posted
Okay, here're the first ninteen questions. If you still want the rest, I'll do 'em too. Sorry for the lack of specific scriptures in certain places, finding them would have doubled the time I spent on this. If you want 'em, I'll try and find 'em for ya. Hope this is somewhat enlightening as to what the Bible actually says.
1. What is the last of the Ten Commandments?
That reading of scripture does invoke some curiousity, but it's (again) purposefully interpreting things in a contradictory manner, when a non-contradictory and equally valid manner is available. Exodus 34 has God say a bunch of stuff that the test-writer has listed. Then He says "Write all this down!" which Moses obviously did, seeing as it's in Exodus. Then it says Moses was there for 40 days, and wrote on the tablets the "words of the promise, the ten commandments." It does NOT say that the words spoken immediately prior are said commandments, and while that might be a reasonable interpretation, it's equally reasonable to assume that it refers to the commandments given earlier.
2. What is the penalty for working on the Sabbath?
Correct question: what was the perscribed penalty for Jews who worked on the Sabbath? The question makes it seem as if the commandments apply to everyone.
What is the harm in working on the Sabbath? It seems the only harm is to the ego of the Sovereign, who demands respect with no respect to human needs.
HAR! The Sabbath existed to give REST, not to stroke God's ego. (Or would that be Ego?) Yes, the rest is a great opportunity to reflect on God's blessings and should be taken as such, but it existed as a service to man. He didn't have to work, nor could he make anyone work for him. Thus even servants and slaves rested. As for death being the punishment for defiance of the law, well, there I think I just have to trust God's judgement that in that particular situation, capital punishment served as an effective deterrent.
3. What is God's name?
Jealous. --This is a petty self-described insecurity from a supposedly all-wise leader.
Ah, the joys of 16th century translations. Jealousy hasn't always implied insecurity. More modern translations render the same concept as refusal to tolerate rivals, which fits perfectly with everything else God commands. Our concept of a jealous husband would be a paranoid one, whereas this is more one who just doesn't want his wife running around on him.
4. How should parents treat a stubborn and rebellious son?
Corrected question: what did God say to the Jews about how to treat consistantly unruly children? Again with the mistake that these laws apply to all people in all situations.
Once again, I can only trust that God knew that for the legal-minded Jews of the time, the deterrent of capital punishment was appropriate.
5. What happens if you are not a virgin on your wedding night?
Corrected question: yet again, laws given to Jews, we're not Jews, thus laws not given to us.
The fact that Christian women who have engaged in premarital sex are not being stoned to death today shows that even believers recognize cruelty and absurdity in their own "Good Book."
Like I say, we recognize that we are free from the law of sin and death. Again, same explanation for capital punishment as above. Of course, the entire thing is based on the idea that extramarital sex is not how God intended life to be lived, which you probably don't accept. But then, it's my argument, I can assume whatever I please so long as I'm consistant.
6. What does the bible say about witches?
Corrected question: BURN THEM! No, but seriously, you know what I'm going to say here.
7. Which of these foods does the bible expressly permit you to eat? (The others are "abominations.")
Yet again, Jewish law, not applicable to me. As for the bit about the coney chewing cud, there are so many conceivable explanations that I don't feel the need to list them here. I will on request, if desired. Just don't ask me to explain the overarching pattern of the Hebraic food laws.
8. When the Israelites conquered the Midianites, what part of the spoils of war was given to the priest as "the Lord's tribute"?
Of the 32,000 virgins that were kept alive as "booty" for God's warriors, 32 young captives were handed to the priest. The bible brutally sanctifies war crimes against girls and women that continue to this day.
How does someone being given to a priest automatically turn into war crimes? Virgins were able to hold some position in the temple, though I can't remember exactly what they did there. I'd be happy to look it up, if you doubt. Further, I point out that this is another circumstance where God's opinion on the matter is not stated, simply that these things happened. So here we've got the test-maker making TWO unfounded assumptions, when the only reason to make those particular assumptions is to reach the desired conclusion that God approves of rape.
