@Quartz Charisma has nothing to do with physical attractiveness. I've said elsewhere that 1e AD&D said Hitler had an 18 Charisma. Not for being handsome, but for force of personality, which is what Charisma is. Call it leadership, the ability to inspire people and/or get them to do what you want... that's Charisma.
That is true, trought most rule set does specify that physical atractiveness does help
@Talvrae Yeah, they tried to introduce a separate stat for physical beauty called Comeliness in Unearthed Arcana, but it never really caught on. Interestingly enough, a high charisma did somewhat effect Comeliness. It ranged from -30 "Ahhh! Kill it with FIRE!" to +30 "A God/Goddess come to earth!" with all sorts of things in between, from "Yeah, I'd do her/him." to "GODS. What is that THING?!"
In my opinion you cannot appreciate the good when you never faced the bad (or evil). At least you cant appreaciate it as much as somebody who has faced evil too.
So after we have witnessed a rather wrathful, vengeful God in the Old Testament, arent we all the more thankful for the New Testament in comparison if we only had the New Testament in the first place?
If we were born in heaven from our very beginning and never had experienced anything else as heaven, how could we ever appreciate heaven? It would be just normal to us, because we wouldnt know anything else.
You see my point? What do you think about this?
I see your point completely and it's exactly what I've come upon as well, when I have pondered why God's attitude is sometimes different between the OT and NT. The people portrayed in the New Testament knew of Old Testament times from history and possibly some relatives, so yes, the forgiveness that Jesus Christ offers must have been truly awe-inspiring.
A lot of things God does, that seem "wrong" to us in the short run, end up being graceful because it instills thankfulness in us. "If there were God, how could bad things happen to good people?" Gee, I dunno ... so they KEEP their good character? If I'm spoiled with good things happening to me all the time, I will soon cease to be thankful, and cease to be a good person at all. The Bible talks a lot about learning to "rejoice in trials" since in the end it produces good character. So yes. Well said Shandyr.
You have yet to supply any more. I would like to see them, particularly being as I will admit I have never been very knowledgeable about the whole "slavery in the Bible" subject. (Bjjorick knows that stuff better, good for him.)
@Quartz Oh, let's see- tying the Sodom and Gamorrah to Homosexuality (It's actually tied to how they wouldn't help their neighbors). Also about how Lot is willing to send out his own daughters and/or slave to be raped by a crowd of men- and he's the only just and righteous man in the two cities? God is also okay with Lot's two daughters having sex with him when they think they are the only people in the world- and having their own Dad's children.
Want more? Jesus curses a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season, killing it. David steals another man's wife by sending him out to be killed. What is God's punishment? Nothing on David. Instead, he kills an innocent child in David's stead. David is the one who committed the act, shouldn't HE be the one being punished? In today's world, if you send your friend out to get killed and marry his wife, and someone finds out about what you did, we don't execute the kid. And God doesn't even kill the baby quickly and mercifully, but makes the baby suffer for an entire week before he lets the child die. This is unjust. And just a few more reasons why I wouldn't look to the Bible for my morality.
Someone please answer me this, why look at the bible in the first place? As already shown it is a nasty book full of hateful things, intolerance, genocide, untruths (the world was made in 6 days, that's right at the start and yet people read on believing it?)
Morality is in our genes, it helps us survive as a species and that's why there is some morality in the Bible, because people wrote it.
@Moomintroll it's a document with selected opinions to structure the bases of church institution. While i have my reservations against the first christians, when this document was wrote between 1900 1950 years ago more or less, slavery where a common subject.
Today slavery is obvious wrong, but we can't try to pierce space/time to impose our moral behavior in societies that lived on another conditions.
Human rights only appeared after the 1° world war, and this was somehow 80 years ago (giving to guess here) and by need.
So to end, from a side i have to say that we have no right to judge opinions made 2000 years ago and meant for a 2000 year ago society, however to try to impose on everyone lifestyle ideas of two thousand years ago is throwback and stupidy.
The problem isn't the existence of a document that relate how society behaved on the past, is to try to live by the moral standarts of that society on the actual days.
@Kamuizin I don't feel that really addresses my question. It seems like you are saying that using an ancient mythology to inform out own lifestyle choices is anachronistic, which while it wasn't the point I was making I would have agreed with.
Human rights only appeared after the first world war? where are you getting that from? Slavery is a common subject today, there is more slavery today than there ever has been at any other point in history.
@Moomintroll sorry if i misinterpreted your post and i presumed a little as you said.
Human rights first sketch comes with the first aknowledge constitution, made in 1215, the theme was better worked in france at 1789 and was made official in 1945-1948, after the 2° world war, by ONU. Really spoke out of knowledge here before.
