You are? Have you read the accounts yourself? Tell me, what was the reason given in the bible for their extermination? And how does genocide as a repayment make you glad?
only if you believe the bible. in reality, i doubt it. not especially a christian. ananias & saphira were christians.
bibilically, yeah.
Do you have some other source of information, more reliable than the Bible, that tells you about those events? Or are you just making idle speculations, based on your own personal feelings and emotional reactions?
all i know is that there is no such thing as magic. if there was really an ananias & saphira, and the apostles, and if they really died for keeping their money, then it wasnt magic that killed them but something else. either a timely heart attack or stroke, or they got murdered.
What? First of all, this is pure speculation on your part to make the immoral seem moral. In the second place, it doesn’t matter. Killing a person who has done nothing wrong is intrinsically evil, no matter what they are likely to do in the future. In the third place, your speculation of a whole tribe of people determined by their circumstances to be evil is fundamentally atheistic. You deny free will (in a way Calvin never did). You are willing to let basic truths of the faith and fundamental principles of natural morality go in order to support a literal interpretation of the Old Testament.
Come on–you have the whole Bible to choose from and you come up with something as trivial as the difference between purple and scarlet?
thats the first that came to mind.
i have, but of all the things i’ve heard from different sects i’m not so sure anymore which one is catholic. was it that much of the bible has to taken metaphorically? beginning with the creation accounts?
hey no problem dude.
how do you reconcile that with your faith? when i was a christian it bothered me to no end.
On this, we agree. I don’t believe in magic, either.
If they didn’t exist in the first place, then they never died of any cause. Problem solved.
i know, thats why i did not expound on this until you asked me. if you remember i just settled with the simple answer of ‘biblically, yeah’.
Do you know for sure that they were innocent - that they had not already murdered some of the Israelites? (Are you saying that God didn’t know what He was doing, or that God sinned?)
jm, remember we are talking about the INFANTS & toddlers. you cant get anymore innocent than that.
I think I have finally you figured out. You are a GREAT Catholic theologian who is putting forth fantastic scenerios to get us thinking and looking up what we take for granted everybody knows.^ contarini, your wisdom and eloquence never fails to amaze.
Look, I am not about to question God’s judgements. Can God sin, or make mistakes? That is the real issue, here.
By definition anyone before the age of accountability is innocent. This is traditional Catholic teaching, I believe.
How are babies going to murder anyone? Sure, a toddler conceivably could, but there’s no evidence that they did. You are coming up with an extremely wild speculation with heretical theological implications in order to avoid the real problem.
No–obviously that is the one conclusion that must be avoided. Since we know that killing children is intrinsically evil, the only conclusion I can see is that God never commanded the Israelites to kill children. I note that neither Saul or any other Israelite was ever condemned by God for sparing people out of mercy. Saul in fact was happy to slaughter the Amalekites, sparing the one person whom it would have been most legitimate to kill. I therefore conclude that God’s intention was for Saul to eliminate the Amalekite threat and to do so in a manner demonstrating that the war was not about greed or self-aggrandizement. In that culture, this meant slaughtering everyone. The fallen, sinful culture that interpreted “war not for personal gain” as “kill all your enemies rather than enslaving them for your profit” was not pleasing to God. Had Saul been disposed to spare his enemies out of mercy rather than greed, he would have been praised by God.
That is the real issue with your faith but not with this discussion which suspends the authorship of the bible until due justifications: if the bible has little imperfections and serious moral defects, while being devoid of any evidences to support its fantastic claims, then how can that be of God? how can it be worth giving your life over? how can it be worth bashing other christians with?
It doesn’t mean they aren’t a threat. Many police officers and soldiers have been exonerated for killing children who were pointing loaded guns at them - those children were not morally culpable of their actions, but at the same time, we don’t say, “You are only allowed to defend yourself if your attacker has reached the age of accountability.”
This seems like emotional speculation - do you have some kind of solid evidence that the writers of Scripture were making stuff up?
We have to remember that the God of the OT is the same God of the NT. In any history or story, you have to know the audience. A lot of what Jesus/Apostles said and did are incomprehensible to us in 2007. In the late 1800’s (my dates may be off, but I don’t feel like looking them up right now) much was discovered in the ancient tells in Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent. That, coupled with the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1940’s has increased our knowledge of the languages and customs of of Biblical times 1million fold.
I will tell you the truth, I love the Catholic church. In real life I am surrounded by wonderful catholics. This discussion while its enjoyable, it pains me occassionally. Most people need religion, and I believe Christianity is one of the most beneficial religions around.I think I have finally you figured out. You are a GREAT Catholic theologian who is putting forth fantastic scenerios to get us thinking and looking up what we take for granted everybody knows.
As interesting as the rest of your post (which I deleted from this quote) is do you see how silly this kind of talk is if you look at the bigger picture?
SERIOUSLY, you are…