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That's a nice story, but no less of your projection onto him than our questioning whether or not he is truly "loving".
Not really, because I was just answering the question of "why bother?". I wasn't saying that's what was actually happening, it's just a possible answer. RR is saying that it's not possible that God is loving, and I disagree.
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I actually believe that, and it's one of the reasons that I've always been a very big fan of yours. You're sincere, and the rarity of sincerity never ceases to amaze me. More importantly, though: you

I looked up that passage and didn't see where it said "salvation is by good works." 14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save t

I think it's more like, "Without faith, it doesn't matter what you do." Meaning you can't just be a good person to get into heaven.Regarding the first point, if you're standing in the middle of the r

This is an important question, and one that I can't begin to answer satisfactorily, but I always view it as a family deciding to have kids. You know that there is a possibility that some of your kids will be awesome and there is a chance that one of your kids will be Gary Busey, and yet you still take that chance, because kids are awesome. You do everything in your power to help them and guide them to have a good life, but sometimes it doesn't work. YET! You still love them, even if they screw up. In God's case, creation is a blessing to him and might make him "happy"... if that's even an emotion he can feel. In His case, he just happens to know before hand which kids are going to screw up, but he loves them anyway. He also knows who will eventually seek him. He doesn't force anyone's hand, he just already knows their choices.Obviously, this doesn't prove anything about God existing, but is within the hypothetical that He does exist.
If everything is predestined, what is the point of God and belief and faith and salvation (from our perspective)? If God knew that some would be saved and some would be damned, he created existence just to arbitrarily assign some people to eternal suffering.
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I feel like someone pointed this out before...your definition of "loving" might be different from god's and/or the authors of the bible.
Okay, I guess I am simply floored that they would argue "against" there being a loving God.BG--
Let's just be clear, that saying you know a loving God would act this way is indefensible, and can't be used with a straight face unless you want to allow the other side to have liberties in an equal manner.
Act what way? Loving? I have no knowledge of how God would act. I only have the bible and your word for it. Is it a loving God or not? Does he care about human being's salvation or not? If it isn't a perfectly loving God, then the rest is moot and I don't need to go any further with my logic. We can stop here with all the nonsense. Why would you give up your life and follow him and all the rest if he isn't?
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This is an important question, and one that I can't begin to answer satisfactorily, but I always view it as a family deciding to have kids. You know that there is a possibility that some of your kids will be awesome and there is a chance that one of your kids will be Gary Busey, and yet you still take that chance, because kids are awesome. You do everything in your power to help them and guide them to have a good life, but sometimes it doesn't work. YET! You still love them, even if they screw up. In God's case, creation is a blessing to him and might make him "happy"... if that's even an emotion he can feel. In His case, he just happens to know before hand which kids are going to screw up, but he loves them anyway. He also knows who will eventually seek him. He doesn't force anyone's hand, he just already knows their choices.Obviously, this doesn't prove anything about God existing, but is within the hypothetical that He does exist.
I think you are missing my point. I am not talking about people or kids that try and fail or turn into Gary Busey. I am not talking about "if" God even loves the ones who fail. I am talking about how to have a relationship with God. I am talking about the ones that do everything right.When I ask you about why you believe, or any other Christians, I always get the reply that you "feel him inside" or that I should have a personal relationship with God, etc. I assume you want this because he is a "loving God", maybe I am wrong about that. Tell me what it is like then and why I should want it?
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This is an important question, and one that I can't begin to answer satisfactorily, but I always view it as a family deciding to have kids. You know that there is a possibility that some of your kids will be awesome and there is a chance that one of your kids will be Gary Busey, and yet you still take that chance, because kids are awesome. You do everything in your power to help them and guide them to have a good life, but sometimes it doesn't work. YET! You still love them, even if they screw up.
The reason you feel this way is because organisms who came before you were more likely to give birth to you if they felt this way. The same doesn't hold for "god". There's no reason for him to have those motivations you are ascribing to him. This is another form of what I was getting at with the judgement thing. We can't ascribe human thoughts and emotions to god, yet -- he loves us? You can't have it both ways.