The point isn't the existence of slavery but the acceptance or repudiate of it. I know that slavery doesn't need to be open, neither direct, what i meant is that on the past it was an acceptable pratice by that society.
I'm no theologist, but there's a reason that the Bible is divided in the old and new testament.
In the old testament God was a badass who kicked ass and taked names. After Jesus' sacrifice, a new alliance was made with God, and the bargain includes no more wiping out people for pissing God off, which is why God is a lot more mellow in the new testament.
@Quartz Oh, let's see- tying the Sodom and Gamorrah to Homosexuality (It's actually tied to how they wouldn't help their neighbors). Also about how Lot is willing to send out his own daughters and/or slave to be raped by a crowd of men- and he's the only just and righteous man in the two cities? God is also okay with Lot's two daughters having sex with him when they think they are the only people in the world- and having their own Dad's children.
Want more? Jesus curses a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season, killing it. David steals another man's wife by sending him out to be killed. What is God's punishment? Nothing on David. Instead, he kills an innocent child in David's stead. David is the one who committed the act, shouldn't HE be the one being punished? In today's world, if you send your friend out to get killed and marry his wife, and someone finds out about what you did, we don't execute the kid. And God doesn't even kill the baby quickly and mercifully, but makes the baby suffer for an entire week before he lets the child die. This is unjust. And just a few more reasons why I wouldn't look to the Bible for my morality.
This was my biggest WTF moment reading the Bible in church growing up:
2 Kings 2
Elisha is performing miracles with God's divine power flowing through him:
19 And the men of the city said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth: but the water is naught, and the ground barren.
20 And he said, Bring me a new cruse, and put salt therein. And they brought it to him.
21 And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast the salt in there, and said, Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any more death or barren land.
22 So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spake.
Wow, he healed the waters and broughts life to the barren land that is so great.
What did Elijah do next?
23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.
24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
25 And he went from thence to mount Carmel, and from thence he returned to Samaria.
So children were laughing at him being bald and God sends two she bears out of the city to eviscerate the children. Wow.
It's been 14 pages in a gay romance thread... and no one is even arguing over who's the most attractive new NPC! For shame!
... And it's Rasaad, obviously. Unless you like bears with tusks and tinges of green skin. And honestly I think Dorn would unintentionally break my back in a romantic encounter - he's huge! That issue should be addressed realistically by Overhaul. I demand realistic orc intimacy! ^-^ Hmm I wonder if they romance each other like klingons. *-) If that's true, female half-orcs would be scarier than the males. Yup. n.n
+1 to bear lovers and I think it would be much better if they put a bear one as well as one sporty(?) shape bisexual character. I neither am sure if I can fall in love with Rasaad nor want to play a female character just to have a romance with male characters. Too bad...
There are quite some contradictions in the Bible. Especially between Old and New Testament. And I'm trying to get some sense into that.
It really kept me thinking, and I imagined what would happen if we either had only the New Testament or only the Old one. What would be the difference to having both of them?
And then I thought of black and white, good and evil, ying and yang.
In my opinion you cannot appreciate the good when you never faced the bad (or evil). At least you cant appreaciate it as much as somebody who has faced evil too.
So after we have witnessed a rather wrathful, vengeful God in the Old Testament, arent we all the more thankful for the New Testament in comparison if we only had the New Testament in the first place?
If we were born in heaven from our very beginning and never had experienced anything else as heaven, how could we ever appreciate heaven? It would be just normal to us, because we wouldnt know anything else.
You see my point? What do you think about this?
Btw: @fighter_mage_thief I get again dozens of notifications from you editing your post lol
forgive me for being away for so long, sleep, then work. Lots of questiosn to answer but will start with this one.
Okay, in the beginning (garden of eden) man was not created to die. Man was made in the image of God and the earth was his home. Eve was later created from a piece of adam, and one became two, later through marriage, two became one again. But will talk on that later.
God gave one rule, eat and partake of all that was before them, but do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Man and woman (will it bother anyone if i just say man to refer to both?) were innocent. They walked around naked at that time, there was no sickness, no disease, only life and joy. When the serpent came and tricked them into eating the apple (and it could have easily been adam tricked as eve, it just played out that way), the serpent said roughly "God don't want you to eat of this tree because you become as powerful as Him." Once they ate of the fruit, they committed a sin, in that they went against the will of God, their creator. He cast them out of the garden and told them that they would labor upon the land.
Want you to understand that the relationship between man and God was different at that time. First, God came before them and spent time with them. They had no sin. They were pure, and could stand before God. Once they had sinned, they could no longer stand before God, because it would cause death. Sin gets intwined within us, and to look upon perfection as imperfection is not possible.
