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The true sinners are those who think that they know what God wants better than what He actually passed down as commandments. God knows what He wants and wrote it down exactly like that.
> The true sinners are those who think that they know what God wants better than what He actually passed down as commandments. God knows what He wants and wrote it down exactly like that.
So it's just man who decides "this is a loophole and God wants me to use it". Man decides what God really wants. Man who not only looks for ways around God's word but he also claims God wanted him to do this.
> If you have studied the holy texts deeply enough to find the loophole, that makes you more holy, not less. It's like an easter egg for true believers.
Did God ever say man should look for loopholes, exceptions, or reinterpretation of His word? Did God say what you just said or was it you who thinks that you know what God wants better than what He actually passed down as commandments?
You, just a man, purport to know what God invites and even demands us to do.
This doesn't follow. If you believe you can just decide how to reinterpret the word of God then you put yourself at the same level as Him and are qualified to follow your own word, rather than a religion.
You follow a religion because you want to be given the word of God to follow. Not the word of a man who pretends he is at the same level as God so his reinterpretation weights the same.
Let me bring it down to earth. If you go for a lecture from Einstein you want to get Einstein's word, not an assistant to interpret "I think he meant we're all relatives man".
If anything you have two choices. 1) You take God's word at face value, no interpretation, no exceptions. 2) You choose to freely interpret everything because God wanted you to.
E.g. In war time emergency you are allowed to carry guns and a radio but the volume must be kept low. This is a very arbitrary interpretation drawing from present needs rather than anything in the word of God. Well and good, anything can be categorized as an exception. If everything can be an exception that you don't need a rule book. The only reason for that book to still exist is so some men can make rules for other.
There are words in the bible where people just aren't sure what they are referring to. E.g. what is gopher wood? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_wood
. . .
> You take God's word at face value, no interpretation, no exceptions.
But your judgment that god's word must be understood in this way just reflects your own belief about how god has chosen to communicate with us.
And it's actually a belief that does not give god very much credit. Great books convey meaning in numerous different ways at the same time. Why would you assume that god has written a text that operates on the level of an Ikea instruction manual when he could have used all of the tools available to great literature — and, through his omniscience, used them perfectly to speak to the needs of different readers in different times and places?
Ask yourself this: when you read scripture, does does it seem more like an instruction manual or a piece of literature?
I'm trying to understand it in the most likely way it would have been understood by the first man who heard it, and put in that context (as much context as I can have from back then).
> when you read scripture, does does it seem more like an instruction manual or a piece of literature?
If you read them you know they very much sound like both. So the way I read it (and I read the "major" ones as a religious agnostic) is that if I take the freedom to interpret everything from that book always in a way that's aimed at making my life or religion more convenient, then I'm in it more for show. Something that's probably true for most religious people I've met.
Of course I don't claim to 'know' what god wants. All I can do is do my best with the information I have.
- Bava Metziah 59b
https://link.chabad.org/torah-texts/5455793/The-Talmud/Bava-...
When the word of God has obvious contradictions and inconsistencies what does it mean? Are there little traps that He set up for us mortals? Is God mischievous?
Such as?
God created all things out of love, and made humans as image bearers to tend to his creation. Out of love he did these things, fully knowing that humans were capable of turning away from God. Humans put themselves before God in the garden and by doing so brought evil into the world. The rest of scripture is God's good plan to turn the world right again, to expel evil from his good creation while also saving those whom bear his image that he loves. He does this by giving them the law to expose the sin of humankind, and sending the 2nd person of the trinity of God (Jesus) to fulfill the law. Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice to pay the guilt of the sins of humans. In doing so bringing true justice and mercy for the evil brought into the world. In his resurrection he conquered death (the ultimate punishment for evil, death is something that was never intended in God's good creation) and setting in motion the process of restoring the world, bringing about new creation in which Jesus is the first fruits. The world will be set right and all sin, evil, and tears wiped away.
(fixed some grammatical errors)
Out of love, God gave us the option to do things against him and be eternally damned?
So: all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving. Pick two.
In our culture it is easy to think of this in terms of Dante's "Inferno", but that is a poem from the Middle Ages, and not in fact what the Bible tells us eternal separation from God looks like. Anyways, there is a lot of context to cover that isn't possible here. If you'd like to understand all of this better, go to the Bible, but then also perhaps consider "The Prodigal God" by Tim Keller. Blessings.
Maybe we just have drastically different ideas of what "love" is.
Any love relationship that is truly loving is not created by power or authority. It is by the willingness of both parties, unconditionally.
So he doesn't want automatons, but he does want unquestioning loyalty and trust? Is this not simply a distinction without a difference?
If someone we knew in our lives behaved like this with their children, we'd rightfully question what trauma occurred to make them this way. To create and then cast away those he created who did not act as he wished is the behavior of a control freak, not a loving god.
Finally, you missed the part where humans chose to be cast away, the consequences of sin are death.
Either way, I pray this truth is revealed to you and that you are blessed in your day and week.
A loving relationship with the creator of the universe that's mandatory if you don't want to be cast away to hellfire, correct?
Ultimately if someone chooses they do not like God's design and do not want to be in his presence, he honors that, but that means they are setting aside their humanity, and his design for them.
In any case, the problem of evil is not the showstopper some think it is [0][1].
