How do I know the bible is correct? Well, I know it is correct , for me, and thats truly all I need to know.
And again, back to my original post, God would not ask for a blood sacrifice now. Jesus’ sacrifice was the last blood sacrifice needed.
Feeling the magnitude of G-d’s love and in turn, giving that to my child, no matter what happens to me, shows the highest level of faith in G-d possible. I trust G-d to know what’s in my heart and instead of obeying a command out of fear, I am dis-obeying with trust.
John Mace, on the first page of this thread, I gave you my rationale which fits standard Episcopal doctrine. In case you missed it, here it is again. I believe that Christ’s death on the cross was a full and sufficient sacrifice, and the last one God will require of His people, at least to atone for sins, and I can’t think of any other reason God as I know Him would require a sacrifice. Any additional sacrifice, even that of a Coke, is redundant and unnecessary. I think I’m paraphrasing Paul, but basically, either Christ’s sacrifice was not sufficient, in which case, we humans are, to put it bluntly, screwed because there’s nothing we can do which would atone sufficiently, or Christ’s sacrifice was sufficient, in which case, the question, “What would you do if God told you to sacrifice your child?” makes about as much sense as the question “What would you do if yellow became purple?” I freely admit that logic transcends faith, but my faith requires at least a minimum of logic, and the situation described doesn’t cut it.
CJ
yay! My point exactly! 
I don’t believe I said that. If I did, I was unclear. No, it did not end “the need for sacrifice.” It was a command for us not to sacrifice our children to Him. There’s a difference between that and ending the need for sacrifice altogether.
The ending of the need for sacrifice happened about 2 millenia ago - very much after the Abraham incident. Still, it’s ended, I’m not sharpening my knife. (Nor am I dragging it to my local priest who has a sharp knife ready.)
If you read the incident carefully, there is evidence that Abraham had faith that Isaac was walking back off the mountain alive, that part of him believed that God wasn’t going to take his child. (he announces to the servants that he and Isaac will go and that “we will come back to you.” He also told Isaac that “God Himself will provide the lamb” (NIV)).
My faith is that God does not and will not require that I sacrifice my (potential/future) child to Him.
But you don’t know it, you believe it. Faith has no epistemological value. whatever.
All that stuff still presupposes that Christian soteriology is true. If it isn’t true (and you have no way of knowing that it is) then it’s all out the window as an argument. It just comes down to "That wouldn’t happen because I don’t believe it would happen. Belief is not knowledge no matter how strongly you believe it.
[off topic] I also take exception to the argument that people cannot atone for their own sins. Why not? And even if we can’t, so what? Why do we have to? Is God really going to damn for the petty sins that most of us carry around?
I also don’t see what purpose is served by a blood sacrifice in any case. What does God get out of nailing a guy to a stick? How does that pay for the bad stuff that I do?
And isn’t God just saving us from himself, anyway? If so, then why does he need a mechanism like Jesus? All he has to do is will us to be saved and we are. [/off topic]
In any case, there is no reason to assume that 'God" if he exists has to conform to Christian theology.
Sorry if I missed that, so let me then ask you this question. Faced with 2 conficlting pieces of information, one coming from your Church and one coming directly from God to you, why is that you would choose to accept the former over the latter? Wouldn’t it be more likely that your Church got things wrong than that God Himself did?
Quote from Diogenes the Cynic
Then why even ask for a cite in the first place? The only cite you would get you would simply consider bunk and for YOU would have no meaning.
in the Old Testament the blood of bulls and goats was used as an action, a sacrifice made to God for the forgiveness of sins. It’s an action that people had to take to show they were truly sorry for whatever they had done. The point is, it’s a sacrifice, they didnt use someone else goat, they used their own, and it was generally the best of the best.
Then God came down and was made flesh and He Himself became our ultimate sacrifice so that we no longer had to follow old Levitical law.