So they went out and created a nation. The sons of adam went out and created many nations actually. And i can go into sooooo much details, but i will share that more on request of if/when it's more relevent. Also to note, once man sinned, they introduced sickness, dispair, and death upon mankind. For the wages of sin are death. I hope @quartz will read over what i say, and verify or correct me.
One other note. It is assumed that God did intend man to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil when man was ready. That's why the tree was there in the first place. Kinda like how we protect our children from the evil of the world until they're old enough to handle it.
So as man went out, there were men who served God and pleased God with their love for God. God introduced the sacrifice to free men from their sins. All of mankind came from adam (this will be relevent later). But alot of mankind still sinned, and became evil in their own hearts. There was much evil in sodom and gramoria, and this lead to God destorying it. There was much sin in the land and that is why God spared noah and his family and flooded the earth.
After time, and the nations grew up, the nation of isreal became the slaves of egypt. God set them free from the slavery, and led them out of egypt into freedom through moses. He gave a law to moses that His people were to follow. The ten commandments are a part of that law, but the people broke the law, and in later years, after the desert and the refounding of isreal, the people used the law against their brothers. The people were sinful and wicked. They became rooted into tradition, and followed the law in practice but not in their hearts. There was no work on the sabbath but if they saw a man starving to death, they would keep the law not because they wanted to keep the law, but because they wanted to watch the man suffer, and the law was their justification.
This is why God sent Jesus. Because men were proud and boastful, how they kept the law and blah blah blah. This is it is said that through Jesus, we are saved by the mercy of God, and not by our works and deeds. Jesus showed them how they had corrupted the law, had made a holy thing unholy in their hearts. Jesus became the lamb, the sacrafice for all of our sins. He showed us and taught us that there are gifts of teaching, of propesy, of tounges, but that the greatest gift is the gift of love. That love endures eternally.
People ask why is God so vengeful in the old testament, but not in the new testament? God didn't change. He sent his prophets and those that served Him to warn the people in the old testament of what would occur if they didn't change. He told them what they were doing wrong and how they needed to change. When they took it seriously, and changed, they were spared, and shown mercy. When they killed the man of God who came to them, and i don't mean kill, i mean beaten to death (think of the crucifixion of Jesus for a reference point) then God will bring hardships and punishment upon them.
So what changed wasn't God. God changed the process. The time of the law had passed, because God knew that men would use it for evil, but it prepared men for the coming of Jesus. Jesus, and this part is hard to understand, was 100% man and 100% God. When He died, He returned to His disciples and appeared before them and brought the holy spirit. The spirit of God, that was in Jesus when He walked the earth as a man. He came to show us that the way to salvation, to redemption, to God. God had made a covenent with man (think of a contract) and man broke the covenent EVERY TIME. So God made Jesus, gave Jesus His own divine spirit, and made a covenant with Jesus for the sake of all of mankind. Jesus still lives because that covenant is not yet finished, and won't be finished until the time of the end, spoken of in revelation.
Jesus is God. God is the Father and Jesus is the Son, and He came with the Holy spirit. Jesus taught us how to be forgiven of our sins though Him. He had the spirit of God with Him, and so because the way to reach God.
So, even though i want to go further, i know how long this already is. To answer your question, if we only had the old or the new, we would have an incomplete work @Shandyr. I truely hope this makes sense, and i promise i will TRY to make my answers shorter now that i have some of the ground work out of the way. I hope it answers a few of the questions actually.
Please ask for any expansion required. I hope this makes sense and thank you both for telling me that you understand and relate.
Also the question about God hardening the heart of the phoero. Umm, king of Egypt :P hehe horrible spelling, sorry. They had treated the slaves so badly, and the king wasn't going to let the slaves go anyways, so God hardened the heart of the king to make him stand against the people of egypt (the slaves) to show them that he was greater then he who called himself the 'morning star'. He wanted His people to know that He was with them through it all. And He showed them many great wonders and miracles.
@Quartz Oh, let's see- tying the Sodom and Gamorrah to Homosexuality (It's actually tied to how they wouldn't help their neighbors). Also about how Lot is willing to send out his own daughters and/or slave to be raped by a crowd of men- and he's the only just and righteous man in the two cities? God is also okay with Lot's two daughters having sex with him when they think they are the only people in the world- and having their own Dad's children.
Want more? Jesus curses a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season, killing it. David steals another man's wife by sending him out to be killed. What is God's punishment? Nothing on David. Instead, he kills an innocent child in David's stead. David is the one who committed the act, shouldn't HE be the one being punished? In today's world, if you send your friend out to get killed and marry his wife, and someone finds out about what you did, we don't execute the kid. And God doesn't even kill the baby quickly and mercifully, but makes the baby suffer for an entire week before he lets the child die. This is unjust. And just a few more reasons why I wouldn't look to the Bible for my morality.
okay everyone, i can answer this one, just i have to break my promise to @Shandyr to not be long winded. This one will be long @ladyrhian, so bear with me and please feel free to disagree. Just be patient if i don't get to your reply tonight. I fell tonight and hit my knee and it's kinda bothing me, so i'm a bit slow. Alright, on to your questions.