9. What is the origin of the "mighty men" giants known as nephilim?
The "sons of God" were angels: "the expression clearly refers to divine beings."
If it's so clearly refering to angels, then why is there still debate about it to this day? The referred group could have been anyone. Further, even if these were angels in question, God doesn't control angels any more than he controls us. Angels either follow God's will or don't. The ones that don't could easily have fathered children, though why they'd bother I'm not sure.
10. What happened to Korah and his family, Israelites who thought they could talk directly with God without a human intermediary?
They didn't want to talk to God, they wanted power. Korah wanted to depose Moses, which God obviously found unacceptable. Again with the capital punishment.
11. According to the bible, who created evil?
"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." (Isaiah 45:7)
The word "create" above is bara, the same word used in Genesis 1:1. The word "evil" is ra, such as in Genesis 2:9, "the tree of knowledge of good and evil." Some versions, such as the NIV, have unjustifiably softened the implications of this verse by translating ra as "disaster" or "calamity," although ra is used repeatedly throughout scripture to refer to moral evil.
Frankly, I think I trust the makers of multiple translations as to what's a justifiable English rendering more than I trust this one man who isn't definitely identified on the page.
12. According to the bible, what is God not able to do?
Judges 1:19 says that Judah and his men couldn't drive out the chariots, not that God couldn't.
13. According to the bible, where does God live? In darkness
Every verse referenced talks about God in a stormcloud. Reasonable imagry.
The Mormon religion, in fact, considers God to be a natural being living on a planet.
And we've come full circle...
14. According to biblical biology, what is a bat? A bird
Ooh, they used a different arbitrary classification scheme than OUR arbitrary classification scheme! They MUST be wrong!
Dropping the sarcasm for a moment, we define "bird" to be any egg-laying critter with feathers and hollow bones, to be simplistic about it. But that's a man-made definition. We could just as easily define bird as "warm-blooded thing that flies", and draw the arbitrary line slightly differently to include bats.
15. According to biblical anatomy, where does thinking happen? The heart
This is the very definition of nitpicking. The Bible isn't trying to say "Okay, you know that beating thing in their chest? That tells you a lot about a person's mind." We use the language the same way today, talking about the heart of a matter being the key aspect, that which determines how all else goes.
Tellingly, the word "brain" appears nowhere in the Bible. The bible was clearly not inspired by an all-knowing god.
The words "quantum physics" don't appear in the Koran. Thus the Koran is not divinely inspired. Non-sequitor.
16. How did Gideon demonstrate his family values?
Was Gideon ever held up as an example of family values one way or the other?
17. After Jephthah was victorious in battle, what sacrifice did he burn on the altar, as he had vowed to the Lord? His virgin daughter.
Jephthah MAY have burned his daughter. However, if she was going to be burned to death, why would she have wandered around in the wilderness for weeks bemoaning her dying as a virgin? Wouldn't she have been a little more concerned about dying AT ALL? Many consider it more likely that she was dedicated to temple work for the rest of her life, requiring her to remain a virgin, and thus fulfilling Jephthah's promise to sacrifice the first thing that came to meet him, so long as the "burnt" part wasn't too important.
Further, even if Jephthah did burn his daughter, God expressly forbade any such practice, a fact apparently unknown to the maker of this test. God also provided rules for escaping from vows made in haste such as this one. If Jephthah did physically sacrifice his daughter, he didn't have to, and it was only his ignorance of the word of God that resulted in his doing so.
Notice how everyone assumed the correctness of Jephthah's actions: there is no denunciation of this pointless murder from God, or from anyone in Jephthah's community, or from the biblical writers. It was the right thing to do.
Notice how this writer makes exactly the assumptions he wants to make? The Bible doesn't record everything that went on. There may have BEEN denunciations. Shoot, God may have fried the man on the spot for all we know. Just because nobody in the Bible expressly says "Hey, see this specific action? This is wrong," doesn't mean it's RIGHT.
18. What price did David pay King Saul for his first wife? The foreskins of 200 Philistines
David is supposed to be a biblical role model; but how does massacre and mutilation show moral leadership?
