Should we handle victory the way the Christian god decrees?

You are not taking into account that we have free will.

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You are not taking into account that we have free will.

What is free will? The ability to choose? Then free will yes, but the choices that people makes may be biased by unjust feelings and a level of ignorance, so why not discard these feelings and educate the masses?

Just who are you wanting to educate the masses?

Are you suggesting that everybody be put into a robotic state where we all think and do the same thing? If not.... what is your proposal?

No, if God can do anything, he could've not placed this anger and possible destructive emotions within us, and he could show himselves to everyone and he could also tell people that waging war is wrong, etc.

No, if God can do anything, he could've not placed this anger and possible destructive emotions within us, and he could show himselves to everyone and he could also tell people that waging war is wrong, etc.

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Just who are you wanting to educate the masses?

I was talking about GOD.

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Are you suggesting that everybody be put into a robotic state where we all think and do the same thing? If not.... what is your proposal?

Nope, I've answered your question above.

So, is what you are saying is that it's God's fault because He did not make us perfect?

You are making the assumption that God put man's anger and destructiveness into him. He did not. He did give man his own free will.
Is it your position that all people thought that war was right? Do you not think that there were good people as well. You can read about them in the scriptures.

Nope. I'm saying that He could've, but why didn't He? I don't understand how you can say that God acted such and such because the people then are primitives, and suddenly tthe actions depicted in the bible is seen as justified.

No, that would make us understand why He did what He did and in no way lessened His position. Also, if there is free will, then why do some believe that there is a plan? You also tried to justify the action of God by stating that the people were more primitive then, did you not?

I'm asking these questions because I don't know. What I do know is that what you believe in is a matter of faith, and you can not really expect to logically argue for the existence of your view on what God is like. I may believe in God, or I may not, but I have accepted that I don't know.

I would not want a God that had to prove Himself to me. Who am I to ask God for proof?

Fair enough, but He, if He exist, wouldn't expect us to believe in the bible just because it claimed to be the word of God would he? If He does not explain to us or at least show himself to us in any form conceivable, then I don't see how He expects us to understand that He exists or to understand that what He's doing is right.

You're a person of which God's action, if He exist, has significant impact on you, so I don't see how you can't ask him for proof. It's not like asking for a ton of Gold or anything? Oh and why would God be angry at proving that he exist to us?

That's one of the major problems with christians. Others can speak for others who call themselves christians, but claim it is not true. Another one of those confusions surrounding christians in this country. So who really determines who is a "real" christian?

Some have been expressing the opinion that only the New Testament applies today. But with all the errors in the New Testament, how is it possible to know what is the truth?

"The genealogies of Matthew and Luke contradict each other
Solution: Luke records the lineage of Mary, and Matthew that of Joseph.
The problem with this solution is that both genealogies explicitly end with Joseph.

Matthew's geneology ends:
"And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ."
Luke's begins:
"And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli,"
So who was Joseph's father - Jacob or Heli? Jacob was his biological father whereas Heli was his father-in-law reckoned as also being his legal father. This would particularly be the case if Mary had no brothers - under the Mosaic law. (Num 27:8) Then upon marriage, the first born son would be reckoned according to the wife's father and receive his inheritance passed down through his mother. (Deut 25:5,6) Such could have been the case with Jesus.
Further, Jewish genealogies were almost always traced via the paternal line.

Today Jewish trace their ancestry via the maternal line. Today if your mother is a Jew, you are reckoned Jewish, but if your father is a Jew, then not. And as I mentioned above, in the case where a man only has daughters, his line would not be cut off, but would be reckoned according to the first born son of the daughters. Jesus was also a special case (after all, how many Jews had no biological father?). So establishing his biological ancestry was important.

Matthew's genealogy of Jesus is recorded in Matthew 1:1-16, and Luke's is recorded in Luke 3:23-38. It has long been known that these two records do not agree with each other. Specifically, they diverge after Solomon, converge at Shealtiel (the father of Zerubbabel), diverge after Zerubbabel and do not converge again until Joseph, the father of Jesus.

Shealtiel probably married the daughter and heiress of Neri, hence is reckoned his son (Luke 3:27).

Note that this also means that the genealogy of Zerubbabel is contradictory. Matthew makes him a descendant of Solomon, David's son. Luke makes him a descendant of Nathan, also a son of David. Since Solomon and Nathan were full blood brothers (I Chronicles 3:5) they cannot both be paternal ancestors of Zerubbabel.

It only takes one instance of a levirate marriage to explain such a divergence in the lines, and such could have occurred with Shealtiel's father, as mentioned above. Then just as Mary and Joseph both had a common paternal ancestor - Zerubbabel, so also Jeconiah and Neri had a common paternal ancestor - David.

In fact, both genealogies are pointless, since both Matthew and Luke then go on to claim that Mary was impregnated by the Holy Spirit, not by Joseph.

Jesus was legally the son of Joseph, as such he was called even by unbelievers during his ministry.

Since Mary was probably of the tribe of Levi (see Luke 1:5 in conjunction with Luke 1:36), it is therefore impossible for Jesus to have been the 'Son of David' as was required for the Messiah (Matthew 22:42).

Who says that Mary belonged to the tribe of Levi? It was true that Elizabeth, her cousin, was of the tribe of Levi, but that doesn't make Mary from the tribe of Levi. For don't forget, we have more than one set of grandparents. And each set, in this case, can come from different tribes. It simply means that Mary's paternal grandparents were not the same as Elizabeth's paternal grandparents. Rather, Mary's paternal grandparents were the same as Elizabeth's maternal grandparents.

There is another problem with Matthew's list. Matthew includes Jeconiah (Matthew 1:11), even though the Old Testament records that God cursed Jeconiah, and prophesied that he would never have a descendant upon the throne of Judah. (Jeremiah 22:28-30)

The term "childless" that Jeremiah uses is explained by the statement taht "no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah." With reference to a lineal successor, he was "childless."

Momma Angel wrote:

Thank you for that Frank. I do appreciate you acknowledging that I did answer you.

Amigo, are you serious? Where did I say God was primitive? Did I not say the times were primitive? Don't put words in my mouth. Please do not do that.

In the scripture from your bible (God) instructs that we force submission or murder man, moman and child without mercy. The defence was " Times were primitive". When the christian sword comes down on the child and he/she asks why. Do we say "Sorry kiddo, Times is primative."

Look around at all that God has created. If you did a mathematical equation on the odds of everything being what it is today, it would be beyond human comprehension. The odds of a tornado blow through a junkyard and blow pieces of junk into a complete 747 jumbo jet are probably less.

Intrepid wrote:

Look around at all that God has created. If you did a mathematical equation on the odds of everything being what it is today, it would be beyond human comprehension. The odds of a tornado blow through a junkyard and blow pieces of junk into a complete 747 jumbo jet are probably less.

This "look around" argument is nonsense, Intrepid.

What's here...is what's here.

It can just as easily be an accident as anything else.

The mathematical equation of duplicating it exactly ...may be "beyond human comprehension" (and I suspect it is)...but to take "what's here" as a finished product and say the odds against it happening accidentally is simply misusing logic and math.

You do understand that, don't you? I don't have to explain it in simpler terms, do I?