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I think you are missing my point. I am not talking about people or kids that try and fail or turn into Gary Busey. I am not talking about "if" God even loves the ones who fail. I am talking about how to have a relationship with God. I am talking about the ones that do everything right.When I ask you about why you believe, or any other Christians, I always get the reply that you "feel him inside" or that I should have a personal relationship with God, etc. I assume you want this because he is a "loving God", maybe I am wrong about that. Tell me what it is like then and why I should want it?
Okay, i've been thinking about this a little more. I didn't spell out implicity that the idea of a "perfectly loving God" is in essence the traditional view of God that Christians espouse. I did not mean to imply that there couldn't be another type of God, I simply am going with the traditional view. If BG or Brv or someone wants to show me how it isn't the traditional view then I would be open to that, if not, then I believe the rest of my logic is sound. (As far as I can tell, but I'm no rocket scientist obviously).
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The reason you feel this way is because organisms who came before you were more likely to give birth to you if they felt this way. The same doesn't hold for "god". There's no reason for him to have those motivations you are ascribing to him. This is another form of what I was getting at with the judgement thing. We can't ascribe human thoughts and emotions to god, yet -- he loves us? You can't have it both ways.
Hell, I'm still stuck at the "he loves us part". haha
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BG--Act what way? Loving? I have no knowledge of how God would act. I only have the bible and your word for it. Is it a loving God or not? Does he care about human being's salvation or not? If it isn't a perfectly loving God, then the rest is moot and I don't need to go any further with my logic. We can stop here with all the nonsense. Why would you give up your life and follow him and all the rest if he isn't?
So God having His Son die on the cross to pay the way for everyone to go to heaven just by asking, nothing else, and allowing them the freedom to choose on their own, with a clear message is interpreted by you as: He is sending people to hell for any little thing.No one will go to hell because they couldn't find the way. And if someone chooses to, is it on God?And before we go to 'what about people who never heard the message?', the answer is God's judgement is God's judgement. How He handles that is on Him, not you or me. Therefore I don't worry about that, because He has that under control also.And I want to call out brv here for his blasphemy about Gary Busey, that guy is cool.
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The reason you feel this way is because organisms who came before you were more likely to give birth to you if they felt this way. The same doesn't hold for "god". There's no reason for him to have those motivations you are ascribing to him. This is another form of what I was getting at with the judgement thing. We can't ascribe human thoughts and emotions to god, yet -- he loves us? You can't have it both ways.
If God reveals part of Himself to us, we can judge Him in those terms. What we can't do is assume we now have the complete understanding of God and all His motives enough to declare ourselves in a position to judge Him for his actions and decisions.It gets back to: One day you will stand before God. All your arguments about "What about this", or 'What about that?' are moot.The only answer that will matter is " What did you do about my Son's sacrifice for you?"Its not a dodge on our part, it's respect and acceptance of our position in the universe.
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If everything is predestined, what is the point of God and belief and faith and salvation (from our perspective)? If God knew that some would be saved and some would be damned, he created existence just to arbitrarily assign some people to eternal suffering.
Even though I wouldn't agree with the wording... (that God "created existence just to arbitrarily assign some people to eternal suffering")... Romans 9 basically says, who are we to question God? Some people are not going to choose God, and since God knows that in advance, logically speaking, they were made for destruction. While this might not "sit well" with humans, it might still be reality. I personally think it's pretty awesome that such a deep philosophical, logic based question would even be addressed in the Bible.
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Even though I wouldn't agree with the wording... (that God "created existence just to arbitrarily assign some people to eternal suffering")... Romans 9 basically says, who are we to question God? Some people are not going to choose God, and since God knows that in advance, logically speaking, they were made for destruction. While this might not "sit well" with humans, it might still be reality. I personally think it's pretty awesome that such a deep philosophical, logic based question would even be addressed in the Bible.
Creating a being explicitly to cause it infinite pain is not, as Graham Greene might put it, an act of appallingly strange mercy, but rather an act of such extreme, twisted, and boundless cruelty that the perpetrator should be worshiped only as ants worship a teenager with a magnifying glass.
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If God reveals part of Himself to us, we can judge Him in those terms. What we can't do is assume we now have the complete understanding of God and all His motives enough to declare ourselves in a position to judge Him for his actions and decisions.. . . Its not a dodge on our part, it's respect and acceptance of our position in the universe.