Sodom and Gamorrah is tied to ALOT of things. First off, look to the conversation of God and Abraham about God saying He will destroy that city. Abraham asks if God can find 50 innocent, good people, if God will spare the city. God says yes. Abraham asks if there are 40 good people to spare the city, and God agrees. On and on until Abraham asks God to spare the city if there are 5 decent people, and God agrees. So God sends His angels into the city, and they look like men. They come to the house of Lot, and Lot takes them in because it's dangerous in the city. But some people saw the two 'men' coming in and surrounded lot's house and told him to send out the two men. I want you to understand, in those times, there was honor, and lot took those two men into his house, which means he was protecting them and responsible for them. Why did the city want the two men? to rape them. plain and simple. they would kill them as well and rob them, but they wanted to rape them. this is different from simple homosexuality, and i doubt i need to explain that further, and it is much much worse.
So lot, honor bound, offers his two daughters. They say no. If they had said yes, do you think God wouldn't have protected them? And this was something the city had done before. Numerous times. So what does God do? Does He let the men storm the house, kill lot and his wife and children? no. Does God go ahead and destory the city? No. His two angels blind the men outside, and they tell lot and his wife and children to flee the city and to not look back. In the fleeing, the wife of lot looks back and is turned to a pillar of salt. I don't know what she saw, but i imagine is was the hand of God moving against the city.
Moving on, let me know if you want more details on any of this. Oh, having children with their dad? That wasn't 'okay' and they sinned in the act. Lot should never have gotten drunk, and his daughters should never have done that, but i don't think it was okay for lot to offer his two daughters, but in the bible, it shows that every man has sinned, even the men of God. More on that later.
Jesus cursing the fig tree? Lol, Jesus didn't curse 'a' fig tree, Jesus cursed 'all' fig trees. Jesus told the tree to produce, and it didn't produce. @ladyrhain, you didn't create the fig tree, God did. The bible says that He curses those He chooses to curse and blesses those He chooses to bless. It is his right. He is Lord and creator of all things. He lets us know what brings curses and what brings blessings, because God is fair.
Now, david. I know this one because for a LOOOOOONG time, this story bothered me and i prayed on it for understanding because it bothered me. David had many wives, and that's not something God ever meant for man, but God did give specific rules for multiple wives after abraham sinned and tooked his wife's maid to have a child. You must love your wives equally, your first wife is the master of the house, you may only marry multiple women whenever the women greatly outnumber the men (so that women wouldn't give into perverted nature, like homosexuality (no offense). The 2nd wife was free to leave is she so choose, etc. It gives details because God knew that men were going to do it and He wanted to limit the impact. Free will, remember?
So, David should have been at war. He decided to stay behind in that fight for reasons unknown, and he saw a beautiful woman. He fell in love with her and called her to the castle, and seduced her. Her husband was at war at that time. When the husband came back, david told him to go home and be with his wife because he knew he had gotten her pregnent and he wanted to hide his sin. The husband said no, it was his duty to stand watch over the king and protect him, and would not go home to his wife. Knowing that he couldn't hide his sin, he sent the man to the front lines where the casulity rates were high, knowing he would die. He was trying to do what so many do now a days, hide from the sin. So when the husband died, he married her.
then a prophet of God came to king david and told him a story, about how a man in king david's kingdom had committed a horrible crime. The man had many sheep that he took care of, but looked at his neighbor who only had one sheep that he loved greatly. The neighbor had taken care of the sheep for a long time and nurtured it and helped it to grow and become the finest sheep in the land. The neighbor loved his sheep greatly, and it loved him. The man grew jealous because with all of his many sheep, not one was as great as his neighbors. The man plotted and killed his neighbor and took the sheep for himself, saying, 'Now that the neighbor is dead, no will know what i have done.'
Upon hearing this, king david grew outraged and told him, 'Bring this man before me. For this crime, he surely deserves death!'. The prophet told the king, 'This man is you. Your sin may have been hidden from other men, but not from God. But God has decided that you shall not die, but you must pay a price for your sin.' He was given 3 options, and david prayed and said that God should decide, because God is merciful. So God decided, and brought a plague upon the land that killed many of the people under king david. King david was a good king, and loved his people, and this was a horrible punishment. To see the land under you suffer because of your actions......i can't imagine.
But God also loosened the protection upon david's family. See, we're born naturally as a man, we are all born from the blood of adam in the beginning, who sinned against God. We are born into sin, and that is why, through Jesus, we are reborn, free from sin.
