God of the Old Testament (page 4)

David_Jay

Oh, and that part about God won't pull any strings unless "we" allow it.

The "we" is humanity in general, not just Jews.

Cold Steel

David_Jay » I'm not here to make any Jews out of anyone or to recommend religion itself to anyone. Consult MyJewishLearning.com if you want to know more about Judaism.

But Judaism isn't one cohesive movement. Some Jews deeply believe their religion, while others view the stories of their past as fairy tales and little more. As with any religion, some will take the writings literally, others will view them as valuable but corrupted, and still others will put them on onion skin pages and protect them with fine leather bindings and scatter them with notations.

Judaism is a revealed religion. It's also a culture, a way of life, a collection of traditions. It doesn't matter whether Abraham and Moses were real, but each laid a foundation that make Jews what they are today. I don't think I'll ever understand your concept of God. I think of Him as a perfect being in our physical image, all knowing, all powerful. In Christianity, Jesus is in the "express image" of the Father. Adam was in the image of God, and Seth was in the image of Adam. And though God is all powerful, one wonders why it took him six-plus days to create the earth when he could have just spoken it into existence with a word?

I'm also not entirely sure how many Jews look at the supplemental prophets like Elijah and that prophet's return. In that culture, why does Elijah need to return?

You were once a Jehovah's Witness and left it, and have since studied Judaism and reside in Israel. It's obvious that to you God is real. At the same time, your understanding of God defies understanding (at least on my level). When the Christian Patristic scholars wrote of God as being everywhere and nowhere, infinitely large and yet incomprehensibly small: completely beyond human understanding. And yet after creating us, "He" offers us nothing except His notice.

unsure

A few of us have given examples of questionable actions in the Old Testament.

To those who take the Old Testament literally, why did God make those decisions?

Ding

Let's distinguish between horrendous things that the Old Testament says happened (such as the rape Pale Emperor referred to), things God warned would happen (Pale Emperor listed some of those), and things we find objectionable which the Old Testament says God commanded to happen or directly caused to happen.

Bungi Bill

David_J,

Thanks for your interesting posts explaining things from the Jewish perspective i.e. that of the writers of the Old Testament.

What we are talking about here is the overall matter of "Spirituality" - which certainly includes, but is not limited to, religion / worship. The "spiritual" does not have to make rational sense; perhaps even in most instances it never does. However, as you have described, that in itself need not be a problem.

All the more reason, though, not to allow oneself to get too bent out of shape over the matter of religion! When I first agreed to the offer of what the JWs call a "Free Home Bible Study", certain others tried to warn me that, to quote "Religion is all-right, but in its place". Sadly, it took me a long time to wake up to what they were warning me about!

I have just finished reading Janina Bauman's Beyond these Walls. In that work, she, too, said very much the same as you did in the way the Jewish religion defines a people culturally. (Their family was not "practising" in its faith, considered themselves to be patriotic Polish citizens, yet still identified with their Jewish culture).

PS: I for one appreciate your posts, which have re-introduced a depth of discussion to this board, of a type not seen here for some time.

stuckinarut2

Basically, if a person today acted in the manner "yaweh" or "god" did, he would be condemned as a criminal and punished...NOT praised.

Cold Steel

Unsure » A few of us have given examples of questionable actions in the Old Testament. To those who take the Old Testament literally, why did God make those decisions?

There are only three viable possibilities here.

The first is that man created God, and none of the so-called Old Testament is what it claims to be. Two, God does exist and it's pointless to question Him because He knows the hearts and thoughts of all men. He is the ultimate in truth, love, mercy and justice and He understand the situation far better than we ever could. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9)

The third possibility, of course, is that God exists, but He's not as SMART or as FAIR or as JUST as He has declared Himself to be through His prophets in the scriptures. Let's also recall that God ended no one's existence when He had people killed. Jesus, during his death, is recorded by Peter to have preached the gospel to the unrighteous who died during the Flood (1 Peter 3:18-20). So, really, who did He kill. As one theologian put it, these people didn't cease to exist but were temporarily moved to a penalty box. Atheists view death as the end of existence. God, on the other hand, views atheists as children who reach outrageous and exceedingly foolish conclusions based on inadequate understandings of all facets having to do with any given situation.

unsure

I hope that it is that we are too limited as human beings to understand God's purpose or thinking. It's the only way I can accept the God of the Old Testament and the Bible as a whole. I want to beleive in a God and it's the only explanation at this time that will allow me to believe.

unsure

@Cold Steel said:
"God, on the other hand, views atheists as children who reach outrageous and exceedingly foolish conclusions based on inadequate understandings of all facets having to do with any given situation."

Atheists are very intelligent and base their viewpoints on facts rather than faith and confirmation bias.

Some of the greatest minds in human history are atheist.

The existence of a God cannot be proven.

I'm sorry, I want to believe and on some days I do, but I accept that I have no evidence to base this beleif on, only faith. To do otherwise would be lying to myself.

Cold Steel

Unsure » Atheists are very intelligent and base their viewpoints on facts rather than faith and confirmation bias.

I know a lot of atheists that are a lot smarter than me, that's fer sure. My point is that they aren't smarter than God (if He exists). The points people are making is, why is God soooooooo mean (if He exists)? No, I take it back...they don't ask, they declare it, as if it's a fact. God murders people whose only offense is that they occupy land that He gave the Israelites. Therefore, God's a meanie. A degenerate desert god who has a zero tolerance policy for sin.

That's where it's an issue for me, so therefore my statement that God views them as "foolish" (his word). No matter how sharp you are...how smart...how educated, if you don't have the same facts, or details, and if you don't have the same standards of morality, then you can't stand in judgment of God. After all, He has all the facts (if He exists) and He knows what their deeds were and what was in their hearts.

Atheism wasn't an issue in the days of Moses. The people had seen Moses come down from the mount with a face like amber. They'd seen the parting of the Red Sea and the ten plagues in Egypt. The issue was God's judgments. And today, atheists (smart but ignorant) sit in judgment of God, defending peoples and practices they know nothing of. In pre-flood times we don't know a thing about the peoples, cultures, religions or practices. We know something of the religions of the Canaanites and of the ancient Carthaginians, and they were despicable peoples who burned their children alive and sold their daughters into ritual prostitution.

No matter how smart a person is, the wisdom of men, even the smartest one, is foolishness to God. That's why if God exists, the issue is moot. And if He doesn't exist, I suppose it's also moot. What's not is that we're far from knowing everything.

God of the Old Testament

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