Romans 9 basically says, who are we to question God?
I think you're losing track of what's under debate. We're debating your model of God, not so much God's authority assuming he exists as you have modeled him."There's an all-powerful invisible penguin who lives in my refrigerator. He turns on the light when you open the door. He doesn't like it when you masturbate." "Really, what's this switch in the door for?""It makes the penguin really angry when you ask questions like that.""Why does he care if I masturbate?""Who are you to question the judgement of the all-powerful invisible penguin? How arrogant of you to judge him."Cliff notes: Stop begging the question.
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RR, not sure where you are going with everything, because you 'baited your hooks' then moved on.So let's take James first. As JJ said, the key verse is "Show me your faith without your works, I will show you my faith by my works."The key understanding of faith is in Ephesians 2:8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of GodEven your faith is a gift, you are unable to have the faith on your own.The actions you carry out afterwards are an indicator, proof that you have been granted faith that leads to grace.Paul is actually much more legalistic than James. But I will let you figure out why.Also, one thing to remember, I can take single sentences from each of your posts in this thread to say anything I want. But when I put your sentences in context, the meaning is harder to corrupt. You are taking single verses and trying to make your case.Or you are making broadbrush statements that are indefensible for you.Saying the NT did not have the Trinity would require you to tell us how the Trinity is not in the Old Testament either. The Trinity is a heavy theology, which requires a full reading of the entire Bible. Saying it's not in the original shows how easily you believe anything you read if they tell you the Bible is wrong. It would be like saying the constitution didn't support the notion of freedom originally. If you would take every instance of the basic understanding of freedom out of the constitution you would have a paper with tons of holes, and there would be no way to argue that that was how it was originally ( even though we don't have an original to compare it too.
The key understanding of faith is in Ephesians 2:8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God
Well, either that or the key to understanding Ephesians is that it places so much emphasis on truth, when it was writte falsely in Pauls' name.And well, James---
The treatment of the letter of James is interesting, since Ehrman detects that its argument, focused on good works rather than the “works of the Law” that Paul was concerned with (circumcision, food laws, Sabbath, etc.), seems to be arguing against a misunderstanding or reinterpretation of Paul’s letters that we find in later forgeries such as Ephesians. On this basis, Ehrman suggests that the letter of James may be a forgery written as a response to such pseudo-Pauline writings.
http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/201...art-ehrman.html
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180px-Futurama_Fry_Looking_Squint.jpg
So, so awesome.
Creating a being explicitly to cause it infinite pain is not, as Graham Greene might put it, an act of appallingly strange mercy, but rather an act of such extreme, twisted, and boundless cruelty that the perpetrator should be worshiped only as ants worship a teenager with a magnifying glass.
Pretty much.
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You solved the case!
I"m really not trying to be an ass, BG tends to bring it out of me and well most people. But this isn't some fringe whacko saying this, this is common knowledge. I also find t his stuff fascinating and love to learn about it. from Wiki--Authenticity of the epistlesMain article Authorship of the Pauline epistles.Several of the letters are thought by most modern scholars to be pseudepigraphic, that is, not actually written by Paul of Tarsus even if attributed to him within the letters themselves, or, arguably, even forgeries intended to justify certain later beliefs. Details of the arguments regarding this issue are addressed more specifically in the articles about each epistle.These are the 7 letters (with consensus dates)[3] considered genuine by most scholars (see main article Authorship of the Pauline epistles: section The undisputed epistles):First Thessalonians (ca. 51 AD)Philippians (ca. 52-54 AD)Philemon (ca. 52-54 AD)First Corinthians (ca. 53-54 AD)Galatians (ca. 55 AD)Second Corinthians (ca. 55-56 AD)Romans (ca. 55-58 AD)The letters thought to be pseudepigraphic by the majority of modern scholars include:[4]Pastoral epistles First TimothySecond TimothyTitusThe letters on which modern scholars are about evenly divided are:[4]EphesiansColossiansSecond Thessalonians