The quintessential example is perhaps #3 which purports that the two accounts of creation are contradictory. But there are a number of ways to interpret Genesis [0] that doesn't result in contradiction while maintaining the theological truths that are the purpose of biblical texts. The Bible isn't a scientific treatise.
Another typical class of examples are the purported inconsistencies within the Gospels themselves [1].
An article on inerrancy you might find interesting [2].
[0] https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/are-there-co...
[1] https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-to-reso...
[2] https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/is-scripture...
It still means accepting a restriction. I am Christian so do not think the same way about religious law, but if I was asked to come up with a defence of this idea, I would argue it fulfils the purpose of the rule - e.g. people still cannot pop into a office. I am sure someone who knows Jewish law could come up with a much stronger argument, but I just want to make the point you should not assume it is bad faith workaround
The article also says there is a 100 pages on this in the Talmud so that implies there has been a lot of discussion and argument about this.
Judaism isn't Christianity any more than Islam is.
Trying to apply Christian norms to Jewish practices usually ends up in a pogrom when Christians realize that Judaism isn't Christianity.
And just in case I hadn't said this enough: Judaism isn't Christianity.
I have no idea why the right in America has run with the whole "Judaeo-Christian Western Culture" bullshit when Christianity was founded from the start on not being Judaism and making a clean break with it. You might as well say Cristiano-Islamic culture since there was about as much impact on Western thought by Islam as there was by Judaism.
All three share common beliefs and values. Christians and Jews worship the same God.
Islam IS closely related to Judaism and Christianity and the Quran explicitly states Muslims worship the same God.
> Trying to apply Christian norms to Jewish practices usually ends up in a pogrom when Christians realize that Judaism isn't Christianity.
BS. Thinking about where we agree and where we disagree leads to greater understanding. Pogroms are motivated by ethnic differences and othering people, not by theology, religious law, or anything thoughtful.
> I have no idea why the right in America has run with the whole "Judaeo-Christian Western Culture"
Is it a right wing concept? The term seems far more widely used to me than that. They see correct to me, because western culture (that of the left, as well as the right!) is a product of Christianity, which is an offshoot of Judaism, so you cannot ignore the Jewish influence.
> when Christianity was founded from the start on not being Judaism and making a clean break with it.
It was far from a clean break, and the intention was not a clean break. There was much argument (see Acts) in early Christianity about which Jewish practices to follow. Christians use Jewish scriptures and prayers and symbolism. The first Christians were Jews, and they would not even have considered themselves converts at that point, just those who followed the promised (to Jews!) messiah.
> You might as well say Cristiano-Islamic culture since there was about as much impact on Western thought by Islam as there was by Judaism.
Not true because Judaism and Christian culture had a greater and longer lasting history of geographical and cultural overlap than Christianity and Islam.
On the other hand, all three religions have a lot in common.
This is like saying that Windows and GNU/Linux are closely related because they both run on PCs, and were both (Windows originally) written in C (thus worship the same "foundations"). :-)
> Christians use Jewish scriptures and prayers and symbolism.
Quite some applications have become ported from Windows to GNU/Linux or vice versa. There is also Wine. Also keep in mind that there exist people who use gcc to compile Windows applications.
A better analogy would be its like saying BSD and MacOS (the current version) are closely related because they share lots of common code.
You should read what the Quran says about Jesus or Mary or the Jewish prophets. Seriously, read what the Quran and the New Testament (and church documents like the Catholic Catechism) have to say about this.
I think the best analogies of the relationships between the religions is:
1. Christianity (claims) to be an updated and enhanced fork of Judaism
2. Islam (claims) to be a bug fixed fork of Judaism with some code from Christianity merged in.
> Quite some applications have become ported from Windows to GNU/Linux or vice versa.
We are not talking about optional bits, we are talking about things of fundamental importance.
Pretty much half of the Tanakh’s narratives are focused on that theme.
“He who sits in the heavens laughs.”
“What is this baaaa-ing I hear...?” — Amalekite property and population not thoroughly destroyed
“Do you do well...?” — Yahweh to Job, to Jonah, to Moses, et. al.
The priests of Ba’al vs. Elijah at Mt. Carmel
“That man is you!” — Samuel to David, regarding his proto-Machiavelli seduction and murder maneuvers
“Let us [Elohim] go down [to Earth] and see what men are doing now.” Genesis 11
The idolatry of Jamnia — actually that one turned out OK
Post-Christian Judaism following the destruction of the Temple only entrenched this Pharisaism by turning the faith away from one of Temple sacrifice, complete with a Temple priesthood, to one hyperfocused on slicing and dicing the Torah. (The Catholic mass continues the sacrificial liturgy, albeit in a perfect and elevated form; the Mosaic covenant is fulfilled and the perfect sacrifice of Christ - the spotless Lamb of God - becomes the sacrificial lamb for which the prior animal sacrifice was a preparation.)
It’s more of a “I can argue that I checked the box when I meet my maker and have to explain myself.”
Also, hopefully nobody actually takes these rules so seriously that they end up hurting or killing anyone. There was a bicyclist who was injured when one of these lines fell far below installation height, but I’m thinking more about, for example, people who need to use hospital equipment during the Sabbath.
They are supposed to ignore these rules if a life is at stake. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikuach_nefesh
“They fool no one but themselves.” - God