Questions about the Bible , I ask as I read

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Az


what's so questionable about them?

Well Esther's a chick! And I'm sure there is something shady about Daniel, I never bought that whole lion's den thing.

[aneeshm]

My first query stands answered , as many Christians on this board have given their opinions . My next query is :

Exodus 34.12 to 34.16 :

12 Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. 13 Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles. [a] 14 Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

15 "Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. 16 And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same.

This passage seems to me incredibly intolerant of polytheist idol-worshippers , such as the Hindus . Does this mean that no understanding is possible between Hindus and Christians ? Does it mean that the Christian God does not accept Hinduism as a true religion ? It tells Christians to "break the altars" of others , to "smash their sacred stones" . Is such behaviour acceptable by any standard of decency ?

Also - I find it repulsive that other people's worship of their God(s) is called "prostituting" . Can someone explain this ?

I ask - why does God say this ?

[Vesayen]

Originally posted by Az


what's so questionable about them?

The book of Ester is not in the Torah. Some Jews say it happened. Some say it did not. This is not a particularly heated issue. It has value whether you believe the book of Ester or not.

I say it didn't happen.

[Vesayen]

Originally posted by aneeshm
My first query stands answered , as many Christians on this board have given their opinions . My next query is :

Exodus 34.12 to 34.16 :



This passage seems to me incredibly intolerant of polytheist idol-worshippers , such as the Hindus . Does this mean that no understanding is possible between Hindus and Christians ? Does it mean that the Christian God does not accept Hinduism as a true religion ? It tells Christians to "break the altars" of others , to "smash their sacred stones" . Is such behaviour acceptable by any standard of decency ?

Also - I find it repulsive that other people's worship of their God(s) is called "prostituting" . Can someone explain this ?

I ask - why does God say this ?

2 main reasons.

1. To try to ensure the Jews don't mingle their religions with local ones.

2. The cananites were said to have practiced horrific things including child sacrafice.

You know "Gehena"? The origin of that comes from a valley called Har Ha Genom. Its a valley in the middle of Jerusalem now(actually pretty nice, its a park). Human and child sacrafice were said to have gone on such a mass scale there it inspired the word gehena.


There is tolerance for other religions. It is a central tenant of Judaism not to pick fights with non Jews and to be respectful of other religions. There was an exception made for the Cananites because of child sacrafice.

I have to go to work, I WILL respond when I get back.


Edit: Prostitute is a piss poor and proboably intentional middle age miss translation, where the hell did you get that from? It means that if you take wives from the cananites and they bow down to their gods, you will also bow down. There is a word which is similar to prostitute which means to submit yourself in worship-it has no sexual conotation. 99.9% sure the actual word is prostate, I think-I need to check my copy of the Torah but I have to go to work... I promise to get back to this thread.

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by aneeshm
Does it mean that the Christian God does not accept Hinduism as a true religion ?

Of course he doesn't.

It tells Christians to "break the altars" of others , to "smash their sacred stones" . Is such behaviour acceptable by any standard of decency ?

Religion aspires to define decency and morals.

Also - I find it repulsive that other people's worship of their God(s) is called "prostituting" . Can someone explain this ?
I ask - why does God say this ?

You seem incredibly naive. God says that he is the one and only God. His policy on other religions is - absolute zero tolerance.

The sooner you accept that modern moral relativism and political correctness have nothing in common with the Old Testament, the less confused you'll be.

[SpencerH]

Re: Re: Questions about the Bible , I ask as I read

Originally posted by VJ

.......... old self-proclaimed fundamentalist men from Alabama marrying 14-year old girls. ......... .

Sinner! You will burn in everlasting hellfire for slandering the reverend Billy-Bob!

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Az
yep. However, you must remember that people before modernity weren't sane. Hell, even today, there are plenty of crazies who act upon "honour" and other bull****.

Yeah, honour, what an outdated concept!

[Arrian]

I do believe he's talking about "honor killings." Honor gone terribly wrong.

-Arrian

[Az]

The book of Ester is not in the Torah.

Neither is most of the old testament.

Some Jews say it happened. Some say it did not. This is not a particularly heated issue. It has value whether you believe the book of Ester or not.

I say it didn't happen.

As with many other stories of antiquity, it probably happened - but in a very different way from what is written.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Vesayen


Edit: Prostitute is a piss poor and proboably intentional middle age miss translation, where the hell did you get that from? It means that if you take wives from the cananites and they bow down to their gods, you will also bow down. There is a word which is similar to prostitute which means to submit yourself in worship-it has no sexual conotation. 99.9% sure the actual word is prostate, I think-I need to check my copy of the Torah but I have to go to work... I promise to get back to this thread.

