[SERIOUS] Is Kidicious getting dumber?

[Lorizael]

/me checks credit card balance.

Kid, I bet you $4,000 loin doesn't believe in hell.

[loinburger]

Oh, so you don't mind if he tries to drag me off to hell? You're gonna help?

I've repeatedly exhorted you to read the friggin Bible, something you apparently refuse to do. Is reading the Bible going to send you to hell?

[Aeson]

/me checks credit card balance.

Kid, I bet you $4,000 loin doesn't believe in hell.

That's going to be hell to pay if kid and loin decide to split the winnings...

[rah]

Based on what I've read in this thread, Kid doesn't need any help on his trip to hell. He's doing just fine all by himself.

[Boris Godunov]

I don't think I've ever seen anyone on this board as unhinged as Kid, and that includes good old BK, Fez and Thorn. Wow.

[Elok]

All right, I just looked up the controversial passage in the ol' OSB, to read it in context. To be clear, the OSB uses the Septuagint, so there may be differences, but it's unclear whether Elisha told anyone what had happened. Maybe half a page before the bear incident, Elijah is taken up to heaven in a whirlwind. Then (2 Kings 2:15-18 by Protestant labeling, 4 Kingdoms 2:15-18 in the Orthodox Bible) Elisha comes back alone, and his friends offer to send fifty men looking for Elijah, because they're afraid the Spirit of the Lord might have thrown him into the river, or among the mountains or hills. Elisha refuses initially, but after a while they wear him down and he says, "sure, go and search." They come back empty-handed, and he replies, "I told you not to bother." Now, did he tell them clearly what he saw, or what? It sounds like maybe they're afraid that Elijah was taken halfway to heaven and then dropped halfway there, or something--but why would such a thing happen? And Elisha clearly doesn't expect that to be the case, so at the least there's some gap in understanding between them--and these are "the sons of the prophets of Jericho," not some random kids off the street.

So, what does "go up" mean? For all I know, it's the Iron-Age Levantine equivalent of "get bent" or "bite me."

[Kidlicious]

I think you decided to believe loinburgers interpretation so that the both of you can aggravate me.

[loinburger]

Yes, there's a massive conspiracy against you to interpret the word "bald" to mean "bald."

[Elok]

Simple textual answer (emphasis added):

23He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, "Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!" 24And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys. 25From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.

The simplest answer has nothing to do with ascending to heaven (if it did, why would they say simply "go up," and expect it to be understood as such?). He is, at the time, going up. The kids (or youths, or men-just-under-thirty) have come out of the city he just left and told him something to the effect of "yeah, keep walking away, punk."

[Kidlicious]

So God kills people for that? No.

[rah]

The passage seems to suggest otherwise.

[loinburger]

What a fun way to interpret the Bible - assign a meaning to a passage, then read the passage (or not, this step is optional), then insist that your original interpretation is correct despite all evidence to the contrary.

[rah]

That's the main reason I'm not a practicing Catholic any more.
It always seemed to be that the non-believers were the ones that would readily be willing to discuss/argue particular passages and even "GASP" be able to be influenced by these discussions.
But for the believers, they only see how a passage supports their belief regardless of whether it does or not. And if anyone else thought it didn't, they were headed to hell.
There are some exceptions and i hold them in higher esteem. But generally it's not the case.


To me, "I believe" can never replace "I think"

[Elok]

So God kills people for that? No.

Has it occurred to you that millions of people die every day, for good reasons, bad reasons, but mostly for no reason at all? And that, when they die, it's a common reaction for people to blame God, but most people move on--even though, strictly speaking, God is ultimately responsible for everyone who ever died?

Or that, according to the prevailing Mosaic Law of the time, basically every infraction merits death, including being a rebellious child?

Or, most importantly, that God is God, and not a man? That He created the universe, and is perfectly within His rights (not that I think "rights" are a very Judeo-Christian concept) to flick a finger and knock the Earth into the sun? That our concepts of fairness and proportionate justice, invoked here, are largely our invention? That our conception of death as the ultimate punishment doesn't make all that much sense from a non-temporal POV? That God (AFAIK) never promised to accord to our notions of "fair," only to keep His word?

The three youths in Babylon refuse to worship the golden image. They say to the king, "God can save us from you. But if He will not, know that we will not bow down." No mention of fairness. So they get thrown in. They sing to God that He has put them under the power of the most wicked king in the world, but is nonetheless justified in all that He has done. Then they are saved.

[loinburger]

I can't wait until he reads Job in a few years