Worry!

[Smiling JOe]

How do you think that a human, an elephant, a sycamore tree, and a ladybug all got here? How did we get from pre-Bang nothing to primordial ooze to a planet teeming with such amazing diversity?

Here's one for you, if God created everything, what created God? If we take the question as a truth, "God created everything," that would mean that God created God, and that sounds rather silly, doesn't it? Let's get past that question and ask, if God is so infinitely powerful, why was God so bored that God created plants and animals? Surely, such a power couldn't get bored. :scratch:
These are serious questions. My preachers hated to see me coming.

 

[Smiling JOe]

A gift for you, Uncle Timmy. A friend (a Christian friend, I might add) just sent me this. (For what it's worth, I believe Old Testament law was specific to the Israelites within a specific time period, unless I need a good reason to smite my neighbor.)

Makes sense to me, but why do most all Christians keep refering to so many of the Books of the Old Testament, such as the origins of the Earth and the 10 Commandments?

 

[NoHall]

Along those same lines, in Exodus, God claims to be a jealous God. Why would such a power, which created the Universe, have jealousy? Is God jealous of other Gods? Seems to be, but again, by definition, God is THE supreme being, therefore there cannot be other Gods. (my preachers never could answer this one.)

He is jealous of the attention that man gives to other things. Hence the commandment about idols. According to the Bible, (and you are talking about the Bible, so I assume it's okay for me to talk about it, too!) God created man to be in relationship with him. The flip side of that is what Pascal called the "God-shaped hole" in his heart. Man tries to fill that hole with things that aren't God, and it just doesn't work.

War and laws about hair aside, the Old Testament is about God creating man to walk with him, man turning away, and God chasing man all over the middle east, wooing him back:

"He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing." (Zeph. 3:17)​

 

[NoHall]

Here's one for you, if God created everything, what created God? If we take the question as a truth, "God created everything," that would mean that God created God, and that sounds rather silly, doesn't it?
Yes, it does sound silly, and I don't have an answer at all for that!

Let's get past that question and ask, if God is so infinitely powerful, why was God so bored that God created plants and animals? Surely, such a power couldn't get bored. :scratch:
Although I have heard that God was lonely or bored, I don't personally hold to that for the same reason that you're questioning it. Sounds kind of dumb. Maybe this sounds dumb, too: I think he did it out of love. I mentioned that I've become a Calvinist out of my rebellion toward the Baptist church. I think that he created us so that he could love us, knowing that we would turn away from him and that he would have to chase us and ultimately die for us. I see the Bible as a great big love story.

These are serious questions. My preachers hated to see me coming.
They didn't know what they were missing. My pastor would love you.


Makes sense to me, but why do most all Christians keep refering to so many of the Books of the Old Testament, such as the origins of the Earth and the 10 Commandments?
It depends on what you're talking about. If you're asking about origins and law, the Old Testament talks more about that. The New Testament is about redemption, salvation, and sanctification. It's actually what I hear the most on any given Sunday.

 

[Smiling JOe]

Makes sense to me, but why do most all Christians keep refering to so many of the Books of the Old Testament, such as the origins of the Earth and the 10 Commandments?
It depends on what you're talking about. If you're asking about origins and law, the Old Testament talks more about that. The New Testament is about redemption, salvation, and sanctification. It's actually what I hear the most on any given Sunday.

Right, but all of the new testament is based on the laws of the Old Testament, and without the Old Testament, there wouldn't be a New Testament, right?

 

[Smiling JOe]

The flip side of that is what Pascal called the "God-shaped hole" in his heart. Man tries to fill that hole with things that aren't God, and it just doesn't work.

Hindus have been talking about this for a few thousand years before the beginnings of Christianity. You guys mentioned Einstein and religion, earlier. Interesting, because Einstein was brought up in a discussion of religion I was having a few days ago. It was noted that Einstein's Theory of Relativity is actually a scientific theory of what Hindus have known for thousands of years, but never put into such terms.

 

[NoHall]

Right, but all of the new testament is based on the laws of the Old Testament, and without the Old Testament, there wouldn't be a New Testament, right?

Nutshell version, since I have to actually be at church in a few hours: The OT was the law--the book of church order. The Israelites who didn't aboandon God altogether became so preoccupied with following the letter of the law that they threw out the baby with the bathwater. They forgot about the love. (Sound familiar?)

When Jesus showed up, (not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it) he was all about reminding the Jewish leaders about the spirit of the law. In his words, he summed up all of the law and the prophets (the OT) into two commandments: 1) Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. 2) The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.

Everything should fall in line with that. If you look through the Big Ten, you'll notice that the first 4 have to do with loving God, and the other 6 with loving others.

As much as I'm enjoying this, I think I just saw Noah and his ark in the grain of my wood floor. It's really time for me to sleep!

 

[NoHall]

Hindus have been talking about this for a few thousand years before the beginnings of Christianity. You guys mentioned Einstein and religion, earlier. Interesting, because Einstein was brought up a few days ago in a discussion of religion I was having a few days ago. It was noted that Einstein's Theory of Relativity is actually a scientific theory of what Hindus have known for thousands of years, but never put into such terms.

General revelation. It's a beautiful thing. And so are you. G'night!

 

[Smiling JOe]

Everything should fall in line with that. If you look through the Big Ten, you'll notice that the first 4 have to do with loving God, and the other 6 with loving others.

As much as I'm enjoying this, I think I just saw Noah and his ark in the grain of my wood floor. It's really time for me to sleep!

I hear you on the Golden Rule, but even Barb brought up the ten commandments earlier. I often hear others doing it too.

As for Noah, didn't he get drunk on wine after the arc was grounded, and got so pissed off at his own child for trying to cover him while he was lying drunk and naked in his tent?

 

[NoHall]

I hear you on the Golden Rule, but even Barb brought up the ten commandments earlier. I often hear others doing it too.

Actually, that one's a little bit different, ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you") but it still falls in the spirit of the love your neighbor as yourself commandment.

You're obviously trying to make a point, and it's going right over my head. I'm sorry...

As for Noah, didn't he get drunk on wine after the ark was grounded, and got so pissed off at his own child for trying to cover him while he was lying drunk and naked in his tent?

Heck yes he did. That's really one of the great things about the OT stories. They're full of failures from the get-go. Adam and Eve screwed us all over. Cain murdered his brother--they had the entire world to hang out in, but it wasn't big enough for the both of 'em. Noah was a pissy, whiny drunk. Abraham (who was also the father of Mohammed) was a bullheaded liar and schemer, and his grandson Jacob was even worse. Jacob's son, Joseph, was an arrogant pain in the butt to the degree that his brothers (who liked to circumcise their full-grown neighbors out of spite) sold him in the hope that he would be murdered. David (who was called "the man after God's own heart") was a philanderer who impregnated the wife of one of his most faithful officers, so he made sure that officer was killed in battle before he got home and noticed how pudgy his wife had gotten. His son Solomon wasn't any better.

There's this long list of liars and manipulators and murderers and prostitutes, and they are all the ancestors of Jesus. Like I said, it's a story about love. We can hardly be any worse than these "saints," and God is still crazy about us.