Again, not everything done by Biblical figures is to automatically be accepted as a-ok. And Saul making him kill 200 Philistines was probably intended to be a sure way of getting David killed without marrying his daughter.
19. How many regular sexual partners did King Solomon have? At least one thousand. Another fine example of family values from one of God's favorites.
Yes, and he later lead Israel into idolatry due to those wives. Obviously God didn't approve of THAT, wouldn't you agree? And while God never expressly banned polygamy, it's obvious from many texts that marriage is INTENDED to be a one-to-one male-female relationship. I believe He also said that when Israel decided they wanted a king, he should NOT have many wives, so Solomon was in technical violation of the law. Of course, if you worry about technical violation of the law, you're in the wrong mindset anyway.
God allowed for polygamy for the same reason he allowed for a king: they were gonna do it anyway, so he put rules on it. At one point in... I believe it's Deuteronomy, God says "Don't have a king. But when you DO have a king, make sure of x, y, and z." The Israelites could only handle so much, and God knew it.
Shall I continue, or shut up?
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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posted
You keep saying "just because Revered Biblical Figure X did Atrocity Y, and there's no recorded condemnation of it, that doesn't mean it was approved". But that makes no sense. Your claim is that the bible is divinely inspired. In effect, Yahweh was the editor who made sure that what he wanted written got written. So why would he inspire someone to write "Solomon was a really great guy who fucked an ass-load of women."? If he wanted people to know that he disapproved, he would have inspired something more like "Solomon was a pretty good guy, but he sure had trouble keeping his hands off women. But, other than that, he was okay.".
Also, your mantra of "Mosaic law is for Jews only, and I'm not a Jew" is nonsensical. If you believe that those laws were stated by a god, and that that god is the ruler of Everything, then you can't say that certain people have to obey his laws, and others don't. Otherwise, you could never tell another person what they can and cannot morally do. If I killed someone, and you told me murder was immoral, I could say "Maybe your god told you not to kill people, but he never said it to me, so that rule only applies to you.".
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posted
From a cursory glance, the site seems to promote separation of religion and state. Now while this page has a focus on Christianity, I'm pretty sure that the group would be equally opposed to a government based on Jewish, Islamic, new Age, or Wiccan beliefs for that matter.
So, half of your arguments seem to be somewhat of a cheat. "Ha-ha, it applies only to Jews, I'm not a Jew, and God said its a good idea, so whatever". Even if we accept that rationale, are you saying that it would be a good idea for Ariel Sharon to go ahead and reinstate the death penalty for oh...working on the Sabbath, being an unruly child, if you're not a virgin when marrying, etc.
Or is this a case of "ha-ha, its your own damn fault for not switching to Christianity in the first place"
And what were you going to say about witches? It only applies to Jewish witches???
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posted
Your claim is that the bible is divinely inspired. In effect, Yahweh was the editor who made sure that what he wanted written got written. So why would he inspire someone to write "Solomon was a really great guy who fucked an ass-load of women."? If he wanted people to know that he disapproved, he would have inspired something more like "Solomon was a pretty good guy, but he sure had trouble keeping his hands off women. But, other than that, he was okay.".
Well, then you get into the question of exactly how far inspiration goes. It's one of the running debates of Christianity that we all realize doesn't much matter to how we're gonna live our lives. Unfortunately, that means we tend not to have a firm answer when an unbeliever asks for one! The question is whether God controlled every letter written, effectively using the writers to write exactly whay he wanted; or whether God just ensured that there were no major factual errors in what was being written anyway. I tend to lean towards the second one, for just such reasons as this.
Of course, the Bible also has a tendancy not to hit you over the head. If Solomon married dozens of foreign wives and then lead the people into idolatry, the Bible doesn't say "...and it was WRONG THAT HE DID SO!" That's bleeding obvious, now isn't it? On a few occasions you get an "evil in the sight of the Lord", but that's about as far as it goes, and sometimes in reference to events that aren't specifically described anyway. The histories as written assume that the reader is a member of the (in the case of the Old Testament) Hebrew culture, and thus make certain assumptions about your knowledge and beliefs re: the law of God.