Heh, will pick this back up later from here. Need to spend a few mins with my wife. To be continued.
Edit: btw, how am i doing so far, is it clear enough?
Interestingly, although sodomy has a generally accepted meaning of buggery today (in the UK), it encompasses any un-reproductive sex act. Supposedly a couple of the more popular versions of this are still illegal in 18 states in the US. It does make me wonder if the use of contraception should be defined as sodomy.
A 2011 study in the US showed that there were more heterosexuals who had committed sodomy (in the generally accepted sense) than there were gay people.
And God doesn't even kill the baby quickly and mercifully, but makes the baby suffer for an entire week before he lets the child die. This is unjust. And just a few more reasons why I wouldn't look to the Bible for my morality.
And yet you do use the Bible to fortify your morality. Because you take examples out of it that are horrorsome for you (and yes this one is horrorsome for me as well), you decide that it is wrong what is happening there, and you decide that things like these should not happen.
So what if this was the message all along? What if this horrosome example wants to make us value each childs life because we know that there are very gruesome alternatives that might happen? Maybe this example wants to make you feel about it just the way you do. (To clarify: I dont think that without this example we would be unable to appreciate our childrens' well-being, but this examples gives us the chance to be even more happy about our childrens' well-being)
This is what my actual problem with the Bible is. It can be interpreted just in so many ways - That very sadly - there is danger of the Bible being misused in order to do evil under the disguise of good (We already said that, I know).
You see that example above, could work in the way I just said - or you could really take it literally - or maybe theres even a complete different message.
This is why I come to the conclusion that the Bible itself alone is not enough. You still need something else, to be able to draw the good out of the Bible, and to refrain from misusing it in order to do evil.
And I wonder what is this something, and where do I get it?
Actually, I object to that because it's punishing someone who had nothing to do with the crime for the crime. If someone robs a bank and kills a bunch of people in the bank, we don't execute one of their relatives, who had nothing to do with the crime, to execute. That's wrong. Under our modern law, we don't do this because we know it's wrong- because the innocent person is just that, innocent.
And after he kills the baby, God is satisfied, and lets Solomon be born as David's next child with Bathsheeba. And David doesn't even take the death of his son that hard, afterwards, he gets up, changes his clothes and has a good meal and goes back to his business.
Like I said, the God of the Bible is an inconstant figure for morality. Mind you, @Tanthalas, the God of the Bible also says he doesn't change, nor does he change his mind. But he lies (to Adam and Eve about the effect of the fruit- he tells them it will kill them on the same day they eat it, and yet Adam lives for 900-something years afterwards. In effect, the snake was correct in saying that eating it would make them like God, knowing good and evil- it definitely had that effect.)
@Bjjorick I have no doubt you are a man of your faith, but I don't think you have the right reading of the stories in this instance. Regarding slavery- God never says anything to his chosen people about it being wrong, and as God (all knowing, all powerful, all good), he could have made them accept this- after all, he's God, right? Yet, he does nothing about it and never even hints that this is a bad thing. Which, if you accept that God's morality never changes, you are forced to conclude that 1) We are wrong and slavery is still okay today, just as it was back then. or 2) God is wrong and slavery has always been wrong.
@Shandyr But it's God doing the punishment, someone we have been told (by Christians) is Omnibenevolent (all good) according to them. This is not good. It's not good and it's not good to punish an innocent person for a crime. You are familliar with the term scapegoat, yes? This child is the scapegoat for David's crime. David's wives get violated by other men, and his son is killed in a nasty and horrible way, but once his son is dead, David is absolved of the crime.
As a punishment for someone else's crime, killing someone whose only crime is in being related to the criminal isn't right, and a God who is the source of all Goodness should know that.
Comments
Long live the chunk.
A lot of things God does, that seem "wrong" to us in the short run, end up being graceful because it instills thankfulness in us. "If there were God, how could bad things happen to good people?" Gee, I dunno ... so they KEEP their good character? If I'm spoiled with good things happening to me all the time, I will soon cease to be thankful, and cease to be a good person at all. The Bible talks a lot about learning to "rejoice in trials" since in the end it produces good character. So yes. Well said Shandyr. You have yet to supply any more. I would like to see them, particularly being as I will admit I have never been very knowledgeable about the whole "slavery in the Bible" subject. (Bjjorick knows that stuff better, good for him.)
Want more? Jesus curses a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season, killing it. David steals another man's wife by sending him out to be killed. What is God's punishment? Nothing on David. Instead, he kills an innocent child in David's stead. David is the one who committed the act, shouldn't HE be the one being punished? In today's world, if you send your friend out to get killed and marry his wife, and someone finds out about what you did, we don't execute the kid. And God doesn't even kill the baby quickly and mercifully, but makes the baby suffer for an entire week before he lets the child die. This is unjust. And just a few more reasons why I wouldn't look to the Bible for my morality.
