a lot of people have pointed out that a lot of the world's problems have religion at their core.
religion's crimes are vast.
from crusades to inquisitions to genocides to our current wars.
War is part of us. It will never cease.
However, I may paraphrase a quote, the author of which escapes me at this time:
"If there were no religion, good people would do good things and evil people would do evil things. But for good people to do evil things - that takes religion."
so god sent us to egypt and god took us out of egypt.
rabbi: and when pharaoh said no?
then he slew their livestock.
PD: Did you know that the nazis were backed up by the then leaders of the catholic church? Do you also know they have the same god as the jews...the god of Abraham? No divine intervention.. just humans and their petty differences...
Yes, that is clearly the point being emphasized in the Rabbi's last statement.
so god sent us to egypt and god took us out of egypt.
rabbi: and when pharaoh said no?
then he slew their livestock.
Whoa there... smoke some chillout and observe the Winter Solstice or something
so god sent us to egypt and god took us out of egypt.
rabbi: and when pharaoh said no?
then he slew their livestock.
Found this small transcript from a portion of the docudrama "God on Trial". Thoughts?
(Oh, and in case you haven't seen it, I'll provide context: It's a group of Jews interred in a concentration camp who decide to put god on trial.)
Rabbi Akiba: Who led us out of Egypt?
Judge: God led us out of Egypt.
Rabbi: I have a question. Why were we in Egypt to start with?
Judge: There was a famine, so we took shelter.
Rabbi: Who sent the famine?
Judge: Well we don't know much about the famine...
Rabbi: God sent the famine. So God sent us to Egypt and God took us out of Egypt.
Judge: And later he sent us out of Babylon in order that we might...
Rabbi: And when he brought us out of Egypt, how did he do it? By words, vision, miracle?
Judge: Moses asked Pharaoh...
Rabbi: And when Pharaoh said no?
Inmate: The plagues.
Rabbi: First Moses turned the Egyptians' water to blood. Then God sent the plague of frogs; next a plague of mosquitoes; then a plague of flies. Then he slew their livestock. Next a plague of boils. Next came the hail, which battered down the crops and even the trees and structures everywhere, except in Goshen where the Israelites lived.
Judge: But still Pharaoh did not agree.
Rabbi: And so a plague of locusts, and then the days of darkness, and finally what?
Judge: God slew the firstborn of Egypt and led us out of Egypt.
Rabbi: He struck down the firstborn, from the firstborn and heir of Pharaoh to the firstborn of the slave at the mill. He slew them all. Did he slay Pharaoh?
Judge: No, I don't think so. It was later.
Rabbi: It was Pharaoh that said no, but God let him live. And slew his children instead. All the children. And then the people made their escape taking with them the gold and silver and jewelry and garments of the Egyptians. And then God drowned the soldiers who pursued them. He did not close the waters up so that the soldier could not follow. He waited until they were following and then he closed the waters. And then what?
Judge: And then the desert and ultimately the promised land.
Rabbi: No. The promised land was empty and a new place, uncultivated.
Judge: No. There were...
Rabbi: When the Lord thy God shall bring you into the promised land you shall cast out many nations before you, nations much greater and mightier than you are. You shall smite them and utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them.
Inmate: It shows us his favor. We are his people.
Rabbi: And he gave us a king in Saul. Now when the people of Amalek fought Saul's people, what did the Lord God command? I'll ask the scholar.
Scholar: Crush Amalek and put him under the curse of destruction.
Rabbi: Was Saul to show any mercy to spare anyone?
Scholar: Do not spare...
Rabbi: Do not spare him, but kill. Kill man, woman, babe, and suckling, ox, and sheep, cattle and donkey. So Saul set out to do this and on the way he met some Kenites. Now these were not Amalek's people, he had no quarrel with them. He urged them to flee. And the Lord our God was he pleased by the mercy of Saul, by the justice of Saul?
Scholar: No. No he wasn't.
Rabbi: And when Saul decided not to slaughter all the livestock and to take it to feed his people, was God pleased with his prudence, his charity?
Scholar: No.
Rabbi: No, he was not. He said, you have rejected the word of Adonai, therefore he has rejected you as king. And then to please the Lord our God, Samuel brought forth the king Agar and hacked him to pieces before the Lord at Gilgar.
After Saul there came David who took Bathsheba the wife of Uriah the Hittite to himself after arranging to have Uriah killed -- against the wishes of God. Did God strike David for this?
Scholar: In a manner of speaking...
Rabbi: Did he strike Bathsheba?
Scholar: In the sense that when they had...
