How was the WTC attack any different than...

by Seeker 21 Replies latest jw friends

  • patio34
    patio34

    Hi Seeker,

    I agree with your post. When I was a JW, I recall a conversation with my son about the Israelites marching through Canaan conquering. My son offered a defense that the Canaanites were given a chance to surrender. My reply was what kind of a chance is that? For a hostile invading group to march up and say surrender or die?

    The Israelites were hostile warlike herders who invaded more peaceful farming communities. They wanted their land, pure and simple. They alleged their god ordered them to do it. Not a unique rationale.

    Pat

  • Norm
    Norm

    Hi Rex,

    I see that you like a true believer is trying to "explain" away the Bible and everything else embarrassing to your "faith".

    As usual you fail miserably in your effort. Amerika seem to consider itself a nation which is "blessed" by God and God is constantly ordered to bless it. Now, Rex could you who have this close relationship with God answer a few simple questions?

    Do you consider the WTC incident to be a blessing?
    Could God have prevented it from happening? If he could and didn't, what do that tell us about God.? If God could NOT prevent it from happening, what do that tell us about God? According to the Bible not even a sparrow dies without God's knowlegde.

    Please explain Rex.

    Norm.

    PS. A little hint. The Arabs are also a semittic people, so when anyone hate and kill arabs you are a true anti-semite.

  • Rex B13
    Rex B13

    Sorry Seeker,
    I do not isolate scripture and ignore the context. This is what you are doing and this is what all JWs do to a further extreme. You evidently do not want to see the other side of the coin, having made up your mind and that ends the discussion for me.
    BTW, the "allowing more to live" was misunderstood, I thought you were referring to Jericho and not the WTC.
    Rex

  • Rex B13
    Rex B13

    Hi Norm,
    Are you now interested in becoming a real Christian? If not, I am not wasting much time with you. It is a fact that skeptical questions about anything never end. Answers for all questions do not exist.

    >Hi Rex,

    I see that you like a true believer is trying to "explain" away the Bible and everything else embarrassing to your "faith".

    Nope, Seeker compared Jericho to the WTC attack and I was responding to it.

    >As usual you fail miserably in your effort.

    Where did I 'fail miserably'? You didn't deal with the info at all. Do you have no long-winded essay on the tip of your tongue?

    >Amerika seem to consider itself a nation which is "blessed" by God

    Some do. It IS blessed enough to have saved your Norwigs (and Europes) freedom TWICE. Many American Christians dying so that you know it all atheists would be able to slander their memory.

    >and God is constantly ordered to bless it.

    Nope, you are a liar.

    >Now, Rex could you who have this close relationship with God answer a few simple questions?
    Do you consider the WTC incident to be a blessing?

    It is a tragedy. God will turn some events to the good (and many blessed events have happened since then: the love and compassion of the world and the unification of Americans as well as other peace-loving people is now apparent).

    >Could God have prevented it from happening?

    God can do anything except violate His own nature.

    >If he could and didn't, what do that tell us about God.?

    Not a thing. YOU want 'freedom from morality', to be the 'Captain of your fate', Norm. Now live with it and quit whining.

    >If God could NOT prevent it from happening, what do that tell us about God? According to the Bible not even a sparrow dies without God's knowlegde.

    Read the book of Genesis, Norm. The answers are there. Read the gospels and see the ultimate answer. Read Romans and learn the theology of the church. Read John and see the deity of Christ. Read the letters of Paul and see the answers to man's many problems caused by his own depravity, which is squarely where the blame for all evil lies.

    >Please explain Rex.

    Norm.

    It does you no good apparently. But thanks for the platform to inform the lurkers.
    Rex

  • Seeker
    Seeker

    Rex,

    I do not isolate scripture and ignore the context. This is what you are doing and this is what all JWs do to a further extreme. You evidently do not want to see the other side of the coin, having made up your mind and that ends the discussion for me.

