Chronicles 15:13
All who would not seek the LORD, the God of Israel, were to be put to death, whether small or great, man or woman.
Discuss.
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Both the citation and the quote are incorrect, It should red:
Republicus 15:13
All who would seek to question a rightful candidate, as members of the godless, liberal media, were to be put to death, whether small or great, man or woman, by having their head stomped by well shorn lackeys.
Excerpted from “History of the United States” by Nordling Stanwood, 2135:
Theocracy at work…”All who would not seek the LORD, the God of Israel, were put to death, whether small or great, man or woman”
Even more genocidal biblical slaughter, meh…
Why do we give these people, whose highest aspiration is to be bathed in blood, any deference?
Yet again, we have the murder of innocents, including children, over how one believes and prays.
Reading all of 2 Chronicles, it seems to document a revival – Azariah has a vision, and this is put into effect by Asa, who responds to the lack of religiosity in his community by destroying all the other idols than his own, and killing all who would not believe like he does – including everyone “whether small or great” – children.
How savagely disgusting is this? How familiar is the sentiment of religious prejudice in our own society?
I wonder how this passage is presented in Churches and Synagogues – is this a warning as to what happens when intolerance reigns? Or is it given as an example of “righteousness” on the part of Asa? The latter, I would expect, to all our peril.
OK…gotta go to work…I’ll try to check in later…
May I help with this?
It is GOOD to study history, knowing that record is limited to the vision, knowledge and intent of the human writers.
Chronicles is no further from the truth than the preachings of your current historians, especially the Elder Beck.
Do you accept his word when Elder Beck recites My role in founding your country? If not, why would you accept this account of My role in the time of the Kings of Judea and Israel?
Look at this story. It was written in bd times, times not unlike your own. Times when the Emperor Cyrus had sponsored the creation of a theocracy to rule his province of Judea. The rulers of that theocracy were intent on enforcing the rule of Jerusalem over the peoples of Judea. The rule and, for them, the one, sole truth.
And so, like your own Beck, the rulers taught a version of history where the Truth, My truth, was bent to their needs.
Beware false prophets. Only I can speak for Me.
I am that I am.
@ 7
Woody Guthrie is laughing hysterically in his grave.
Here is a far more momentous dispute over God’s word.
If you take it literally, it means Got told Christians should kill anyone who is not Christian.
Seems no better than what conservatives accuse Muslims of.
And then you get into the shades and variations. Is being a Catholic, Christian enough? How about being a Mormon? Episcopalian? Quaker? Evangelical? Are they Christian enough? Did God also say kill them too?
“Is being a Catholic, Christian enough? How about being a Mormon? Episcopalian? Quaker? Evangelical? Are they Christian enough? Did God also say kill them too?”
What we need are church wars. Get that over with first and then we can move on to an American theocracy. First up, Latter Day Saints versus the Seventh Day Adventists. My money says that the Mormons kick some SDA butt and then it’s on to the second round.
I view this as open thread, since its just same old stuff every week.
60 min tonight has feature on the 1098 scam;
@16, by that logic, every thread that resolves into to the conservatives slavering that “It’s not in constitution!” is an open thread since its just same old stuff every week. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about taxes, or pot or chili recipes. It ends with the conservative calling names and swearing it was FDRs and Obama’s fault.
And if you didn’t notice, the previous thread says in big black letters “Open thread”.
You don’t want us to talk again about how the Bible could be interpreted to be just as violent as the Koran?
I think God should check party affiliation first and whack only the Republicans.*
* Just kidding! Eliminationist joke.
@14 I think it means if they’re only half-Christian you’re only supposed to kill half of them.
@19 Or maybe just half-kill all of them.
You may have to tinker with it for a while to get the math to work.
yeah, i’m underwhelmed by the lack of other religions being bashed
bash muslims = racism
bash christians = being a good progressive
@7
OMG! I LOVE that song!
I’ve been dealing with too much death today – I needed that laugh.
Re 22
Well, these folks think it’s brave to bash Christianity. They think it makes them very sophisticated and shrewd to mock the prevailing faith of the majority of their countrymen.
They are the ‘tolerant’ left. But only tolerant for the abberrant and foolish and stupid. Tolerance never applies to anyone who disagrees with their liberal orthodoxy in the smallest detail. Additionally, faith to them is very threatening. They see the world as entirely proveable and demonstrable, and any indication of something that is neither (as much of the world really is) threatens to topple the house of cards on which their philosophy is built.
In a word, they are 14 year olds in a state of arrested development.
