The Son of God:

New International Version
Psalm 137:9
Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

And this isn't a cherry pick, it just happens to be one of my favorite examples of biblical nonsense. I can find better morality myself than through the bible, in fact almost everyone does. No thank you.

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BodyHammer01 wrote:

New International Version
Psalm 137:9
Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

And this isn't a cherry pick, it just happens to be one of my favorite examples of biblical nonsense. I can find better morality myself than through the bible, in fact almost everyone does. No thank you.

You could at least include the whole chapter for context. This chapter is a poem about a people who were enslaved, tortured, raped, killed ect and this verse you quoted is poetic language describing how these people, who were unjustly enslaved, tortured, raped, killed ect would feel towards their cruel conquerors.

It is not a literal command.

I am sure I could take 1 line of a Shakespeare poem, out of context, pretend it was not a poem, and then declare that Shakespeare was pure evil.

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Kamchatka wrote:

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cipher_nemo wrote:

Christianity as a whole is not "outside of conventional society". And there is no single "charismatic leader" unless you consider Jesus filling that role, in which case that leader is no longer in the flesh.

Jesus is present "in the flesh" in every Catholic and Eastern Orthodox church, year round.
Only new age Christians have abandoned the teachings of Jesus and his Apostles concerning the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.

/facepalm... I'm talking to a nonbeliever, not a fellow Christian, and not directed to you. The way of describing that Jesus is no longer in a human body to a non-believer, not in the general understanding that Jesus has risen again, etc.

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Kamchatka wrote:

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BodyHammer01 wrote:

New International Version
Psalm 137:9
Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

And this isn't a cherry pick, it just happens to be one of my favorite examples of biblical nonsense. I can find better morality myself than through the bible, in fact almost everyone does. No thank you.

You could at least include the whole chapter for context. This chapter is a poem about a people who were enslaved, tortured, raped, killed ect and this verse you quoted is poetic language describing how these people, who were unjustly enslaved, tortured, raped, killed ect would feel towards their cruel conquerors.

It is not a literal command.

I am sure I could take 1 line of a Shakespeare poem, out of context, pretend it was not a poem, and then declare that Shakespeare was pure evil.

I misread your statement, but running with it, sure it's quite beautiful and poetic. I imagine the ground glistening in the sun, the sprawled bodies of babies littering the ground.

I could also go with Isaiah, where God again really enjoys the smashing of babies against rocks.

Or go other versus and talk about young girls being taken as sex slaves or "forced wives"? If you know anything about the bible, you know what you literally cannot defend it as a moral standard that people should be held to. Without mental gynastics, explaining away the old testament, and yet still picking and choosing which parts of the New are "kind of okay".

"I am the child who, after the flood swallowed my parents and my siblings, clung to the side of rock as the waves took me and I drowned in fear and terror.

I am the mother clutching her newborn trying to run as the force of a spear entering my rib cage throws me forward and sends my child tumbling onto the ground screaming. My last memories are of watching my sweet child scream out for his mother as a sword silenced his voice and then mine.

I am the woman that was stoned to death for being raped and not screaming loud enough for help, according to the Law of Moses.

I am the child whom David’s God caused to suffer in agony and sickness for seven days and then killed to teach my father a lesson.

I am the Amalekite child who watched as my family was slaughtered.

I am the Canaanite girl who was carried off into slavery and forced to marry my family’s murderer.

I never heard of this thing called mercy. I never received a message of love and kindness. There was no forgiveness for me, no golden rule. If I could wonder, I would ask myself what it might feel like to be chosen by God. To have babies that aren't plucked from their mother’s arms and put to the sword.

If I could see the Christians praying to this God, I would stare in disbelief at the sight. I would ask them how they could ever worship such malevolent evil and call it good. With bewilderment I would ask in angered horror how you could ever imagine that you needed the forgiveness of such a monstrous affront to human decency and goodness.

My blood cries out from the pages of that Book you read with such devotion. I scream and you do not hear. I cry and you fail to see my tears. I was a person. I was a mother, a father, a son, a daughter, a wife, and husband. I mattered to someone and I loved and was loved. I wanted to live, but your God commanded my death and the death of my children. Now you quote the scriptures that glorify the violence of my death and call it inspirational.

If this is what you call love, no one can save you."

- Timothy Havener

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BodyHammer01 wrote:

Or go other versus and talk about young girls being taken as sex slaves or "forced wives"? If you know anything about the bible, you know what you literally cannot defend it as a moral standard that people should be held to. Without mental gynastics, explaining away the old testament, and yet still picking and choosing which parts of the New are "kind of okay".

Actually, the Universal Church can do this. There are entire books in the New testament(hello, Romans?) written to help the Church do exactly this. God gave the authority to the Universal Church to determine what to keep and what to ignore from the Old testament when he said "whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven"

Now, I would agree with you that in the last 500 years this has been extremely confused because new age Christians keep starting new denominations and giving themselves authority to make up whatever they want. But Jesus started a Universal Church, and gave authority to that one Universal church to make these determinations.

