then yes they deserved anihilation so as to stop burning children alive in the tophet (place of burning.

  That's right. Human sacrifice killed some children. God solved it by having all children killed.

  I have often wondered if Bible apologists really mean what they say. Sometimes I had to admit, although reluctantly, that they do.
• 

  greendawn

  Narkissos, once more I read the whole of chapter 20 in Jezekiel and I can see that the whole chapter is a severe castigation of the Israelites for apostasising from god and becoming grossly immoral and disobedient worshipping other gods though he had brought them out of slavery in Egypt.
  
  Seen within this context again verses 25 and 26 what they mean is that god handed the jews over to their stubborn ways after he got tired of waiting upon them to stop their immorality including child sacrifice. It doesn't mean that he actively encouraged them to make human sacrifices but he withdrew from them the light of reason and common decency that would restrain them from such abominations. Because they were refusing to obey its direction.
  
  Further on in verse 31 he critisizes them for the practice of human sacrifice: you DEFILE yourselves by worshipping idols and passing your sons through the fire.
• 

  gringojj

  Greendawn, the simple fact remains that your god is a mass murderer of a caliber exponentialy worse than Hitler.
• 

  african GB Member

  I also love Satan, he's just a poor guy with independent thinking(like all of us here),...Jehohah DF'd him for that, just like he did/does to most of us today.

  I can identify with this bloke to a certain extent.

  I am so sad about the fact that Jehovah could never reinstate this 'brother'.
• 

  agonus

  I'm not quite so sure how to feel about an entity who may or may not exist. Kinda like Jehovah.