#25 lost,
So why is it the the higher educated and higher IQed tend to be more atheist/agnostic? The uneducated are more religious….the more ignorant the more extreme the religious views. It would appear the arrested development goes the other way.
Christians include Jerry Falwell and Pat Roberts, but Desmond Tutu and Mother Theresa as well. I’m totally down with bashing theocrats, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, etc.
I’m a recovering Catholic. Or maybe an agnostic empiricist. And a 64-yr-old in an arrested state of development.
@27
And yes, Hebrew theocrats as well.
Steve Steve Steve, Stupid Solution Steve…
Let Puddy remind you of some facts…
And God speaketh “Thou shalt not lay with Puttybutt no matter thine gender for such is an abomination to me.”
22, 25 – Of course, you two fools are too unsophisticated to understand we’re not bashing Christianity (a beautiful religion), we’re bashing self-described “Christians” (an ugly bunch of vicious people).
Yes indeed – it’s called self-criticism and self-knowledge – you ought to try it sometime. It is precisely because it is the dominant religion of our society and informs much of what our fellow citizens think that it needs to be examined and criticized.
I would suggest that uncritical acceptance and received wisdom are far more dangerous and immature ways of thinking that get a person, and a society, in all sorts of trouble.
@26 As a thirty-inch rabbit living closer to the soil and grass than humans do, I believe there is a deity. I call her “the Great Mother Rabbit Spirit,” who, of course, is a proxy for the entity you call “God.” Do I know that God exists? Nah, I can’t prove it. Do I believe She does? Yeah, because She talks to me in dreams. I learn a lot of things from my conversations with God while I’m sleeping. One of the things I’ve learned is that God didn’t create Republicans. She absolutely denies any involvement in this! I asked Her where Republicans came from, and She said, “They’re the work of the Devil.” So apparently we have two deity-type entities going on here, one benign, and one malevolent; and that’s why we have Democrats and Republicans.
Yes we are, thank you very much. But your pejorative use of ‘tolerant’ suggests that that word does not mean what you think it means, to quote Inigo Montoya.
Tolerance for who people are is something that you righties could learn from us.
Tolerance for stupidity, or worse, prejudice or religious chauvinism, , which you seem to suggest is a virtue, is abdicating the responsibility to teach and help you fellow man (or woman) be better.
“They think it makes them very sophisticated and shrewd to mock the prevailing faith of the majority of their countrymen.”
It isn’t atheists who kill people in religious wars.
The Taliban aren’t atheists. They’re very religious. They also stone women, cut off people’s hands, castrate adulterers, murder children, and so on. All in the name of Allah.
Now, before you Christofascists jump in here and say, “What do you expect from Muslims?” let me point out that so-called Christians* have done the same sorts of things throughout history — burning “witches” at the stake, and so on. So, Christofascists are no better than Islamofascists, you guys are all assholes no matter what you call your god.
All these troubles stem from the tendency of human nature to believe that the normal rules of morality are suspended and pretty much anything goes if you believe you’re doing God’s work. This is the particular brand of stupidity we’re criticizing, and the specific strain of dysfunctional human behavior we’re trying to change.
Have you ever done business with a “Christian” businessman? I have. Look out for these guys! They think the rules of honest dealing and reasonable behavior don’t apply to them. Because they’re God’s “chosen people,” and God wants them to be rich (you have heard of the “Prosperity Gospel,” haven’t you?), anything goes. The “Christian” business people I’ve personally known are among the greediest, most dishonest, and most rapacious human beings on earth.
We’re not against religion. We’re only against the shit people do in the name of religion.
* It’s been my experience that damned few people calling themselves “Christians” act like the Bible says Christians are supposed to behave; and the louder they proclaim their “Christianity,” the less Christian-like their behavior actually is.
Wrong again, my friend.
The world is certainly not all “provable and demonstrable” – that is what science is for – expanding horizons of understanding, an ongoing and never finished endeavor. Our aggregate understanding, compared to the complexity of the universe, is miniscule – that’s what fuels the desire to know, as well as a sense of adventure and wonder.
No, we don’t claim to know everything, or to think that what we understand is the entirety of the universe. What we do not do, however, is base decisions and understandings and statements of fact on that that is not or cannot be known.
I don’t act on myth. I don’t accept that anything that could be construed as ‘god’ either has a personality or gets involved in the actions of humans. I don’t accept that I need someone to intercede on my behalf with such a being. And I certainly do not accept that anyone’s notion of such a being (and that being’s alleged values) should be included in our shared government.
My criticism expressed in these Sunday Biblical discussions is aimed at examining and critiquing violent and otherwise malign influences that are part of our shared culture, and that need to be rooted out.