Morality is in our genes, it helps us survive as a species and that's why there is some morality in the Bible, because people wrote it.
Today slavery is obvious wrong, but we can't try to pierce space/time to impose our moral behavior in societies that lived on another conditions.
Human rights only appeared after the 1° world war, and this was somehow 80 years ago (giving to guess here) and by need.
So to end, from a side i have to say that we have no right to judge opinions made 2000 years ago and meant for a 2000 year ago society, however to try to impose on everyone lifestyle ideas of two thousand years ago is throwback and stupidy.
The problem isn't the existence of a document that relate how society behaved on the past, is to try to live by the moral standarts of that society on the actual days.
Human rights only appeared after the first world war? where are you getting that from?
Slavery is a common subject today, there is more slavery today than there ever has been at any other point in history.
Human rights first sketch comes with the first aknowledge constitution, made in 1215, the theme was better worked in france at 1789 and was made official in 1945-1948, after the 2° world war, by ONU. Really spoke out of knowledge here before.
The point isn't the existence of slavery but the acceptance or repudiate of it. I know that slavery doesn't need to be open, neither direct, what i meant is that on the past it was an acceptable pratice by that society.
I'm no theologist, but there's a reason that the Bible is divided in the old and new testament.
In the old testament God was a badass who kicked ass and taked names. After Jesus' sacrifice, a new alliance was made with God, and the bargain includes no more wiping out people for pissing God off, which is why God is a lot more mellow in the new testament.
2 Kings 2
Elisha is performing miracles with God's divine power flowing through him: Wow, he healed the waters and broughts life to the barren land that is so great.
What did Elijah do next? So children were laughing at him being bald and God sends two she bears out of the city to eviscerate the children. Wow.
That's just typical old testament God badassness. He totally went "You mess with me, you mess with you" on them.
Okay, in the beginning (garden of eden) man was not created to die. Man was made in the image of God and the earth was his home. Eve was later created from a piece of adam, and one became two, later through marriage, two became one again. But will talk on that later.
God gave one rule, eat and partake of all that was before them, but do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Man and woman (will it bother anyone if i just say man to refer to both?) were innocent. They walked around naked at that time, there was no sickness, no disease, only life and joy. When the serpent came and tricked them into eating the apple (and it could have easily been adam tricked as eve, it just played out that way), the serpent said roughly "God don't want you to eat of this tree because you become as powerful as Him." Once they ate of the fruit, they committed a sin, in that they went against the will of God, their creator. He cast them out of the garden and told them that they would labor upon the land.
Want you to understand that the relationship between man and God was different at that time. First, God came before them and spent time with them. They had no sin. They were pure, and could stand before God. Once they had sinned, they could no longer stand before God, because it would cause death. Sin gets intwined within us, and to look upon perfection as imperfection is not possible.
So they went out and created a nation. The sons of adam went out and created many nations actually. And i can go into sooooo much details, but i will share that more on request of if/when it's more relevent. Also to note, once man sinned, they introduced sickness, dispair, and death upon mankind. For the wages of sin are death. I hope @quartz will read over what i say, and verify or correct me.
One other note. It is assumed that God did intend man to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil when man was ready. That's why the tree was there in the first place. Kinda like how we protect our children from the evil of the world until they're old enough to handle it.
So as man went out, there were men who served God and pleased God with their love for God. God introduced the sacrifice to free men from their sins. All of mankind came from adam (this will be relevent later). But alot of mankind still sinned, and became evil in their own hearts. There was much evil in sodom and gramoria, and this lead to God destorying it. There was much sin in the land and that is why God spared noah and his family and flooded the earth.
After time, and the nations grew up, the nation of isreal became the slaves of egypt. God set them free from the slavery, and led them out of egypt into freedom through moses. He gave a law to moses that His people were to follow. The ten commandments are a part of that law, but the people broke the law, and in later years, after the desert and the refounding of isreal, the people used the law against their brothers. The people were sinful and wicked. They became rooted into tradition, and followed the law in practice but not in their hearts. There was no work on the sabbath but if they saw a man starving to death, they would keep the law not because they wanted to keep the law, but because they wanted to watch the man suffer, and the law was their justification.
This is why God sent Jesus. Because men were proud and boastful, how they kept the law and blah blah blah. This is it is said that through Jesus, we are saved by the mercy of God, and not by our works and deeds. Jesus showed them how they had corrupted the law, had made a holy thing unholy in their hearts. Jesus became the lamb, the sacrafice for all of our sins. He showed us and taught us that there are gifts of teaching, of propesy, of tounges, but that the greatest gift is the gift of love. That love endures eternally.
