Mmmm, I liked this one: Original Message--- From: John A. Facade Sent: Monday, August 26, 2002 4:53 PM To: A couple dozen people at watchman.org Subject: The Bible and its teachings Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from you, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other specific Biblical laws and how to follow them. a) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them? b) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her? c) I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanness (Lev.15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense. If I come into contact with a woman who is menstruating and she doesn't tell me until afterwards, must I kill her immediately or can I just beat her? d) Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians? e) I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself? Also, is Sabbath on Saturday as Seventh Day Adventists (Christians, like us...or are they?) or is it on Sunday as Baptists and some other faiths agree? I am beset by not knowing who to kill and when to kill them...please clarify this for me. f) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality (Lev. 18:22). I don't agree. I'm also confused about how homosexuality can be an abomination when Jonathan and David were married in the Bible (1 Samuel 18:1, 3 - 4). Here, I'll quote it - "And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword and to his bow and to his girdle." and also Ruth's relationship with Naomi is suspect, (Ruth 1:16-17) "And Ruth said to Naomi, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part three and me." Can you settle this? g) Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here? h) Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.19:27 and even though 1st Cor. 11:4-6 says that it is a shame upon a man to have long hair. How should they die? i) I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves? Also, since it is strictly forbidden to "eat neither fat nor blood" in Lev. 3:17 & Lev. 19:26, does that mean that I must be a vegetarian and must I smite those who choose to eat meat? j) My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them (Lev.24:10-16)? Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws (Lev. 20:14)? k) I know that it is an abomination for a man to wear a woman's clothes or a woman to wear a man's (Deut. 22:5), so does that mean that since my wife borrowed my boxers once, she's going to hell? l) An unbeliever sent me an email telling me that God is an ABORTIONIST? It says, "In Num. 5:11-31, God commands a husband to get an abortion for his wife if he suspects she has been impregnated by another man. A priest is to make her drink a potion and tell her, "If any man other than your husband has had intercourse with you, may the LORD make an example of you . . . by bringing upon you miscarriage and untimely birth." To deliberately cause a miscarriage is to perform an abortion. And who brings about this miscarriage? Who performs this abortion? It is the LORD who does so. God is an abortionist. In Ex. 21:22-25, God tells us what to do if a man who is fighting knocks against a pregnant woman. If the woman dies, the principle of "life for life" is invoked and the man responsible for her death must be killed. If she lives but has a miscarriage, then the death of the fetus is to be compensated for by the payment of a fine, as demanded by the woman's husband. Thus, God has revealed the status of the unborn fetus: it is not an independent, full-fledged human life, whose destruction amounts to murder. It is a thing owned by the woman's husband, a thing whose loss, like that of any other thing, may be compensated for with money." How can this be true? I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging and also for the reassurance that the Bible is infallible. Hans Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I believe you missed the part in Romans, where another human being has trouble with the same things you describe above. I don't believe God still wants Christians to live like Neanderthals. If you had a son - would you like him to live like a robot, cleaning his room, not kicking the dog, going to bed at 8, but never have him call you daddy and runs away scared when you try to hug him? I wouldn't...
Only serious thing in this is that it shows that we cannot accept ANYTHING without thinking, not even the Bible. And what makes me (probably) rate as an atheist with some, is thAT I reserve the right to think about it all. Hans
There's also this part (I have my notes somewhere else I will post its exact location in "the good book") that sanctions rape, and also another that sanctions murder. But you'll find stuff like that in any religion, the people who wrote them are not modern day lawyers who can think of every single fucking loophole in the text and defend it. They're just people who respect the spirit of the text, not the exact letter. You're missing the point here if you think you can achieve anything by pointing out a discrepancy somewhere in a 'holy' text. It's just that I find the spirit of the text sickeningly dreamlike, so i stay atheist. Just another note, posts like yours are so common it's not even funny anymore.