Rabbi: Adonai said, since you have sinned against me, the child will die. (Turning to the judge) You asked earlier, who would punish a child? God does.
Rabbi: Now did the child die suddenly, mercifully, without pain?
Scholar: In a...
Rabbi: Seven days. Seven days that child spent dying in pain while David wrapped himself in sack and ashes and fasted and sought to show his sorrow to God. Did God listen?
Scholar: The child died.
Rabbi: Did that child find that God was just?
Did the Amalekites think that Adonai was just?
Did the mothers of Egypt -- the mothers -- did they think that Adonai was just?
Scholar: But Adonai is our God, surely...
Rabbi: Oh, what? Did God not make the Egyptians? Did he not make their rivers and make their crops grow? If not him, then who? What? Some other God? But what did he make them for? To punish them? To starve, to frighten, to slaughter them? The people of Amalek, the people of Egypt, what was it like for them when Adonai turned against them? It was like this.
Today there was a selection, yes? When David defeated the Moabites, what did he do?
Judge: He made them lie on the ground in lines and he chose one to live and two to die.
Rabbi: We have become the Moabites. We are learning how it was for the Amalekites. They faced extinction at the hand of Adonai. They died for his purpose. They fell as we are falling. They were afraid as we are afraid. And what did they learn? They learned that Adonai, the Lord our God, our God, is not good. He is not good. He was not ever good. He was only on our side.
God is not good. At the beginning when he repented that he had made human beings and flooded the earth. Why? What had they done to deserve annihilation? What could they have done to deserve such wholesale slaughter? What could they have done that was so bad? God is not good.
When he asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, Abraham should have said no. We should have taught our God the justice that was in our hearts. We should have stood up to him. He is not good. He has simply been strong. He has simply been on our side.
When we were brought here, we were brought by train. A guard slapped my face. On their belts they had written "Got mit uns" -- God is with us. Who is to say that he is not? Perhaps he is. Is there any other explanation? What we see here: his power, his majesty, his might, all these things that turned against us. He is still God, but not our God. He has become our enemy.
That is what's happened to our covenant. He has made a new covenant with someone else.
jonahs underwater stomach vacation by capella.
once upon a time there was a man named jonah who was traveling to nineveh on a ship when along came a mighty wind which rocked the ship violently, scaring the pee pee out of everyone on board except for jonah who like many biblical figures in various bible stories had passed out.
the brave sailors of the ship started to panic and began throwing things overboard.
Haha, I love these threads.
... to tell people i meet that i used to be a jw.
over the last two weeks, i've met several new people, trying to branch out and make new friends.
i was surprised at how easy it was to tell these people that i used to be a jw.
I've never told anyone. Only my grandparents know at this time. I should probably tell my uncle. I don't think I'll ever tell any of my friends, not something I'm comfortable talking about.
comments you will not hear at the 12-14-08 wt study (october 15, 2008, pages (7-11)(watches).
review comments will be in red.
wt material from today's wt will be in black.
Its like the Chairman of a global Fortune 50 company addressing his employees that "The lead janitor said that none of you really like working here. So, everyone must come to work with a smile everyday and continue to smile all day until the lead janitor is convinced that you all like working here, then I will give everyone ten years of paid vacation. If anyone takes a day off or doesn't smile and extol the company then we are starting all over again until I can prove to the lead janitor that everyone likes working here. I'll be watching you. For those of you that put in overtime, you will get the same reward as everyone else but you be a lot happier while you're working toward your reward. Btw...no office parties of any kind unless you are celebrating the day my son was announced as CEO"
Haha, this is great. I also like Cameo-d's comments. And of course, blondie's.
yearbook 67 p.105 "...a large crowd was following a man who had a talking serpent.
the serpent gave greetings and and spoke in foreign tongues....a brother was passing by and attracted by the commotion, he went to the house ...as soon as he entered the room the serpent stopped talking.
the man cried out: "a magican has entered the room...the brother asked the man: "is that a serpent or a demon that has spoken to you?....i know that since god has created animals not one serpent has spoken, with the exception of the one in the begining in the garden of eden...seeing that the serpent remained silent the man left the building...later...he was anxious to get some literature....".
look at that, right underneath the snake stuff... apparently Mr. T wrote a letter to the local congo!
australian beer drinking philosophers is one of mine
Ministry of Silly Walks possibly... also the both of the Biggus Dickus scenes in Life of Brian.
would it have any effect on you at all?
I just got "involuntarily DA'd" and it's great!
Oh, and Troubled Mind, I can't wait for the first time I see a dubbie. I'll walk right up to them and say "Hi, so-and-so, how are you doing?" just to watch 'em squirm.