People ask why is God so vengeful in the old testament, but not in the new testament? God didn't change. He sent his prophets and those that served Him to warn the people in the old testament of what would occur if they didn't change. He told them what they were doing wrong and how they needed to change. When they took it seriously, and changed, they were spared, and shown mercy. When they killed the man of God who came to them, and i don't mean kill, i mean beaten to death (think of the crucifixion of Jesus for a reference point) then God will bring hardships and punishment upon them.
So what changed wasn't God. God changed the process. The time of the law had passed, because God knew that men would use it for evil, but it prepared men for the coming of Jesus. Jesus, and this part is hard to understand, was 100% man and 100% God. When He died, He returned to His disciples and appeared before them and brought the holy spirit. The spirit of God, that was in Jesus when He walked the earth as a man. He came to show us that the way to salvation, to redemption, to God. God had made a covenent with man (think of a contract) and man broke the covenent EVERY TIME. So God made Jesus, gave Jesus His own divine spirit, and made a covenant with Jesus for the sake of all of mankind. Jesus still lives because that covenant is not yet finished, and won't be finished until the time of the end, spoken of in revelation.
Jesus is God. God is the Father and Jesus is the Son, and He came with the Holy spirit. Jesus taught us how to be forgiven of our sins though Him. He had the spirit of God with Him, and so because the way to reach God.
So, even though i want to go further, i know how long this already is. To answer your question, if we only had the old or the new, we would have an incomplete work @Shandyr. I truely hope this makes sense, and i promise i will TRY to make my answers shorter now that i have some of the ground work out of the way. I hope it answers a few of the questions actually.
Please ask for any expansion required. I hope this makes sense and thank you both for telling me that you understand and relate.
Also the question about God hardening the heart of the phoero. Umm, king of Egypt :P hehe horrible spelling, sorry. They had treated the slaves so badly, and the king wasn't going to let the slaves go anyways, so God hardened the heart of the king to make him stand against the people of egypt (the slaves) to show them that he was greater then he who called himself the 'morning star'. He wanted His people to know that He was with them through it all. And He showed them many great wonders and miracles.
Sodom and Gamorrah is tied to ALOT of things. First off, look to the conversation of God and Abraham about God saying He will destroy that city. Abraham asks if God can find 50 innocent, good people, if God will spare the city. God says yes. Abraham asks if there are 40 good people to spare the city, and God agrees. On and on until Abraham asks God to spare the city if there are 5 decent people, and God agrees. So God sends His angels into the city, and they look like men. They come to the house of Lot, and Lot takes them in because it's dangerous in the city. But some people saw the two 'men' coming in and surrounded lot's house and told him to send out the two men. I want you to understand, in those times, there was honor, and lot took those two men into his house, which means he was protecting them and responsible for them. Why did the city want the two men? to rape them. plain and simple. they would kill them as well and rob them, but they wanted to rape them. this is different from simple homosexuality, and i doubt i need to explain that further, and it is much much worse.
So lot, honor bound, offers his two daughters. They say no. If they had said yes, do you think God wouldn't have protected them? And this was something the city had done before. Numerous times. So what does God do? Does He let the men storm the house, kill lot and his wife and children? no. Does God go ahead and destory the city? No. His two angels blind the men outside, and they tell lot and his wife and children to flee the city and to not look back. In the fleeing, the wife of lot looks back and is turned to a pillar of salt. I don't know what she saw, but i imagine is was the hand of God moving against the city.
Moving on, let me know if you want more details on any of this. Oh, having children with their dad? That wasn't 'okay' and they sinned in the act. Lot should never have gotten drunk, and his daughters should never have done that, but i don't think it was okay for lot to offer his two daughters, but in the bible, it shows that every man has sinned, even the men of God. More on that later.
Jesus cursing the fig tree? Lol, Jesus didn't curse 'a' fig tree, Jesus cursed 'all' fig trees. Jesus told the tree to produce, and it didn't produce. @ladyrhain, you didn't create the fig tree, God did. The bible says that He curses those He chooses to curse and blesses those He chooses to bless. It is his right. He is Lord and creator of all things. He lets us know what brings curses and what brings blessings, because God is fair.
Now, david. I know this one because for a LOOOOOONG time, this story bothered me and i prayed on it for understanding because it bothered me. David had many wives, and that's not something God ever meant for man, but God did give specific rules for multiple wives after abraham sinned and tooked his wife's maid to have a child. You must love your wives equally, your first wife is the master of the house, you may only marry multiple women whenever the women greatly outnumber the men (so that women wouldn't give into perverted nature, like homosexuality (no offense). The 2nd wife was free to leave is she so choose, etc. It gives details because God knew that men were going to do it and He wanted to limit the impact. Free will, remember?
