Board Thread:Community Engagement/@comment-29487450-20161006215517/@comment-1777104-20161010023050

I apologize for not giving references from the Bible in my posts. The first was about the Ten Commandments, of course, drawn from Exodus 20. The second was a survey of Biblical history that I hoped you would recognize. I then ended with a summary of points from the New Testament concerning salvation wrought by the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, the promised Messiah (drawn from Paul's epistle to the Romans ).

This is the kind of evidence that we are asking of you. With vague accusations no discussion can continue. I left it quite open to you, mentioning the very acts you consider as genocide. That was accompanied with the FACT that God did not immediately kill anybody in these cases. Each case came after a prolonged period of tolerance and patience.

From the second chapter of Genesis on, the consequences of "disagreeing with" God (that is, the One who by definition knows everything already!) is going to be death. There is no getting around this fact. However, the fact that God did not kill Adam and Eve when they disobeyed the one prohibition shows LOVE, not HATE. Besides that, skins were provided (requiring death to substitute lives) before they were sent away from the Garden. The rest of the Bible works out this theme. People keep disobeying God, and He keeps punishing them. He is consistent, but patient.

But from Abel on there are those that trust God and it is these that God blesses. Meanwhile, those who treat these people well are blessed in the doing. There is an excellent list of these "heroes of the faith" in the New Testament book of Hebrews. That faith is not ignorance, but rather it is trust in an authority far greater than ourselves.

You have chosen to pick and choose bits of the Bible to pick a fight with God, hoping that you are correct about how things work in the universe. That, in a word, is foolish. I stand by my opinion that you have not read the Bible in context and with an open mind. You state that you "did read the Bible," leaving it ambiguous as to how much of it that you took the time to understand. There is no "information" in your original post. What you posted was an interpretation, a little more than an opinion. You indeed did as I said, interpreting justice on wickedness as "genocide" in contradiction to "Do not kill." That commandment states "Do not MURDER" (there are several words for slaying). Judicial execution is the prerogative of God.

When I stated that the 10 Commandments do not apply to God, I listed obvious reasons, which you blew off with a reference to power in the hands of men -- fallen sinful men. If the Commandments are true, it logically follows that God is the only one worthy of worship (1, 2 and 3). Commandment #4 is a provision for man, in his weakness, to rest and trust God. The rest have to do with inter-relations on the earth among men and women. So you see, they simply do not apply. God does not kill innocent people (definition of murder) or have them killed. The backstory in context makes this clear in all cases.

"Says you" is not an answer. Define "honest."

When I state the fact of the sacrifice of Christ, you just don't get it. Everybody, by virtue of being human, is heading towards eternity under condemnation. The LOVE is God saving many of them (aka "His people") from that fate.

I state: "Now, I am going to make a separate post concerning your second point."

You answer: "perhaps you'd like to bring up the parts you didn't bring up."

Uh, who didn't read the post?

Should I wait for answers to my original points in which I postured questions to further discussion? Or should I post my original responses to your third and forth points?