If you believe that those laws were stated by a god, and that that god is the ruler of Everything, then you can't say that certain people have to obey his laws, and others don't.
Sure I can. God said "You people here, I'm making a deal with YOU. Not these other people, YOU. You follow THESE rules, I bless you. Got it?" I am not a member of those people, therefore the terms of that deal do not apply to me. How is that nonsensical?
Otherwise, you could never tell another person what they can and cannot morally do.
Not quite. Those specific laws applied only to the Jews. But those laws are an expression of the general contours, to cop a phrase, of the will of God for human life. He may not want all people to always stone a man for disrespecting his parents, but it's always true that God wants people to respect their parents. God may not want us to burn witches, but we certainly shouldn't think that witchcraft (whatever that term meant in 2,000 BC) is just fine and dandy.
Some ethical theorists divide things into four levels: immediate responses, rules, principles, and central character. Immediate responses are where you do things because that's what your immediate reaction is, no rationalle behind it. Rules is like old Judaism, I do this because the rules tell me to. Principles is like what I'm proposing above: disrespecting parents is bad, and should be ended; however, human life is to be valued; therefore, find way to end disrespect without killing the kid. Finally, central character brings you full-circle. You no longer need to determine what the rules say, or what your principles demand, because you embody their meaning. If we are trying to change our lives to be as God intended, then it's not a question of following rules, it's a question of (sorry, but) what would Jesus do? I need to learn what God's motivations are, and make them my own. And somehow, I doubt God's ultimate goal requires, in all cases, stoning people who work on the Sabbath. Otherwise Jesus would have died a lot sooner.
And what were you going to say about witches? It only applies to Jewish witches???
The same thing I said about the three or four things immediately preceeding that question.
are you saying that it would be a good idea for Ariel Sharon to go ahead and reinstate the death penalty for oh...working on the Sabbath, being an unruly child, if you're not a virgin when marrying, etc. Or is this a case of "ha-ha, its your own damn fault for not switching to Christianity in the first place"
That would seem to be consistant with Judaism. I'm not sure how he resolves that conflict. Thus the flaw of a rule-based system of ethics, and why Christianity as taught by Christ would seem to qualify as a superior ethical model.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
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Please continue, I noticed you never got to the parts about Jesus' teaching. By the way please send me all of your worldly possessions, have your parents sign over their house and any cash or possessions they happen to have. PM me and I will give you the details on how to get all of this stuff to me.
-------------------- "and none of your usual boobery." M. Burns
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posted
Hehe. Well, hey, if you've got any ideas regarding that, feel free to post 'em.
20. What happened to 42 little children who teased God's prophet Elisha for being bald and he cursed them in the name of the Lord? Two bears came out of the forest and killed them all.
Well, to nitpick, the bears killed 42 of them, which may or may not have been all of them. This is another example where I just have to assume God knows what he's doing about capital punishment.
21. What reason did God give for tormenting Job? Satan dared me, so I destroyed Job for no reason at all.
Important detail: God did none of it. He allowed Satan to, which is a completely different concept.
But that's a detail. The real meat of the issue is, does it really qualify as destroying Job? God CREATED Job, and gave him everything he had. It all comes down to how you look at life: if you look at life as something you deserve, then it's pure torture, because it's never good enough, because I SHOULD have all these nice toys. But if you look at life as something you don't deserve, then every second, rich or poor, sick or well, is still a blessing. And that was the whole point.
22. According to the bible, what does Satan look like? A red dragon with 7 heads and 10 horns. Are there still adults in the 21st century who believe in the existence of Satan? If they do, they are forced to picture him as a mythical 7-headed dragon, the only physical description of Satan given in the bible
Yes, and I'm sure four physical horsemen will come along and destroy the world, too. Satan is no more limited to the form of a dragon than Jesus is limited to the form of a human being, or God is limited to the form of the afore-mentioned thunderclouds.
