So I’m sure they had their own history books, and records. Surely there is archaeological evidence which can answer your question, right?
That’s the exact opposite of what I said.
I defined my terms just fine, and ‘fanatic’ as it is commonly used connotes torch-and-pitchfork-wielding mobs. And I quite thoroughly distinguished fanatics and zealots from the devout; just because a thesaurus lists them side by side does not mean that they have the same exact meaning or connotations.
To the extent that it involves real or metaphorical waving of torches and pitchforks – yes!
Yes again! Except peaceful protesters, there’s nothing wrong with that; if they start a riot or kill someone, they are no longer behaving morally.
Already covered.
Also already covered. You’ve got the exact opposite of what I said.
That’s not a definition, it’s a thesaurus entry. A definition of evil would take books.
Nothing at all.
By the definitions I have established, those who did not do evil were not fanatics or zealots; they were devout.
I call that devotion. And I don’t see anything wrong with devotion.
Where did you get the idea that I hate religion? I don’t even hate people who use religion to attack me – I pity them. On the whole I find religion to be a fascinating topic that I simply have no desire to experience first-hand by diving into blind faith. And I’m under no delusion as to its perfection in the hands of human beings, who have done just as much evil as they have good in its name.
No. The warnings began back when God dried up the sea, way back when they crossed the Red Sea.
This was approximaltely 40 years before the Israelites actually began their war against the evils these people were committing. Likewise, when they were living in the wilderness, word was certainly speading about their divine claim to this promised land.
The reason why God was sending the Israelites in was because of the horribly abominable practices engaged by these people, such as fertility rituals, temple prostitution, and horribly evil child sacrifices in the name of pagan gods such as Molech for example.
So if the Middle Eastern nations win the war and take over the world, Christianity will be the bad guy and then it won’t matter what you Christians think because you’ll have it written down somewhere, even though vast majority of the populace blindly believes in an over 2000 year old highly biased history. Somehow I don’t think the Christians of the future would be too happy if that happened to them.So I’m sure they had their own history books, and records. Surely there is archaeological evidence which can answer your question, right?
Who cares if the Author of the Torah (Moses) didn’t write in the Cananite side. I’m sure they wrote down their story somewhere
Assuming you’re talking about me, I’ve said nothing of the sort (though I’m not a big fan of code enforcement boards in the first place).I’ve read an article about a city code enforcement official, who was married and had 2 kids, who, while in the office, RAPED a 14 year old girl. Yup. According to the standard we just saw presented in this thread, we must fight against city code enforcement, because city code enforcement is EEEEEEEEEEEEVIL
Show me? I’ve looked and all I can find are archaeologists saying Jericho had no walls by the time of Joshua and that there were no late Bronze Age artifacts discovered in Gibeon.
I care, and really if you’re interested in a debate over historical validity you should consider caring too. The Torah is not an unbiased document; it doesn’t pretend to be, but its intrinsic slant towards the people of Israel makes it hard to accept some of the things it says about that people’s enemies.
In 1929 excavations began in Ras Shamra (the ancient port town of Ugarit) in northern Lebanon. This work continues. The remains of a palace discovered in the first year of excavation yielded a library containing hundreds of ancient documents that provided a wealth of information about the Canaanite religion.
But it’s not the opposite of what you actually said. At least, based on what I’ve read in your posts, you are actually claiming that all forms of fanaticism and zeal imply evil.
Got any proof to offer from a less biased site?
No, religion will not bring about chaos, but just the opposite. It would certainly be madness if NO religion had the hold on truth. The truth isn’t found in the middle or the common denominator in religions, relativism doesn’t work because the moral line always changes.
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And who cares? If there is no religion therefore no God who cares about anything? Then all people being equal,who is anyone to tell me what I can and can’t do?
And who says the criteria should be to live by “the golden rule?”