And no God is not saving us from Himself…He is saving us from seperation from Him. We have a choice. We were given the free will. I personally believe that we all have already made that choice before the foundation of the world. We were all in Gods thoughts to begin with, we made the choice then to follow God or to follow Satan when he thought he was bigger badder faster stronger.
But again, you don’t believe any of this anyway, so why worry? You’ll just be worm food and life will go on, right? 
Oh, come on Dio. You know perfectly well that it’s a tenant of Christian faith to be able to cast out demons in Jesus’ name. if you don’t then you haven’t been paying very close attention in the 14 months you’ve been here.
If you’d like to discuss the topic I put forth in my OP, feel free. But please don’t hijack my thread with your semantic games.
Me: Cutting wood. Voopa, voopa, voopa.
God: <DING> “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.”
Me: Long silence. Then — “Riiiight.”
God: “No, really. Burn your kid.”
Me: “Why?”
God: “Don’t ask why. Mysterious ways.”
Me: “Yeah? Check out my mysterious finger.”
Voopa, voopa, voopa.
My “cite” request was facetious. My point was that there is no way to know whether God is actually speaking to you and falling back on an a priori assumption is logically fallacious.
I know all about the Old Testament and animal sacrifice. I still don’t see why killing an animal atones for anything. It’s just as stupid whether it’s a hippie or a goat. It’s rooted in primative notions that gods had to be fed and it’s nonsense.
If God wanted to relieve us from the law, then all he had to do was tell us. There was no need for a sacrifice or any other mechanism. That’s just God being bloodthirsty. After all, he’s only “saving” us from himself.
**
Nope. He’s saving us from himself. If he wants me to go to heaven I a will go to Heaven. I will have no say in the matter. If anyone burns in hell, then that’s onlty because God wills it. It’s all HIS choice. He’s in charge. It is logically impossible for anything to happen against God’s will.
If we have free will then we don’t need Jesus. The whole premise of Christianity is that we can’t be good enough to please this monster, Yahweh, on our own so we needed to to snuff a hippie. If we have free will, then we have the ability to choose good. If we don’t have the ability to choose good then we don’t have free will. It makes no sense to say that we have free will but we can only be sinners.
As to “Satan,” well, who created Stan? Satan exists only by the will of God, therefore Satan is only a tool of God. If God doesn’t want Satan to exist he only has to will him away.
This stuff about “choosing” while we were still “God’s thoughts” makes no sense at all. That would mean that God did the choosing. It would also mean that god chose to create people who he knew would have no chance of salvation and what is the point of that?
Also, why do we need to be perfect in the first place? Why can’t God just let everybody into heaven regardless of what kind of person they were. What harm would it do? How is Heaven any less Heavenly if some heathens make it in?
But again, you don’t believe any of this anyway, so why worry? You’ll just be worm food and life will go on, right? **
[/QUOTE]
Cervaise, Bill Cosby wouldn’t be your alter ego, would he?
Voopa, voopa, voopa.
It’s the thought that counts.
No, really. :eek:
Actually you do have a point here. I even think I questioned this a long time ago. I mean, Satan is supposed to be the great deceiver, right? Wouldn’t it behoove him to ‘write a bible’?
Technically God wouldn’t have to even tell us, God could have created us not to sin (seeing as God doesn’t like it anyway…).
My biblical knowledge is questionable of late, but doesn’t Satan have to get some sort of permission to interfer with human lives? I seem to remember something like this in the book of Job…
This brings up the interesting question of “how does an omnipotent perfect God create something imperfect?”
Oh, come on Dio. You know perfectly well that it’s a tenant of Christian faith to be able to cast out demons in Jesus’ name. if you don’t then you haven’t been paying very close attention in the 14 months you’ve been here.
If you’d like to discuss the topic I put forth in my OP, feel free. But please don’t hijack my thread with your semantic games. **
[/QUOTE]
Sorry, but I thought the epistemological question about how one can be sure that it’s really God is pertinent to the topic.
Some of my other stuff is a total hijack, however.