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Kamchatka wrote:

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BodyHammer01 wrote:

Or go other versus and talk about young girls being taken as sex slaves or "forced wives"? If you know anything about the bible, you know what you literally cannot defend it as a moral standard that people should be held to. Without mental gynastics, explaining away the old testament, and yet still picking and choosing which parts of the New are "kind of okay".

Actually, the Universal Church can do this. There are entire books in the New testament(hello, Romans?) written to help the Church do exactly this. God gave the authority to the Universal Church to determine what to keep and what to ignore from the Old testament when he said "whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven"

Now, I would agree with you that in the last 500 years this has been extremely confused because new age Christians keep starting new denominations and giving themselves authority to make up whatever they want. But Jesus started a Universal Church, and gave authority to that one Universal church to make these determinations.

Which means you are left with a book that has been decided by the hands of men as to what the contents and beliefs based upon these contents should be(which is why so much doctrine has been and continues to be disagreed upon). Chosen by men, validated and proven by none. Biblical Scholarship shows that beliefs even amoung Christs earliest followers were not in agreement. Splinter sects have existed for a long as Christianity has. This is in part why the Councils were convened to agree and determine what the contents of the bible would end up being. I think you would be hard pressed to pick and choose which church is the universal church, unless you point to a time after the last council and pick that as the starting point.

My additional issue with this, is this does not do anything to change the actual contents of the Old Testament. Jesus, who I believe was an actual person who existed around the time he was alleged to, is by most standards a great guy. His father, who is either his father or himself depending on how one chooses to interpret, simply is not. The God of the Old Testament lies in direct conflict with the teachings of Jesus. So even if we grant that Jesus allows us to basically ignore the entirely of the OT, it does nothing to diminish the fact that "our" God is still the same genocidal, homophobic, misogynistic, vengeful, racist God that led the jewish people out of Egypt and gave them wholesale rights, and in fact frequently commands, to wipe out everyone who was not jewish on their way to their new home.

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BodyHammer01 wrote:

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Kamchatka wrote:

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BodyHammer01 wrote:

Or go other versus and talk about young girls being taken as sex slaves or "forced wives"? If you know anything about the bible, you know what you literally cannot defend it as a moral standard that people should be held to. Without mental gynastics, explaining away the old testament, and yet still picking and choosing which parts of the New are "kind of okay".

Actually, the Universal Church can do this. There are entire books in the New testament(hello, Romans?) written to help the Church do exactly this. God gave the authority to the Universal Church to determine what to keep and what to ignore from the Old testament when he said "whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven"

Now, I would agree with you that in the last 500 years this has been extremely confused because new age Christians keep starting new denominations and giving themselves authority to make up whatever they want. But Jesus started a Universal Church, and gave authority to that one Universal church to make these determinations.

Which means you are left with a book that has been decided by the hands of men as to what the contents and beliefs based upon these contents should be(which is why so much doctrine has been and continues to be disagreed upon). Chosen by men, validated and proven by none. Biblical Scholarship shows that beliefs even amoung Christs earliest followers were not in agreement. Splinter sects have existed for a long as Christianity has. This is in part why the Councils were convened to agree and determine what the contents of the bible would end up being. I think you would be hard pressed to pick and choose which church is the universal church, unless you point to a time after the last council and pick that as the starting point.

My additional issue with this, is this does not do anything to change the actual contents of the Old Testament. Jesus, who I believe was an actual person who existed around the time he was alleged to, is by most standards a great guy. His father, who is either his father or himself depending on how one chooses to interpret, simply is not. The God of the Old Testament lies in direct conflict with the teachings of Jesus. So even if we grant that Jesus allows us to basically ignore the entirely of the OT, it does nothing to diminish the fact that "our" God is still the same genocidal, homophobic, misogynistic, vengeful, racist God that led the jewish people out of Egypt and gave them wholesale rights, and in fact frequently commands, to wipe out everyone who was not jewish on their way to their new home.

No Legitimate Christian scholar, Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox would consider the Gnostics as Christians. The Gnostics were heretics in the 1st and 2nd century trying to undermine the Apostles and their successors.

The fact that you are implying Gnostics were Christians shows any Christian, of any denomination, that talking to you is a waste of time. You are here to lie, deceive, attack and undermine Christianity, much like a Gnostic actually.

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Rexeos wrote:

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Disrupted wrote:

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CarriorWarri0r wrote:

no i don't want to be apart of your cult

EDIT: So many people into religion, without looking can any of you tell me the difference between Satan, Satanael, Satanichia, Lucifer and Beelzebub?

Tip but not explanation: those are powers like love, hate or personifications like Aphoridiete, Horus, Heracles; nevertheless what those "really" are, is hidden by your own study, experience and imagination.

:)

meh, I meant it to see what each person thinks/knows.
Because they seem to be separate entities who over time got mixed up or resumed as a single entity (i.e. the devil).