Religion and scuba

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

You mean the biblical genocides or the historical genocides? Either way, with or without God's help, the historical Jews were a nasty bunch of thugs.

R..

I've always been suspicious of the Biblical account regarding the plagues visited upon the Egyptians. For example, why would an angel need to see a special mark on the door of Hebrews in order to refrain from killing their first born son? They should already know this kind of thing without having to read some scribble in the dark.

It sounds like these Hebrews, supposedly slaves, lived in the same garden apartment complexes as regular Egyptians, right next door. And daughters don't count?

It wouldn't surprise me if the actual killing was being done by the OG ancestor of Murder Incorporated, that much more recent Hebrew organization.
 
I'm not even talking about theory, agilis. There is sufficient evidence that Moses was not a religious man but an actual historical figure and a military man. Moses, Joshua and several others would, if you follow the historical context, appear to be leaders in a massive genocide in the holy land that lasted over a generation and resulted in the extermination of several societies in the area. Their "goal" would appear to have been to purge the holy land (ie. kill everyone) of anyone who didn't believe what the jews believed.

R..
 
I'm not even talking about theory, agilis. There is sufficient evidence that Moses was not a religious man but an actual historical figure and a military man. Moses, Joshua and several others would, if you follow the historical context, appear to be leaders in a massive genocide in the holy land that lasted over a generation and resulted in the extermination of several societies in the area. Their "goal" would appear to have been to purge the holy land (ie. kill everyone) of anyone who didn't believe what the jews believed.

R..

I think historians are a long way from reaching consensus on that or just about anything else about the life of Moses:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses#Historicity
 
Moses was found shot to death in Jamaica in 2008. His body was discovered near the Hope River in St Andrews Parish. This is common knowledge. The Gleaner and The Star covered this story comprehensively.

Speaking of Jamaica, I remember Joshua vividly. I still have my "PNP- SOCIALISM FOREVER" T shirt.

Seen?
 

I clicked your link and was taken to, no joke people, 'EvilBible.com.' Where part of the opening on the page goes "I see so many retarded ass Christians talking about abortion being a crime against God."

Now, regardless of where you stand on the abortion issue, that looks to me like a hate site. And not one I'd use to research Biblical history.

I followed up on one of the wilder claims at BibleHub.com and got a different account.

You posted:

Another straw-man. I don't know how a reasonable person could decide that the moment of birth marks the transition from non-human to human. I'm not denying that this is what some people think, but it's a stance that is as unreasonable as saying that life begins at conception. It has no basis in reality.

In response to:


If murdering a born child is OK, then surely murdering an unborn one (which I'm guessing is what you think abortions are) surely can't be any worse? Or do unborn children have more rights than born ones?


That's a serious question I don't have the specifics for. If a woman near term has a partial birth abortion, fine & dandy, but just a few weeks later it traverses the vagina & she tosses it in a dumpster, she's a murderer. That seems strange to me. Does passage through the vaginal convey status as a human being?

Nothing 'straw man' about it. I acknowledged your question, and that I don't have specifics for a detailed answer. It brought to mind an issue I deemed somewhat related (at issue being when & why one is deemed 'human'), which I brought up, but I didn't substitute it for your argument or insinuate that you put it forth. You disregard the existence of God, His sovereignty, goodness and trust in His ultimate plan, so nothing I say is going to justify His acts & instructions to you.

I think statistically you'd be surprised ... if you look at the 10 states in the USA with the highest divorce rates, at least half of them are strongly conservative, with quite high percentages of population claiming to be not just religious, but tending toward the evangelical ...

That is a good point. Of course, there are also the confounding factors (the states probably differ in other areas), and the question of how many self-alleged Christians actually are such as the Bible might define it.

Richard.
 
.......... and the church took decades to challenge the SCIENCE ...........................This is a prime example of the church building themselves around the science and then finding out science was wrong.


. Do electrons leave the car battery on the red cable or the black cable. .

Well, not only do you say weird things, but you understand nothing about batteries...............
 
I clicked your link and was taken to, no joke people, 'EvilBible.com.' Where part of the opening on the page goes "I see so many retarded ass Christians talking about abortion being a crime against God."

