What's so bad about Pagans anyway?

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bpbasilphx said:
Actually, there’s no indication that Jephtha (to spell the name correctly) actually slaughtered his daughter.

The traditional interpretation, both Jewish and Christian, is that she lived in a hermitage as a virgin consecrated to YHVH as a living sacrifice.

In any case, even if she were a victim slaughtered, this would be a unique (which means one of a kind, btw; there are not degrees of uniqueness) and terrible exception in Jewish practice.

We don’t take the exception and make a rule out of it.

And this does not change the fact that human sacrifice was (and remains) the rule in many pagan religions.

Who do you think the thugee are? Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was not that far from the truth.

Or, for that matter suttee?
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Unique in the sense that God did not ask Abraham to commit human sacrifice?
 
God instills in every person a natural moral law which allows them to discern right from wrong.
**Those who choose to do wrong know it. Those who choose to live rightly according to the moral discernment given by God without knowing of him CAN be saved if invincibly ignorant. ****This is what the Church teaches. **

**The majority of civilization who perished in the Flood chose to live immorally and paid the consequences for that choice. **The same thing can be said with Sodom & Gomorrah.

Nobody is born without a sense of the natural law, although some become conditioned to choose not to follow it.
 
elvisman said:
**God instills in every **person a natural moral law which allows them to discern right from wrong.
**Those who choose to do wrong know **it. Those who choose to live rightly according to the moral discernment given by God CAN be saved if invincibly ignorant. **This is what the Church teaches. **

The majority of civilization who perished in the Flood chose to live immorally and paid the consequences for that choice. The same thing can be said with Sodom & Gomorrah.

Nobody is born without a sense of the natural law, although some become conditioned to choose not to follow it.
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So, you happen to believe that all the people who perished in the flood were simply depraved.

By chance, do you happen to know what basis we have to believe this?

And, if they were why were they so depraved? And what has changed so that catholics do not believe humans are born depraved?
 
StrawberryJam said:
So, you happen to believe that all the people who perished in the flood were simply depraved.

By chance, do you happen to know what basis we have to believe this?

And, if they were why were they so depraved? And what has changed so that catholics do not believe humans are born depraved?
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Genesis 6:5 tells us that man was wicked and had no desire but evil.
In short - yes, they were depraved.

As in Sodom - God found favor with a few and saved them through water (the Flood) which prefigured baptism.
 
elvisman said:
Genesis 6:5 tells us that man was wicked and had no desire but evil.
In short - yes, they were depraved.

As in Sodom - God found favor with a few and saved them through water (the Flood) which prefigured baptism.
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Well, that is just what I thought. You are simply comfirming for me how useless oral tradition was. It failed. Why still tout it now after knowing what a failure it was then?
 
StrawberryJam said:
I’m not sure you did. You supported your claims with CCC verses. As if that was around for them.
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The Catholic Church is authoritative and has been given that Authority from Jesus Christ.

Jesus promised the Church that his Holy Spirit would guide her to ALL truth (John 16:13-15) and that the Spirit would declare all that is his to the Church.
**This is how and why the Church can declare truths from the Beginning. **
It’s the work of the Holy Spirit - not of men.

People in ancient times didn’t need the Catechism to tell them right from wrong in the Natural Law - just as we don’t today.
 
StrawberryJam said:
Well, that is just what I thought. You are simply comfirming for me how useless oral tradition was. It failed. Why still tout it now after knowing what a failure it was then?
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As I told you earlier (which you can’t seem to grasp) oral tradition DIDN’T fail.
For it to have faled it would have been silenced forever - wiped out - which it wasn’t.
Truth has triumphed - despite the great evil that exists.
 
elvisman said:
As I told you earlier (which you can’t seem to grasp) oral tradition DIDN’T fail.
For it to have faled it would have been silenced forever - wiped out - which it wasn’t.
Truth has triumphed - despite the great evil that exists.
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Okay, so God intrusts his people to a tradition that is supposed to help them. He gives them no written words, no prophets, no visions, no miracles…

but they should just know anyway.

Do I have this right so far?
 
StrawberryJam said:
Okay, so God intrusts his people to a tradition that is supposed to help them. He gives them no written words, no prophets, no visions, no miracles…

but they should just know anyway.

Do I have this right so far?
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Genesis doesn’t speak explicity of God’s relationship with men during the geneaology text in Chapter 5. But - for certain things to have happened, this is implicit.

Genesis 5:24 tells us of a righteous and holy man named Enoch who was assumed into heaven. The scriptures only speak explicitly of this happening one other time (Elijah) and one more time implicitly (Mary).

**To answer your question - this tradition has lasted as long as men have been on this earth. **
Ummm - is that long enough for you?:rolleyes:
 
elvisman said:
Genesis doesn’t speak explicity of god’s relationship with men during the geneaology text in Chapter 5. But - for certain things to have happened, this is implicit.

Genesis 5:24 tells us of a righteous and holy man named Enoch who was assumed into heaven. The scriptures only speak explicitly of this happening one other time (Elijah) and one more time implicitly (Mary).

To answer your question - this tradition has lasted as long as men have been on this earth.
Ummm - is that long enough for you?:rolleyes:
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It only tells me that God gave many human beings very bad means of knowing him and his will and even with those horrible odds against them, with the nearly non exisitant means available, somehow out of all those humans a few ended up making the cut.

Not sure this is a “great plan” so far.😦
 
StrawberryJam said:
It only tells me that God gave many human beings very bad means of knowing him and his will and even with those horrible odds against them, with the nearly non exisitant means available, somehow out of all those humans a few ended up making the cut.

Not sure this is a “great plan” so far.😦
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Hmmmm . . . exactly which part of post #22 didn’t you understand.

I could have sworn I already explained that God’s grace via the natural and moral law is enough to sustain those who are invincibly ignorant of him.
 
elvisman said:
Hmmmm . . . exactly which part of post #22 didn’t you understand.

I could have sworn I already explained that God’s grace via the natural and moral law is enough to sustain those who are invincibly ignorant of him.
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Then why all the drama with a flood? What was the purpose of that then?
 
elvisman said:
Again - didn’t we already go through this?
They became so depraved, Genesis 6:5 tells us - that they only desired evil.
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And, the flood changed this all somehow?
I also read passages that indicate it was not just humans that did evil before the flood, but fallen angels having sex with humans just before God got so angry to flood it all.

Too bad God let them come down here to do that to begin with. 😦
 
StrawberryJam said:
And, the flood changed this all somehow?
I also read passages that indicate it was not just humans that did evil before the flood, but fallen angels having sex with humans just before God got so angry to flood it all.

Too bad God let them come down here to do that to begin with. 😦
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Once again - you read but you do not understand.

**It got rid of all of the evil people on earth. The population started fresh with Noah’s family. **
In time - some of those decendenats became evil as well. It is the nature of fallen man to sin and that’s why God has always offered a way out - as I already explained with the natural moral law. If people choose to do evil - it’s not that tradition has failed - it’s that they have exercised their free will towards sin, instead of good.

As for the “fallen angels” having sex with humans - this is inaccurate.
**You’re speaking of the nephilim who are an ambiguous group. It has never been determined exactly who the nephilim were and man theologians have, in fact, have surmised that the story is more of an allegory than a fact. **

One thing you must understand is that angels - fallen or otherwise, are not corporal beings (have no body) and would have no way of impregnating a woman.

Perhaps a little more study of the scriptures would be in order here.:rolleyes:
 
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