Prostitute is perfectly valid since it doesnt just mean "sex for money" it also means a more general choice to accept corruption for some gain.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Arrian
I do believe he's talking about "honor killings." Honor gone terribly wrong.

-Arrian

Ah, mea culpa.

[Barnabas]

Originally posted by aneeshm
My first query stands answered , as many Christians on this board have given their opinions . My next query is :

Exodus 34.12 to 34.16 :



This passage seems to me incredibly intolerant of polytheist idol-worshippers , such as the Hindus . Does this mean that no understanding is possible between Hindus and Christians ? Does it mean that the Christian God does not accept Hinduism as a true religion ? It tells Christians to "break the altars" of others , to "smash their sacred stones" . Is such behaviour acceptable by any standard of decency ?

Also - I find it repulsive that other people's worship of their God(s) is called "prostituting" . Can someone explain this ?

I ask - why does God say this ?

Yes, Christians can be incredibly intolerant of the practices of polytheist idol worshippers


"British and other European territories
By the end of the 18th century, the practice had been banned in territories held by some European powers. The Portuguese banned the practice in Goa by about 1515, though it is not believed to have been especially prevalent there[36]. The Dutch and the French had also banned it in Chinsurah and Pondicherry. The British who by then ruled much of the subcontinent, and the Danes, who held the small territory of Shrirampur, permitted it into the 19th century.

Attempts to limit or ban the practice had been made by individual British officers in the 18th century, but without the backing of the British East India Company. The first formal British ban was in 1798, in the city of Calcutta only. The practice continued in surrounding regions. Toward the end of the 18th century, the evangelical church in Britain, and its members in India, started campaigns against sati. Leaders of these included William Carey and William Wilberforce, and both appeared to be motivated partly by a desire to convert Indians to Christianity. These movements put pressure on the company to ban the act, and the Bengal Presidency started collecting figures on the practice in 1813.

From about 1812, the Bengali reformer Ram Mohan Roy started his own campaign against the practice. He was motivated by the experience of seeing his own sister-in-law commit sati. Among his actions, he visited Calcutta cremation grounds to persuade widows not to so die, formed watch groups to do the same, and wrote and disseminated articles to show that it was not required by scripture.

On 4 December 1829, the practice was formally banned in the Bengal Presidency lands, by the then governor, Lord William Bentinck. It was mainly due to the efforts of Raja Ram Mohan Roy. The ban was challenged in the courts, and the matter went to the Privy Council in London, but was upheld in 1832. Other company territories also banned it shortly after. Although the original ban in Bengal was fairly uncompromising, later in the century British laws include provisions that provided mitigation for murder when "the person whose death is caused, being above the age of 18 years, suffers death or takes the risk of death with his own consent".[37]

Sati remained legal in some princely states for a time after it had been abolished in lands under British control. The last such state to permit it, Jaipur, banned the practice in 1846."


"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_%28practice%29

[Ben Kenobi]

This passage seems to me incredibly intolerant of polytheist idol-worshippers , such as the Hindus . Does this mean that no understanding is possible between Hindus and Christians?

Oh, understanding is always possible, but yes this is no different then how Christians are treated in India today. The two can and have peacefully coexisted, however Hinduism says that it is wrong for Christians to try to spread the Gospel, and Christians are required to do so from the faith, just like Hindus believe cattle are sacred.

Christians are to be intolerant in the sense, that they cannot accept many gods as being the same as YHWH.

Does it mean that the Christian God does not accept Hinduism as a true religion ? It tells Christians to "break the altars" of others , to "smash their sacred stones" . Is such behaviour acceptable by any standard of decency?

Let's be careful here. To whom is God speaking? Moses and the Israelites. There is a difference between the Jews and the Christians, as any Christian will say, we ain't God's chosen people. God wanted to preserve the Israelites as his own, and such, they had to worship YHWH by the terms of the covenant that God made with Abraham.

"I shall be your God, and you shall be my people. You shall have no other gods before me."

Jews are not to permit within Israel such trappings of worship to other gods. Other nations are permitted to worship what they will, but YHWH shall be the only God of Israel.

Also - I find it repulsive that other people's worship of their God(s) is called "prostituting" . Can someone explain this ?

It's like a marriage. You marry one person for life. The Israelites are promised to God, and if they stray, they are like an unfaithful husband.

[Az]

Originally posted by SpencerH


Ah, mea culpa.

It's that simple difference between people having self-respect and people thinking that this is some sort of slider bar, and that "being pwned is bad" equates the superiority of being the tormentor...

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Az


It's that simple difference between people having self-respect and people thinking that this is some sort of slider bar, and that "being pwned is bad" equates the superiority of being the tormentor...

Sorry, this makes no sense to me. Honour is not "self respect"?

Slider bar, etc?