    How did I isolate scripture and ignore the context? We are talking about Jericho. It is discussed in one book, and I'm dealing with the entire account. I have shown that there are parables between that account and last week's attack. You disagreed, but didn't explain why. You pointed to a website that peripherally talks about Jericho, mostly about other attacks. Yet you never answered in your own words. Now you claim you don't want to discuss any more. That's fine. Maybe some other Christian will attempt to explain how my comparision is wrong, without merely saying "Here, read this."

  • Norm
    Norm

    Hello Rex, I asked you a few simple questions:

    Do you consider the WTC incident to be a blessing?
    Could God have prevented it from happening? If he could and didn't, what do that tell us about God.? If God could NOT prevent it from happening, what do that tell us about God? According to the Bible not even a sparrow dies without God's knowlegde.

    In response you bleated thus:

    Hi Norm,
    Are you now interested in becoming a real Christian? If not, I am not wasting much time with you. It is a fact that skeptical questions about anything never end. Answers for all questions do not exist.

    Of course you wont waste any time with me, knowing you are unable to answer the most simple straightforward questions, like the ones I asked you.

    Norm:Do you consider the WTC incident to be a blessing?

    Rex: It is a tragedy. God will turn some events to the good (and many blessed events have happened since then: the love and compassion of the world and the unification of Americans as well as other peace-loving people is now apparent.

    Wow! So you agree it is a tragedy? Well, we all KNOW it is a tragedy, We know that our fellow human beings are capable of love and compassion, but do God have to kill 6000 people to accomplish that? Do you go out and kill a lot of other people’s loved ones so their relatives can feel unified, love and compassion? Great “answer” Rex, your god must be extremely attractive.

    Norm: Could God have prevented it from happening?

    Rex: God can do anything except violate His own nature.

    I see, so what you are saying here is that it is in God’s nature to turn his back to such horrible mass slaughter. Well, no surprises here. Wonderful God you worship.

    Norm: If he could and didn't, what do that tell us about God.?

    Rex: Not a thing. YOU want 'freedom from morality', to be the 'Captain of your fate', Norm. Now live with it and quit whining.

    LOL, so if God had the power to stop this from happening and he didn’t it doesn’t tell us anything about him? Great “answer” Rex, and again, what a great God you worship! Then you show your true “Christian” color and launches into the usual gibberish about “morality”. As a moral entity I and most human beings are far above your God, when it comes to moral and ethics as we would have stopped the mass murder. Your monster God didn’t, but you still cling to you imaginary friend. To ask you questions that you are unable to answer, isn’t whining Rex, we leave all the whining to you.

    Norm: If God could NOT prevent it from happening, what do that tell us about God? According to the Bible not even a sparrow dies without God's knowledge.

    Rex: Read the book of Genesis, Norm. The answers are there. Read the gospels and see the ultimate answer. Read Romans and learn the theology of the church. Read John and see the deity of Christ. Read the letters of Paul and see the answers to man's many problems caused by his own depravity, which is squarely where the blame for all evil lies.

    Read it many times Rex, there are no answers there except it show us what a despicable perverted God you worship. No human being has ever come close to the perversity and depravity of your God Rex. You of course know it but you still cling to the monster.

    Norm: Please explain Rex.

    Rex: It does you no good apparently. But thanks for the platform to inform the lurkers.

    Of course it will do me good Rex, I would feel great if you for once could be honest, but as we can all see, you seem unable to be honest about the most simple things.

    Rex: Where did I 'fail miserably'?

    Oh, you have just demonstrated to us all including the lurkers, your total impotence and inability to address the most simple questions about your precious God, but you are right about one thing, with your every post and comment here you do inform the lurkers how utterly revolting your religion is. In this regard you are even better than the Watchtower.

    Norm.

  • gumby
    gumby

    Seeker: You said, "Serioulsy, what is the difference? In each case you had religious extremists who used their religious ideas to condemn someone else, attack them in God's name, and rejoice at their destruction. You can imagine neighboring nations back then looking on in horror at this attack on innocent people".
    There is a difference here. God had promised the promised land to israel and the other people knew of God being with this nation by the things he had done in the past for them...crossing the red sea and pharoah's armys killed and victory for the jew's.They KNEW GOD WAS WITH THE JEWS.
    Also they were warned to let them through peacefully. Bin ladden didn't ask to come through peacefully. God also ordained them to pass thru jerico. God didn't ordain any of what has recently taken place.