Killing others for not believing correctly – all over the Bible, and absolutely not acceptable.
Love your neighbor, as attributed to Jesus – I’m all over that, let’s have some more.
Click here for photo of people who called themselves Christians doing what they thought was God’s work.
http://digitaljournalist.org/i.....nching.jpg
It wasn’t Jesus who gave Christianity a bad reputation, it’s his followers who disrespect his example who give Christianity a bad name.
“I don’t accept that anything that could be construed as ‘god’ either has a personality or gets involved in the actions of humans.”
Actually, although I’m as curious and skeptical and questioning as you are, I’ve come to believe there is a deity who has personally intervened to save my life a half dozen times because said diety had a job for me to do here, which involves taking care of a very damaged person whom said deity has a special affection for. This person was dropped into my lap (literally) and I’ve been sheltering, protecting, and loving her for 33 years now while she struggles to overcome what happened to her. It’s very hard for me to believe all this was accidental.
They are the ‘tolerant’ left. But only tolerant for the aberrant and foolish and stupid.
>> Is that why you think we let the trolls post here? You think we think they are aberrant and foolish and stupid?
Tolerance never applies to anyone who disagrees with their liberal orthodoxy in the smallest detail.
>> I disagree strongly. Give me examples to back up your claims, instead of sound bites and buzz words.
I could argue that the conservative right is very intolerant with their litmus tests for abortion, taxes, corporate welfare, god, guns and gays. How tolerated is a pro tax republican? How accepting of gays is the Montana Republicans?
Additionally, faith to them is very threatening.
>> I disagree, again. I have met a few truly spiritual, truly faithful people in my life and they were the most grounded, nice, enjoyable people to be around.
It seems to me, that people of strong faith around the less so, are like 100% straight people around gay people. 100% straight people, and people of strong faith, know who they are, are comfortable with who they are and don’t feel threatened by an opposing view.
It’s the less than 100% straight people, the people who are not really faithful who are the most threatened by alternates. They feel they have to proselytize and bully and punish to cover up their doubts. If they can convince or force other people to their rightness, then they must be correct.
I don’t find the true people of faith threatening, I find the unsure people of faith to be threatening. Much different people.
They see the world as entirely provable and demonstrable, and any indication of something that is neither (as much of the world really is) threatens to topple the house of cards on which their philosophy is built.
WTF? How does understanding the laws of science negate faith?
If I wrote the opposite
that makes no sense. Neither did your statement. Maybe if you said it differently.
If faith cannot stand up to science, maybe there is something weak about faith.
As the son of a preacher man, I wanted my sisters-in-law and my new bride to sing this song at our wedding reception. They declined, dammit (Go, Dusty):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZWEEm6xZvU
RR@40
I would never question the motivations of a person impelled to do good. We all go through life inventing and testing explanations. The core of my view, is that I cannot say that there is a god, as I have no evidence for that. Is there one that I cannot perceive? Can’t say, and that’s the point.
Did God bring this child that needed you, and perhaps vice versa, into your life? I don’t know, but if that explanation works for you, great. Keep up the good work.
I would perhaps try to put it together another way. But that’s immaterial, as the point is, love and decency bounded your actions – you likely had little choice in the matter, if the situation was as desperate as it sounds, and you are the good person I perceive you to be.
re 12:
This land is my land.
This land is my land
This land is my land
This land is my land
This land is my land
This land is my land
This land is my land
This land was made for me and mine.
(Adaptation by G.W. Bush)
Q – What is the greatest sinilarity between chuches and big coeporations?
A – Neither one pays taxes but they both want to rule the world.
Roger, what you’ve endured is something most of us would not have wanted to endure. (Thanks for meeting us in Silverdale.) Liberal Scientist, most of my friends believe, or don’t believe, like you. Somehow, I still believe. In some sort of higher power, despite the evidence. And, presuming that Jesus Christ walked and talked upon the mildly hilly sands of the western Middle East, I am quite sure He would not have advocated for war, tax cuts, and deportation, among other things for which the American right advocates.
@46 Proud Leftist
Since I have taken to this metaphoric hill as a place to offer My Truth, … Jesus was not and could not be Me. If he were Me, I would not be God.
Why would you presume that Jesus said or even believed only what was right? Aren’t you doing what psychiatry calls “projection?” Are you taking Jesus as God in violation of the First Commandment?
Was Jesus as good a person as you? Did he marry a woman and beget children? Did he give of his personal wealth so as to be poor? Did he proclaim to the Romans that conquest of other was a sin? Did he dies for your sins or for his own vainglory?
Did Jesus followers practice a religion of peace and tolerance? Did they accept the law as I had already given it to Moses or as I had revealed it to Buddha 500 years before that time?