First of all, define treating each other well? What is “well” for you may not be “well” for me. A slavemaster may claim he is treating his slave “well” but the slave isn’t really being treated “well” because he isn’t truly free.
Who cares about punishment in this world? If I wish to do evil what person can tell me I can’t? Dostoyevskys statement still stands; if there are no consequences in the afterlife, no God to face one day, then I should be able to do what I will to do in this life and no person should tell me I can’t. Besides if a murder kills another person they just cease to exist anyway, so ultimately it doesn’t matter right?
Yes the conscience will does exist because you and I were created with one, but how do we know what is a well formed conscience?
Word was spreading about ‘hey, weird, these guys’ god completely slapped the Egyptians silly’. Conquest? I don’t see where that came into the picture before Joshua showed up on their doorsteps.
I’m familiar with the painfully drawn-out back-and-forth being in and out of favor of Judges. Same principle applies as to just why they were stuck in the desert for four decades. However, on God’s good side or not, they were still his favored people.
So, uh, why didn’t he send them to do the same thing to Tyre, Sidon, Greece, Rome, Africa, Gaul, the British Isles, and North America? Let’s not be exclusive here
Solomon did in fact make such sacrifices. And yes, he had the temple built – by Canaanite/Phoenician architects and engineers from Tyre and Sidon (guess it’s a good thing they didn’t get all the way over there!).
Mhm, but the Israelites were God’s chosen project, not a people sitting around in the middle of nowhere keeping the trade goods flowing through Phoenician ports. They made a covenant with God, broke it, and were punished; the inhabitants of Jericho and Ai made no such deal.
I asked for Canaanite documentation of the Israelite invasion, not critiques of their lifestyles and worship. Yeah, I can get behind human sacrifice = bad, but these documents are totally irrelevant to the question I asked.
Oh, it is:
me!:
me!:
This is all on page 3! How is it not abundantly clear?
Hey, I’m quite grateful to the Catholic Church for imposing some kind of structure on the Middle Ages and perhaps getting us out of them a lot faster than we would have otherwise. But I’m not about to wear a Torquemada band t-shirt, and religious conflicts have been around ever since there was such a thing as religion – and it’s not getting better.
Somebody with more free time on his hands than I’ve got. However, your original quote ascribed this quality ‘good’ all to religious and none otherwise; I provided a counterexample. The definition of ‘good’ then doesn’t really matter as it was not the focus of either of our points; I’ve shown the irreligious possess it as well, unless you can prove that all doctors, scientists, artists, writers, philosophers, scholars, the (Deist) founding fathers, and ordinary people are all religious either blatantly or secretly in spite of professing no faith.
Then the social contracts tell you what you should and shouldn’t do without getting punished – really, just like the fear of hell now inspires many religious to behave instead of love for God. And even without God, there is conscience. People don’t turn into sociopaths overnight when they stop going to church, nor are converts from non-theism always suddenly completely moral.
Jesus?
I did, I’ll repeat it here: being considerate and respectful of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as one sees it so long as these do not conflict with the same rights of others.
Oh, it matters – you’d have deprived a person of the remaining period of his or her life, done indirect harm to the family and friends and coworkers, and more. If it didn’t do that it wouldn’t be a sin God would punish you for anyway. And if fear of hell is the only thing keeping you from being a sociopath, then the answer to Valke’s original question is we are completely, utterly, irredeemably screwed.
See above about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Anyone whose conscience dictates infringing upon that has issues.
The adversary, being absolutely relative, means he has no frame of reference to work from. All his actions since his fall from grace, even if he were to hypothetically intend something good, are ultimately destructive and innately lead toward chaos. It takes God’s grace to re-order this demonic chaos and lead people back toward salvation again.
Some seem to think that this particular passage indicates that we should beat our children with an iron rod in order to discipline. While there are passages in the Scriptures which really do indicate that fools will be beaten with iron rods, I don’t think this passage in Proverbs 13:24 indicates this.