23. How does the biblical god treat haughty women? He puts scabs on their heads and uncovers their private parts.
Funny, my translation says "forehead". I guess there's some disagreement about the meaning of that term. Under any circumstances, the point of the entire passage taken in context is that Israel is getting arrogant, and the women are an obvious sign of this. Therefore Israel will be made low, women and all. The women will no longer be running around in miniskirts and jewelry, if I may be allowed an anachronism, but will instead be destitute, sick and without clothing.
24. In dollars (shekels), how much is a woman worth? Half a male
Ah, here it is! "If any one of you makes a special vow to give a person to the Lord, you may give money instead of the person." This is what Jephthah should have known! But back to this particular point. This is saying that the work a woman does in the temple/tabernacle is worth less money than the work a man does. Seems reasonable. If I recall, during her period a woman was considered cerimonially unclean, meaning she could only work in the temple 3/4 of the time a man could. Toss in the general rule that men are stronger than women, which would have been even more true in the social and historical context in question, and the difference in work-value seems quite reasonable.
25. What happens if a man rapes an engaged virgin in the city, and no one hears anything? They are both stoned to death.
If the woman doesn't cry out, apparently implying consent, yes. I will admit that the law as written doesn't seem to take into account the idea of the woman being gagged, but I would argue that God obviously didn't intend for a gagged woman to be stoned just because she couldn't scream. It isn't consistant with the purpose of the law, just like letting someone die on the Sabbath when you can help them wouldn't be. Also, given the crowding of cities of the time, rape would be a difficult thing to pull of without being caught, which is an important bit of context.
26. What is the Mosaic Law punishment for being handicapped? You are not allowed in church
The temple (or tabernacle) wasn't equivalent to a modern church building in any sense. The further you went into the temple, the fewer people were allowed there. Priests were set apart from the rest, being descended from Aaron. Handicapped Levites of the line of Aaron, however, were not allowed to be priests. (This guy desperately needs to actually read the verses he's quoting.) They still worked in the temple if possible, but they couldn't be priests. The idea of priests was intended as a symbolic gesture of the holiness of God. "Hey, see these people that are really really holy, physically perfect, no possible complaint from any angle? They're not good enough to come into the heart of the Temple where I dwell. Even the best of them can only do it once a year, because I'm, like, really freaking holy. Totally."
27. According to the Bible, when may a husband have sex with his wife? Not during her menstrual period
Now correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it possible to transmit disease this way? Maybe not commonly today, but we have better medical treatment than they did. Of course, the real question is why women are considered cerimonially unclean during their period. There are a number of possible answers, but the one that most occurs to me is, to give them a break! If they're cerimonially unclean there are fewer things they can do, and the workload is lightened. Just a thought.
28. How should you feel when you dash babies against the rocks? Happy.
That may be the most impressive instance I've ever seen of taking a single verse out of context. (If you want combined verses, check Matthew 27:5, Luke 10:37b, and John 13:27.) This is a psalm, the lament of a Jewish captive in Babylon. The point isn't that you should go around killing children, the point is that whoever destroys Babylon will be (he hopes) blessed, because Babylon has really really pissed the writer off.
29. How many human generations were there before Jesus? 62. --The bible got it wrong by two orders of magnitude. History and archaeology prove that there were more than a mere 62 generations before Christianity. The species Homo sapiens has existed for 100,000 - 200,000 years, which would be at least 5,000 generations.
All that evidence can be interpreted in different ways. We've been over all that before, though, so I see no need to go into it right now.
Matthew and Luke also contradict each other: both genealogies claim to go through Joseph, the father of Jesus (Matthew 1:16; Luke 3:23. Why Joseph? Wasn't God the father?), yet their lists disagree in length and in names--except for Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, an intersection that proves they were not intended to be separate lines. They also contradict the Old Testament genealogies, conveniently deleting and adding in order to make the numbers fit a pattern.
Joseph would likely have been kept in the geneology in a patriarichal society, even if it was really Mary's line. As for the lines intersecting, so Mary and Joseph were related several generations back. Meh. Oh, and the term "son of" doesn't always mean "son" as we understand it, it could also mean descendent. Skipping generations to hit the highlights is insignificant.