C your point, but I find Physics sickeningly complex, that maths was sickeningly boring, computers sickeningly undependable, and that reality was just plain sickening. How could anybody invest time, research and want to know more about it? Just because you don't like what you hear or see doesn't make it any less believable or even possible. Not everyone will be attracted to Christianity, just as not everyone is attracted to Buddhism or Satanism. On another point, I would like to know what you found 'dreamlike' in the Bible, just as a mater of interest if you don't mind. Some parts are dreams or stories, other parts are poems, songs, and letters. If you found any dreamlike quality pervasive throughout a text written by so many authors over so many centuries, it might be worth exploring. If I summarise a week of my life - some parts will have been sleep and dreams, and some not. Any quality prevalent in such a summary would point to some predominant quality of my reality - it could make an interesting philosophical discussion...
It can be still believable to others, but my point is that I don't find it believable. Others can believe what they want. Dreamlike, as in unrealistic, self contradictory, and unpractical. Also, extremely useless, in my own personal opinion.
old ground recovered Perhaps the individual who wrote the letter to Watchman.org shouldn't have wasted his time sending questions about JEWISH, OLD COVENANT, LEVITICAL CEREMONIAL LAW to a Christian organization which DOES NOT practice Old Testament CEREMONIAL law, and is NOT Jewish in the least. He should have sent it to "Judaism Online" instead. Jews still practice the OLD COVENANT and therefore are still bound by all that stuff. Christians sort of see it as old family history. And yes, this was covered at length in the thread "A too Funny Response". -Mike
But Mike ... Sorry to be so oppositional today, Ekimklaw, but I've had the Watchtower at my door many times before and I have to agree with the silly letter; many "Christian" churches dwell on old Jewish ideas, including Watchtower, SDA, SBC, and Missouri Synod, at least. Sure, the letter is a little farcical, and sure it would have been nice to see the word "Christian" spelled properly in the title, but the Watchtower is one of the relatively few organizations that I have a hard time standing in any defense of. They choose to come to our doors, they choose to litter the streets with their tracts, they choose to evangelize as they do. I must admit that the Watchtower, much like the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, in my experience, often speaks before it knows what it's saying. People and faith deserve respect, but poor evangelism is one of the few things I can think of that deserves direct scorn. The advocacy of bad ideas in honor of an affectation is a little disturbing. Sure, the letter to the Watchtower is childish at best, but as long as people aren't out actively harassing, threatening, or hurting people, yeah, the Watchtower deserves some flak. Simplistic, immature editorial content is still editorial content. They don't want to take it, they can stay off my porch and not give it. thanx much, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Let me repeat what I've said before, its imprtant enough to repeat: I have great respect for most Christians (sorry for the typing error in the heading), and most other religious people. But there are those (they are here too) that will claim that what is in their Holy Book is more tue than what our senses and our common sense is telling us. And for those people, there is a message in that, otherwise rather silly, "letter": You cannot claim that some parts of your book is True and infallible, and then choose ignore other parts which are somehow inconvinient. There are people out there claiming that we had a global flood 4,400 years ago and that Noah and his shipload were the only survivors. Its just that kind of people I propose to bicker with, hehheh. --- and in my experience the Watchtower folks are among them, at least our local breed.
Isn't the Watchtower a Jehova's Witness publication? Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they say only a certain amount of people will go to heaven?
Is there anything to be gained by bickering about the world as described by the gospel? I can understand that some Christians want to use some parts as scathing judgements on non-believers, and that non-believers would smugly use that same bible to condemn Christians by their own laws. Whether Noah really sailed the seven seas or not (btw. some dinosaurs could swim, so why didn't they survive the flood?) is a non-issue. As an accurate account of history, the Bible doesn't give enough information. But isn't the message more important than the history? It is, after all, the only visible legacy the Bible has left. The Bible only has use to those who want to use it, and not much other use, other than getting to know God. There are other religious texts, the Quran and the Book of Mormon and so on, that also say many similar things... so I looked around a bit at what is unique to the Bible and found this:
This just proves Jenyar's knowledge of science. If there WAS a flood, dinosaurs weren't around then, because humans had already been around for a good amount of time.
No "Dinosaurs" is a very broad term. There are still species becoming extinct today (visit greenpeace's website). Does that mean they are dinosaurs now. The dodo isn't a dinosaurs. I was referring to the notion that dinosaurs were wiped out with flood, which doesn't make sense to me either. That's what fundamentalists believe - that the earth is about 6000 years old (where do they get that figure?) And when was Noah's flood supposed to have happened? At least 8000 or 9000 years ago? I'll do some research...