Satan in Hebew scripture is not evil. The word means something like “adversary” and his job is to challenge God. You are correct that Satan required God’s permission before he started messing with Job. Satn as an evil tempter comes from the NT. Satan as a “fallen angel” is from Christian tradition, not from scripture (well there is a bit about “Lucifer” as a falling star but that’s not a reference to Satan, it’s just a bad translation for a word for the planet Venus).
So does the New Testament Satan still have to get permission? I hate to hijack this thread even further, but this is a potentially very confusing question (at least to me)…
The NT Satan is seen as an enemy of God, so no, he doesn’t need permission. Satan went from being a servant of God in the OT to being a sort of uber-demon in the NT. In Judaism, Satan is still seen as a servant of God, while in Christianity he’s a rebel.
Nope, no way.
God can do what he wants to with me. He can kill someone if he wants to-but he ain’t using me to do so.
Personally, I say no. But since I don’t believe, that’s not really a fair test. I can see two things that would change the answer:
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Believing that God sets right and wrong, and hence that obeying him is the greatest right.
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Trusting God. Hence knowing that because God asked you to do it, it’s for the best (say, my child would die painfully some other way, or grow up bad and go to hell, and wish he’d died while he was good, or that somehow his death would avert some greater wrong.)
I think some beleivers believe (1) or (2). Personally I don’t think I could believe (1) ever, but, in theory, could come to accept (2). Someone sacrificing their son in such a circumstance sounds evil, but compare it to, say, their spouse urging them to. If they trust their spouse enough, and know how much they both love their son, they can only believe it for the best.
Of course, occasionally, there’s a delusion and hence a tragedy. But that’s always possible.
<hijack>Personally I don’t believe (2), and could consider anyone who did dangerous (sorry) but I think that’s a horrible mistake, not an evil. OTOH the people I kow who put the most trust in God are some of the nicest people I know, so it works somehow.</hijack>
It is. But mystycalchyk was talking about casting out a demon pretending to be God in Jesus’ name. You called “cite” on that. That’s just disingenuous of you.
:rolleyes:
John Mace, my local church, at least in the form of my local bishop is telling me one thing and God is telling me something else, at least with regard to the issue of homosexuality. My bishop is firmly opposed to homosexual marriage. I mentioned my church’s teachings because this is one area in which I am in complete agreement with it. Ultimately, I must obey that which I believe to be God, otherwise I would be breaking His first commandment, according to Christ, which requires me not only to love Him with all my heart, but also with all my mind.
As for there being no guarantee that the “God” in question is the Christian God, I’m fully aware of that, too. Even if the entity in question is the God of some Christians, I realize that doesn’t necessarily mean he has to be the God of all of us. Come on, I admit to wondering if lynn73 and I worship the same entity, even though it appeears to go by the same name.
There are circumstances under which I would sacrifice my own life, believing it was God’s will, most notably to save the lives of one or more other people. Then again, what do you expect from an idealistic depressive with a history of suicide attempts? There are some things I’ve done believing they were in accordance with what I understand to be God’s will, not the least of which is associating quite closely with a pair of wonderful Wiccans. There are also some things which I cannot believe the entity I worship would command me to do, therefore, any entity which orders me to do them cannot by (circular) definition be God, or at least nothing I’m willing to worship. If it means I burn in whatever that entity defines as “hell”, so be it.
There are things in my experience which I know full well I can never explain fully enough to satisfy some of the Atheists around here. I also freely admit that at some point, my faith takes a great leap into unknown madness and defies logic, and that is partially out of my pig-headed refusal to worship any entity which can be bound by mere human logic. Logic tells me I should have died over a decade ago. Faith tells me I’m out here again making a fool of myself (OK, faith and the feel of my fingers on the keyboard, the clacking sound the keys make, etc.). Do I wish I could convey those things to you? Sure, just like I wish I could convey the beauty of some of the sunsets I saw in Hawaii or the way it felt to sing Handel’s Messiah with a first rank choir last Friday. It ain’t gonna happen, though.
CJ