So, David should have been at war. He decided to stay behind in that fight for reasons unknown, and he saw a beautiful woman. He fell in love with her and called her to the castle, and seduced her. Her husband was at war at that time. When the husband came back, david told him to go home and be with his wife because he knew he had gotten her pregnent and he wanted to hide his sin. The husband said no, it was his duty to stand watch over the king and protect him, and would not go home to his wife. Knowing that he couldn't hide his sin, he sent the man to the front lines where the casulity rates were high, knowing he would die. He was trying to do what so many do now a days, hide from the sin. So when the husband died, he married her.
then a prophet of God came to king david and told him a story, about how a man in king david's kingdom had committed a horrible crime. The man had many sheep that he took care of, but looked at his neighbor who only had one sheep that he loved greatly. The neighbor had taken care of the sheep for a long time and nurtured it and helped it to grow and become the finest sheep in the land. The neighbor loved his sheep greatly, and it loved him. The man grew jealous because with all of his many sheep, not one was as great as his neighbors. The man plotted and killed his neighbor and took the sheep for himself, saying, 'Now that the neighbor is dead, no will know what i have done.'
Upon hearing this, king david grew outraged and told him, 'Bring this man before me. For this crime, he surely deserves death!'. The prophet told the king, 'This man is you. Your sin may have been hidden from other men, but not from God. But God has decided that you shall not die, but you must pay a price for your sin.' He was given 3 options, and david prayed and said that God should decide, because God is merciful. So God decided, and brought a plague upon the land that killed many of the people under king david. King david was a good king, and loved his people, and this was a horrible punishment. To see the land under you suffer because of your actions......i can't imagine.
But God also loosened the protection upon david's family. See, we're born naturally as a man, we are all born from the blood of adam in the beginning, who sinned against God. We are born into sin, and that is why, through Jesus, we are reborn, free from sin.
Heh, will pick this back up later from here. Need to spend a few mins with my wife. To be continued.
Edit: btw, how am i doing so far, is it clear enough?
A 2011 study in the US showed that there were more heterosexuals who had committed sodomy (in the generally accepted sense) than there were gay people.
"My sins are my own; they belong to me."
Because you take examples out of it that are horrorsome for you (and yes this one is horrorsome for me as well), you decide that it is wrong what is happening there, and you decide that things like these should not happen.
So what if this was the message all along? What if this horrosome example wants to make us value each childs life because we know that there are very gruesome alternatives that might happen?
Maybe this example wants to make you feel about it just the way you do.
(To clarify: I dont think that without this example we would be unable to appreciate our childrens' well-being, but this examples gives us the chance to be even more happy about our childrens' well-being)
This is what my actual problem with the Bible is. It can be interpreted just in so many ways - That very sadly - there is danger of the Bible being misused in order to do evil under the disguise of good
(We already said that, I know).
You see that example above, could work in the way I just said - or you could really take it literally - or maybe theres even a complete different message.
This is why I come to the conclusion that the Bible itself alone is not enough.
You still need something else, to be able to draw the good out of the Bible, and to refrain from misusing it in order to do evil.
And I wonder what is this something, and where do I get it?
Actually, I object to that because it's punishing someone who had nothing to do with the crime for the crime. If someone robs a bank and kills a bunch of people in the bank, we don't execute one of their relatives, who had nothing to do with the crime, to execute. That's wrong. Under our modern law, we don't do this because we know it's wrong- because the innocent person is just that, innocent.
And after he kills the baby, God is satisfied, and lets Solomon be born as David's next child with Bathsheeba. And David doesn't even take the death of his son that hard, afterwards, he gets up, changes his clothes and has a good meal and goes back to his business.
Like I said, the God of the Bible is an inconstant figure for morality. Mind you, @Tanthalas, the God of the Bible also says he doesn't change, nor does he change his mind. But he lies (to Adam and Eve about the effect of the fruit- he tells them it will kill them on the same day they eat it, and yet Adam lives for 900-something years afterwards. In effect, the snake was correct in saying that eating it would make them like God, knowing good and evil- it definitely had that effect.)
@Bjjorick I have no doubt you are a man of your faith, but I don't think you have the right reading of the stories in this instance. Regarding slavery- God never says anything to his chosen people about it being wrong, and as God (all knowing, all powerful, all good), he could have made them accept this- after all, he's God, right? Yet, he does nothing about it and never even hints that this is a bad thing. Which, if you accept that God's morality never changes, you are forced to conclude that 1) We are wrong and slavery is still okay today, just as it was back then. or 2) God is wrong and slavery has always been wrong.
As a punishment for someone else's crime, killing someone whose only crime is in being related to the criminal isn't right, and a God who is the source of all Goodness should know that.