  • Moxy
    Moxy
    There is a difference here. God had promised the promised land to israel and the other people knew of God being with this nation by the things he had done in the past for them...crossing the red sea and pharoah's armys killed and victory for the jew's.They KNEW GOD WAS WITH THE JEWS.

    how would they know that? more to the point, how would they verify that? was every individual in jericho presented with the evidence and given the chance to make a personal decision?

    Also they were warned to let them through peacefully.

    really? book, chapter and verse please. they seemed to have the fate of the canaanite people pretty much decided before they got there. they had a choice to let them through peacefully? by 'let them through,' do you mean let them destroy the city and take all their things? or do you mean that perhaps if they agreed to convert to their religion and serve the israelites, they might have let the city remain after all? read ahead a bit to the account of gibeon. heres the condensed version:

    gibeon: "crap. here comes israel and theyre killin everyone. lets see if they will make peace with us."

    gibeon: "hi israel. we would like to serve your god jehovah. he sounds just grand."

    israel: "waaaaaait a second. do you live around here? if you do, we have to kill you, you know."

    gibeon: "uhh no, we came from waaaay over there somewhere."

    israel: "really? ok then... i guess we could not kill you."

    later...

    israel: "hey! you tricked us! we really wanted to kill you and now we made a promise not to. drat! well, we'll have to humiliate you badly for this, you understand. cant have people hearing what a bunch of chumps we are."

    well, you know it goes. so wheres the part where the israelites were more than happy to forgive the residents of the land if they decided to repent and serve them?

    mox

  • gumby
    gumby

    Moxy: Good questions!!!!!I'll reserch what you said. Thanks for your thoughts on this

  • Seeker
    Seeker

    gumby,

    There is a difference here. God had promised the promised land to israel and the other people knew of God being with this nation by the things he had done in the past for them...crossing the red sea and pharoah's armys killed and victory for the jew's.They KNEW GOD WAS WITH THE JEWS.

    Muslims feel Allah is with them, and does powerful works for them. They can't understand why we can't see what is so obvious to them. Yet we don't, do we? I would imagine it would have been similar back in Jericho's time. Sure, word would have spread about the victory of the Israelites, but what about Jericho's gods? Weren't they great? They would have thought so.

    This kind of argument only holds for the true believers. All outsiders think, "yeah, yeah, whatever." Nothing Israel did impressed anyone else. Don't forget, the Bible was written by the Israelites, so they told it their way. The reality was probably quite different. The people of Jericho probably had their own legends about how their god kicked butt, and couldn't understand why Israel didn't believe in their god!

    Every religion thinks they are right. Everyone else doesn't believe a word of it. So no matter how much bin Laden may have thought that we in America should really be worshipping the true God Allah, people in America didn't believe, just as those in Jericho weren't impressed with claims by Israel.

    Also they were warned to let them through peacefully. Bin ladden didn't ask to come through peacefully.

    Not so. The people of Jericho weren't asked to let Israel through peacefully. Israel was taking over, no questions asked, nothing Jericho could do to prevent it. The people of Jericho were in the way of what Israel wanted, and they were going to be killed for it. Just like bin Laden, who sees this as a holy struggle against the West that he feels threatens his religious ideals.

    God also ordained them to pass thru jerico. God didn't ordain any of what has recently taken place.

    Sez Israel. I'm sure Jericho thought differently. Similarly today, bin Laden feels he has God's blessing. The people of America think otherwise.

    I dunno, seems very similar to me. It's all a matter of perspective. If you agree with the agressor's relgion, you justify the attack (as you justify Israel, since you agreed with their religion). If you disagree with the agressor's religion (as we in America do toward bin Laden's extremist form of Islam), you can't justify the attack.

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