Tell me of the followers in Jesus’s footsteps who brought peace and justice to others? Paul? Augustine? Luther, bin Laden? Or was it the skeptics .. Jefferson, Gompers, Saladin, Umar, ML King, Lincoln, that exemplified My truth?
look today in China. Is Liu Xiaobo of Me or of Jesus?
Why claim that any man was or is Me? Did Krishna claim to be Me? Did Buddha discover that he was Me? Did Moses say that having suffered in the heat from My fire, he could now speak for Me?
Take the first commandment as My word .. do not have ANY God before Me …… no man, not Jesus or Mao is Me.
I am that I am.
I can’t prove to skeptics that God exists. I haven’t had an angel appear in front of me, nor do I hear ethereal voices speaking to me, either inside or outside of my head. Evidence is whatever you make of it.
When I was in college my transportation was a small motorbike. I couldn’t afford a car and didn’t know how to drive in those days. One day an elderly driver who didn’t see me on my motorbike made a left turn in front of me and I hit him broadside at 45 mph. I wasn’t wearing a helmet (they weren’t required by law in those days) and was thrown headfirst into the passenger door. The impact should have fractured my skull and broken my neck, but I hit at exactly the right angle. (The insurance adjuster told me later the impact of my body totaled the car.) I took an extremely hard shot to the center of my chest which somehow didn’t rupture my heart, but I couldn’t breathe when I rolled up on my hands and knees on the pavement. Both of the drivers immediately behind me were medical doctors so I received immediate CPR; it took the ambulance crew abou 10 minutes to get to the scene and I probably would have had a stopped heart and/or brain damage from oxygen depletion by then. Did a supernatural power intervene to save my life? You decide.
When I was in Vietnam, one of my jobs was riding “shotgun” for truck drivers. On one occasion, my driver and I drove straight through a large NVA ambush that smashed a Marine tank column a few minutes behind us. I’m alive today because they didn’t want to waste their ambush on two guys in a truck. Was this an intervention by a divine power, or just luck?
It’s actually pretty easy to say I was lucky both times. But you add to these incidents another half dozen miraculous escapes from death and it starts to look like a pattern.
At a particularly lonely time in my life, out of sheer desperation, I prayed to God to bring a woman into my life. This is unusual for me because I’m not a churchgoer or a supplicant type, and I’m a skeptical believer at best. But a few days later a woman I knew only casually came to me and told me she was in love with me, and sat on my lap, and we started making out. I was 31 years old at the time, and that was the first time I had ever been kissed on the mouth by a girl. Years later, she told me she had done the same thing — she was lonely and asked God to bring a man into her life, and she did this at almost the exact same time that I did it.
She turned out to be a rape victim with very severe emotional problems. She is very intelligent but her emotions were wildly out of control, and so was her emotion-driven behavior. She can’t go in public places without having panic attacks; I waited 32 years for her to get well enough for us to be able to go to a movie together. This is what being married to her has meant for me: I’m almost 65 years old and have never had sex except for a few times at the beginning of this marriage.
Being married to this woman so long, under these conditions, has required superhuman strength. I can tell you that I always had that strength when I needed it, and I know it didn’t all come from me. I simply don’t have that kind of strength. Nor do I have that much perseverence or patience, and I sure as hell didn’t have the desire to subject myself to this kind of deprivation. I was pushed into it.
Make of this whatever you want to. A few months ago I was traveling on an isolated state highway in the Spokane area and thinking about cheating on my wife (which I’ve never done) when my car suddenly veered off the road, missed a power pole and went through a barbed wire fence, and crashed in to the woods at high speed. Another vehicle accident in which I should have been dead. My car was wrecked but I walked away without a scratch. When I got to town and put up in a motel for the night, an elderly retired minister came up to me and started talking about God’s role in my life. This was just too fucking weird for me to believe it was just a random coincidence of molecules bumping into each other governed by nothing but the laws of physics.
There is much, much more than I can (or feel like) detailing here. Like I said, I’m a skeptical believer, but it’s like a big invisible foot has been kicking my door down and stomping on my chest for fifty years now, and there’s been so much of that sort of thing in my life that it’s hard to ignore.
Believe whatever you want. I’m not making any of this up.
I know what you’re talking about Rog.
RR
Beautiful
One thing I can help with :
Those very laws are Me. In the torah I am described as the Lord and as the Gods. Gods do not exist outside of Me anymore than good and evil exist without the force of gravity..
You did, as many other have, you looked within and found the fundamental order that is everywhere.
Thanks for this beautiful statement.