However, just because we do not we do not measure up to the full measure of his own own holiness, this does not necessarilly imply that we are not holy. God, being relatively absolute, stands in the perfect position to measure the extent to which our souls live in accodance with his holiness by his Spirit. I think is a realm much like this too.
Because you’re using an extremely radical variation of definitions that nobody except you are using.
It’s not all that radical and certainly not unique – maybe with this audience the terms have become more general or overlapped with words describing the simply devout? Feel free to substitute ‘blrmfzl’ where I say ‘fanatic’ or ‘zealot’. Those two are simply the closest words in the English language to the meaning I’m trying to convey, with the possible exception of ‘extremist’ which is just way too clinical for me to enjoy saying. ‘Extremist’ sounds like a new flavor of GatoradeBecause you’re using an extremely radical variation of definitions that nobody except you are using.
If that’s how you define it, fine.
But nobody else is buying your definitions though. I know I’m not. CatholicBob isn’t. The dictionaries we have available to us do not seem to be interested in purchasing your unique defintions provided either.
Just saying.
Now as to this, In every philosophical/theological debate I’ve ever been in step one is to agree on definitions for words you use. When debating… say euthanasia, you first have to define life and death, then define killing, suicide, active and passive euthanasia, etc. before you can effetively debate.Because you’re using an extremely radical variation of definitions that nobody except you are using.
If that’s how you define it, fine.
But nobody else is buying your definitions though. I know I’m not. CatholicBob isn’t. The dictionaries we have available to us do not seem to be interested in purchasing your unique defintions provided either.
Just saying.
You’re assuming there was absolutely no form of communication going on in these days-- and yet you yourself admit this was a major trade route for most parts of the known world too (which is a good reason for God to place them right there for when the Messiah was revealed).
Really?
He favored them because the Messiah was going to be born from amongst them-- the Savior of the World. And since he had promised them this from long ago, he had to keep his promises to their fore-fathers – otherwise he would be a liar. So he chose them to clear the land in preparation for the coming of the Messiah who was to be born there.
Was the Messiah going to be born in Tyre, Sidon, Greece, Rome, Africa, Gaul, the British Isles, or North America?So, uh, why didn’t he send them to do the same thing to Tyre, Sidon, Greece, Rome, Africa, Gaul, the British Isles, and North America? Let’s not be exclusive here
No. They were not minding their own business. They were doing horrible things in that area. Extremely horrible things which are some of the most horrible crimes against humanity ever read throughout history.
I don’t recall anything in the Scriptures which claims that Solomon himself participated in these sacrifices. He certainly allowed it to happen-- and he even had them built (which was one of the reasons why God was extremely angry with him). But he himself did not actually engage in these sacrifices-- if he did, he would have been remembered in a way not much different than David’s other child Absalom.
Despite claims to the contrary, the Scriptures do not gloss over the wrong doings of their heroes or kings. For example, Manasseh, a king in Israel, definitely directly particiated in these sacrifices-- and he is condemned specifically for it too.
Wrong. The natural law has been written on the hearts of all people right from the beginning-- just as I pointed out already…
So there really is no excuse for someone not knowing that murdering, lying, adultery and stealing was not wrong. They don’t need the fullness of the revelation of the Judeo-Christian faith to understand this either-- especially since many cultures and faiths already understood this well before Moses gave the Law.
I tend to think that an unhealthy fear of hell can have the opposite effect too, effectively turning people into sociopaths. Belief in hell without knowledge of God’s loving grace is a very dangerous thing.
So when someone gets pregnant and they abort the child within their womb, this doesn’t in any way infringe on this child’s life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
My apologies. But when a non-Judeo-Christian archeological source cites detailed descriptions of proceeses which are confirmed by archeological digs of some 20,000 urns containing the remains of sacrificed children – in the ancient Phoenician city of Carthage, part of the Canaanite culture no less – I tend to beleive that the reports are fairly accurate as far as I’m able to detemrine.