30. What Christmas tradition is expressly forbidden in the bible? Christmas trees
Um... those verses (Jeremiah 10:2) seem to me to be referring to carving wooden idols, or possibly building temples to false gods. Anybody else see that? I mean, why would you nail Christmas trees together? The point was that Israel shouldn't worship other gods, as always.
31. According to Jesus, what must you do to have eternal life? Sell everything you have and give all the money to the poor
Just so you know the context of this, a man came to Jesus, said he'd followed the law all his life, and asked what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus told him to sell all he had, give it to the poor and follow him. The man then left sad, because he had lots of stuff. Jesus said TO THAT MAN that he should sell everything. One proposed explanation is that the man was like the people Jesus mocked for tithing: he obeyed the letter of the law, but he ignored the more important matters like justice and mercy. If he had understood the law, he wouldn't have accumulated so much for himself instead of helping others.
Another proposed explanation is that the idea was to illustrate the impossibility of entering heaven because of your own works. The disciples later asked "Who, then, can be saved?" To which Jesus replied "It is impossible for people to save themselves, but everything is possible for God." You can't keep the law perfectly, much as this man claimed he had.
In America, where state and church are separated, Christians should not tithe--unless they want to be doubly taxed!
Again, the problem is looking at this from a rule-based system. We own nothing, what we have we have so we can do good with it. If we can best do good by giving some percentage of our income to our church, then that's what we should do. If not, we should come up with something else.
32. According to Jesus, how should Christian disciples treat their parents? Parents should be hated
The concept of hate here is rendered in more modern translations as a will to abandon. The point is that Christ must be the most important thing in your life, above your family and yourself. If you don't, then you can't love your family at all because you can't understand what it means to truly do so.
33. According to Jesus, how should slaves be treated? They should be beaten for disobedience, but not more severely then they deserve.
Why doesn't the bible--supposedly inspired by an all-loving deity--ever hint that there is something wrong with such a brutal social institution?
Slavery in this country was a brutal social institution in the vast majority of instances. However, slavery as it existed in ancient Israel was a completely different concept. People became slaves because they couldn't pay debts, or because they were prisoners of war. Hardly the self-perpetuating institution we had here two centuries ago. Further, slaves were released every seven years! The ONLY reason people consider slavery in Israel to have been evil is because the word is translated as "slave", and the definitions are so different I'm not sure that translation can be justified.
Of course, now that the real issue in question has been addressed, I note that the scripture in question doesn't address slavery at all! It doesn't say "slaves should be beaten", it says, in effect, "lazy servants (i.e. those who know the truth and don't act on it) will be punished severely."
34. What did Jesus say about peace? "Don't think that I came for peace on earth. I came to start wars." --Are these the words of a good man?
Jesus was saying, "Conflicts will arise over what I say," not that starting wars was his goal. Obviously he was right.
35. Which one of these phrases did Jesus not say about witnessing?
Well, the point here was to get to Jesus saying that his testimony was both true and not true. In John 8:13, the Pharisees say that his testimony on his own behalf was not true, i.e. not acceptable in court, because two witnesses were required by law. Jesus said that his father also testified on his behalf. John 5:31 was simply Jesus quoting the same law the Pharisees quoted later.
36. What personal sacrifice for "the kingdom of heaven" was Jesus talking about when he told his disciples, "He that is able to receive it, let him receive it"? Castrate yourself.
The verses in question say nothing of the kind. The context makes it obvious that Jesus is saying that it's hard not to get married. Some can, for various reasons including castration, some can't. If you can survive not getting married, do it.
37. According to New Testament medical advice, what should you do if you are sick? Ask the church elders to apply oil to your skin and pray for you.
DLU's local Biblical scholar with no apparent job description actually preached a mini-sermon on this a few weeks back. His opinion is that sickness here refers to spiritual sickness, which is certainly a possibility. We have to consider the body to be relatively unimportant. Another possible explanation is that it doesn't say you SHOULDN'T seek medical attention.
There, that's about 2/3 of it. Anybody want me to finish it up?
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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