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Bob. I'm not a Bible literalist. <BR> <BR>Burning people alive is about the most horrible image one can conjure. It's what your whole belief system is built on. That's what you think Jesus needs to save me from. <BR> <BR><i>I'm just pointing that out.</i> <BR> <BR>And I'm upset that children's childhoods are ruined and their development injured by the terror these old stories we tell them creates in them. <BR> <BR>It's about time we all got upset about how Christians are ruining children's childhoods with fear, IMO. <BR> <BR>Fear prevents children's brains from developing properly. <BR> <BR>That cannot be the will of a loving God, IMO. <BR> <BR>(Message edited by maggie on February 22, 2009)
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Maggie, one last question, if your State you live in has capital punishment and you feel as strongly against it as you do about how God is going to deal with sin, would you move out of the state/country to protest when capital punishment/lethal injection is administered??? Seriously. Would you???
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Maggie, unfortunately, if your children were that terrified you were telling the story, why didn't you make up a story you liked. Create a god in your image, it would have saved your children terrifying nights, some day dreams. Are you feeling bad because you did this to your kids, afterall as a Youth Director told me once when I disagreed with him, "You're the parent."
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<font color="0000ff">...you feel as strongly against it as you do about how God is going to deal with sin....</font> <BR> <BR>Bob, you're not understanding. I don't believe that, OK? You're still talking as if I'm railing against God. <BR> <BR>I don't <i>believe</i> that about God, got it? <BR> <BR>Humans still believe violence is the answer. I think that's due, in large part, to the fact that most humans believe that god is violent.
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<font color="0000ff">Are you feeling bad because you did this to your kids...</font> <BR> <BR>I feel bad for <i>all</i> the children who are, or have been, terrified of Jehovah because of 'normal' Christian teachings.
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Implying that someone is a literalist or not, you don't understand. One has to have discernment when to take the Bible literal and when metaphorically. It's not an either or proposition. And, discernment, is the key. If you don't have it, get it quick, local pastor, praying to God, reading in context the Bible, letting God be God, trusting God. <BR> <BR>See most of what Neal has said about he OT, when read in context, God did what was necessary, even Sodom and Gommorah. Call it punishment for sin, but whether, drowning in a flood, hanging from a gallows, burning til dead, you have to let God, just like your State Governor, determine how capital punishment is meted out. But destroying sin, is not a metaphor.
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<font color="0000ff">But destroying sin, is not a metaphor.</font> <BR> <BR>So why bring up discernment?
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Because you need a big dose of it, and quick. And more importantly, trusting God to do what is the right thing to do for the universe and your happiness. I'm not suggesting that the lake of fire is a metaphor if you have discernment, but discernment will help you detemine when God is just. <BR> <BR>Take this passage: <BR> <BR><blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1><b>quote:</b></font><p>Isa 66:22 "As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me," declares the LORD, "so will your name and descendants endure. 23 From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me," says the LORD. 24 "And they will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind." <BR><!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote> <BR> <BR>I assure you when saved we will not be going out Sabbath afernoons to view bodies of the wicked burning forever. Here is where metaphors and discernment come in. The SDA church believes in Annhililation. The Bible teaches this if you study properly. But there will be punishment to fit the sin, if that helps. <BR> <BR>(Message edited by Bob_2 on February 22, 2009)
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