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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (615)	9/1/2000 11:03:06 AM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

Also at the same time Solomon kept the feast seven days, This sounds like a good old-fashioned barbeque. I hadn't thought about it much, but maybe these animal sacrifices were an early form of welfare. Every so often those with animals to spare were compelled to bring them to the temple where they were slaughtered and fed to anyone who was hungry and willing to bend a knee to the king. TP

To: Solon who wrote (615)	9/2/2000 4:40:53 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 28931

DAILY BIBLE READING --SEPT 2/2000 (NOTE: as a concession to Christians, and other faiths, that seem unable to avoid the free thinking that occurs on this thread, and to encourage them to spend at least one day a week, without their own contrived contentiousness darkening their hearts, and their moods, I hereby proclaim Sunday to be a scripture free day, so that these folks may profitably tear themselves away from this thread, and spend some time with the spirit. Of course, I speak only for myself) If THEY profane this home of free thinkers on our Sunday with their heresies...I will forget my promise. 9:6 And the LORD did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died: but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one. (ALL THE CATTLE OF THE EGYPTIANS ARE DEAD!) 12:29 And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle. (THE CATTLE ARE KILLED AGAIN!) God kills all the first born babies as part of the process of hardening the pharaoh's heart. When that doesn't harden his heart enough, he starts in on the firstborn of the cattle. Certainty (that it was the firstborn of cattle) would obviously cause more hardening of this heart than simply destroying ALL the cattle. God enjoys the superstition of numbers, and employs it to good effect throughout the bible. Of course, there were no cattle left belonging to the Egyptians, for God had already killed all the cattle previous to that. This, "and all the firstborn of cattle", might have simply been a restatement of the first part of 12:29 where God now uses the euphemism cattle to refer to the adult parents who were only his creation in fact, but never in heart. 12:30 And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead. This is one of those curious coincidences in the bible, where the Egyptians were unfortunate enough to have a first born child present in every home at the time of the slaughter. Hence not one home was spared the agony of losing their first born child. As even parents were children, some say that the oldest parent was murdered when their were no suitable babies to be murdered. This would shew that these are truly the words of God. It is very important for God that the Pharaoh release the Chosen People as an act of free will; Hence the plethora of magic that God employs to persuade this stubborn man. Of course, once God took over the intentional hardening of this man's heart, it was theoretically beyond anyones control or choice. It has now become a charade which God will simply play out as actors do in the theatre. Pharoah no longer has the choice of softening his heart, although God later crawls into his heart and releases the hardness temporarily. When God makes a mistake He sometimes regrets what he has done wrong. This is documented in the Bible. I don't remember if He regretted this series of murders or not. Nowadays, when we have disputes with adults, we generally try to leave innocent people (especially babies) out of our ignorant (usually religious) struggles. At least, as imperfect beings--some of us have that idea of morality...