Now, regardless of where you stand on the abortion issue, that looks to me like a hate site. And not one I'd use to research Biblical history.

I followed up on one of the wilder claims at BibleHub.com and got a different account.
Yes, evilbible.com. Not a "hate site" but simply one that points out the evilness of the bible. And I'm sorry, but how do you "research biblical history?" I mean, I'm sure there's some actual history in there somewhere, but you wouldn't know that just from reading that one book.

You can disregard the comments made on that site if you'd like, but the verses are what they are. Sure, there's dozens of different translations and some mean quite different things than others, but that only brings us back to a point I made previously: How do you know which one is more accurate? Is it the one that seems least evil to you? Or is there some other way of determining that?

If you found a reference on that site that doesn't correspond to any known translation of that verse, let them (and us) know, I'm sure they'll change it.

You disregard the existence of God, His sovereignty, goodness and trust in His ultimate plan, so nothing I say is going to justify His acts & instructions to you.
Just think about that for a moment. You, as a believer, have been put in a position that you need to justify the alleged acts of your deity. Doesn't that bother you? If drowning an entire planet (well, disc at that time) including innocent children and infants (not to mention innocent animals) as an act of such goodness, why do so many of us find the mere idea repugnant?

So please, if you have a way of justifying such a horrendous act rationally, then please do so. Anything other than "he can do what he wants" (AKA morality is purely arbitrary), or "we're too stupid to understand" (quite an insult, and aren't we supposed to be "in his image?"), or "he created us so he can destroy us" (ties right into the slavery again), or any other sort of platitude will do.

That is a good point. Of course, there are also the confounding factors (the states probably differ in other areas), and the question of how many self-alleged Christians actually are such as the Bible might define it.
No true Scotsman. I don't think we had that one before :D
 
It is not a logical fallacy to acknowledge someone's point, note there's room for confounding variables, and there's a difference between calling oneself a Christian and being one. No fallacy there at all. Unlike the example given in your link, I'm not claiming 'real Christians don't get divorced,' so to speak. I don't know what the numbers would show if the criteria for what's called a Christian were much more stringent.

It is not for me to pass judgment on God or His acts. He's sovereign Lord, not answerable to me. It is within His right to do some things that would've probably been evil if someone else did them. Say, someone who didn't create & does not own the universe. As for the youth slain in the flood, it's quite possible they were better off dying 'innocent' as you put it, than raised in the corrupt society. But considering this issue reminded me of something else you posted, which also brings to mind that acts against a nation/people often do entail a lot of 'collateral damage.'
Rationalizing terrorism through infanticide as collateral damage :facepalm: And that's not even mentioning that Hiroshima also was an absolutely heinous act.

Some time back I did a little reading on Hiroshima, since I'd heard it criticized and was curious about the subject. A few observations:

1.) If the level of 'die fighting' duty in the Japanese military was anything like characterized in the movie 'Letters from Iwo Jima,' then sending in allied troops to 'take' Japan would have had a grisly cost in allied forces.

2.) The lives of 'our guys' should be much more important to us than the lives of enemies.

3.) Wars are fought between nations, not simply individuals. People complain about 'civilian' casualties, but some people in the military may be drafted civilians. And just because someone joined the military at a given point in time doesn't mean he or she agreed with or caused the current administration policies. Sometimes the mentality seems to be that as long as you just kill soldiers, that's okay. They matter, too.

4.) If Hiroshima was so 'over the top,' why didn't the Japanese surrender before requiring a 2nd dose? And why did the Emperor have to step in to effect a surrender after that?

5.) Use of nukes to close the war with Japan probably saved a lot of U.S. & allied lives. Compare & contrast with the opening scenes from another movie, 'Saving Private Ryan.' I'd hate to think the people we count on to lead the war effort would subject our own people to that horror in order to avoid being 'too hard' on the enemy.

Richard.
 
I don't know what the numbers would show if the criteria for what's called a Christian were much more stringent.
Who determines what the criteria are the be called a Christian? You?

It is not for me to pass judgment on God or His acts.
Right. But it is for you to pass judgment on other people. Judge people who don't believe in the same fairy tales as you do as inferior human beings. And that's more than just mildly insulting.

I'm done here.
 

Back
Top Bottom