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Pseudepigrapha are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed authorship is unfounded; a work, simply, "whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past."[1] The word "pseudepigrapha" (from the Greek: ψευδής, pseudēs, "false" and ἐπιγραφή, epigraphē, "inscription"; see the related epigraphy) is the plural of "pseudepigraphon" (sometimes Latinized as "pseudepigraphum"); the Anglicized forms "pseudepigraph" and "pseudepigraphs" are also used.Few scholars would insist today that the Second Epistle of Peter was written by Saint Peter.[2] Nevertheless, in some cases, especially for books belonging to a religious canon, the question of whether a text is pseudepigraphical or not elicits sensations of loyalty and can become a matter of heavy dispute. The authenticity or value of the work itself, which is a separate question for experienced readers, often becomes sentimentally entangled in the association. Though the inherent value of the text may not be called into question, the weight of a revered or even an apostolic author lends authority to a text.Some biblical scholars assert that in antiquity pseudepigraphy was "an accepted and honored custom practiced by students/admirers of a revered figure"[3], but provide no evidence to back up this statement[citation needed], and others assert that "pseudoepigraphy was not an accepted practice" and that the church attempted to avoid it [1].Pseudepigraphy covers the false ascription of names of authors to works, even to perfectly authentic works that make no such claim within their text. Thus a widely accepted but an incorrect attribution of authorship may make a perfectly authentic text pseudepigraphical. Assessing the actual writer of a text brings questions of pseudepigraphical attributions within the discipline of literary criticism.On a related note, a famous name assumed by the author of a work is an allonym.More at Wiki--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PseudepigraphyEhrman, discusses this topic in depth from an historical vewpoint as well as discussing and verifying the differing viewpoints of religious scholars for their factuality. Again, he is a believer, not a non-believer and wrote this because he thinks religous people should actually believe in what is true. It seems to me that would be important to you as well.

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I"m really not trying to be an ass, BG tends to bring it out of me and well most people. But this isn't some fringe whacko saying this, this is common knowledge. I also find t his stuff fascinating and love to learn about it. from Wiki--Authenticity of the epistlesMain article Authorship of the Pauline epistles.Several of the letters are thought by most modern scholars to be pseudepigraphic, that is, not actually written by Paul of Tarsus even if attributed to him within the letters themselves, or, arguably, even forgeries intended to justify certain later beliefs. Details of the arguments regarding this issue are addressed more specifically in the articles about each epistle.These are the 7 letters (with consensus dates)[3] considered genuine by most scholars (see main article Authorship of the Pauline epistles: section The undisputed epistles):First Thessalonians (ca. 51 AD)Philippians (ca. 52-54 AD)Philemon (ca. 52-54 AD)First Corinthians (ca. 53-54 AD)Galatians (ca. 55 AD)Second Corinthians (ca. 55-56 AD)Romans (ca. 55-58 AD)The letters thought to be pseudepigraphic by the majority of modern scholars include:[4]Pastoral epistles First TimothySecond TimothyTitusThe letters on which modern scholars are about evenly divided are:[4]EphesiansColossiansSecond Thessalonians
I wonder who wiki considers a modern scholar?
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I wonder who wiki considers a modern scholar?
This is a brief bio of Ehrman,
Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He came to UNC in 1988, after four years of teaching at Rutgers University. At UNC he has served as both the Director of Graduate Studies and the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies.A graduate of Wheaton College (Illinois), Professor Ehrman received both his Masters of Divinity and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary, where his 1985 doctoral dissertation was awarded magna cum laude. Since then he has published extensively in the fields of New Testament and Early Christianity, having written or edited twenty-four books, numerous scholarly articles, and dozens of book reviews.
Modern Scholars would be people like him with extensive histories of Religous studies. Many are published, are chairs of religious studies at Universities, or simply employed by something like the Vatican. They are like any group I suppose, that publishes, debates, investigates and writes about not only biblical knowledge, but the Koran, Book of Moron, etc.I've seen two people go at it for months on end arguing the translation of aramaic and greek, and to be honest, I didn't have a clue what the hell the hell they were talking about, lol.Ehrman has simply struck a chord because he wrote about these topics in a way that laymen could at least get the gist of the discussions they have. Obviously there are tons of critical reviews, though some dissagree on some of his conclusions, they most often agree or appreciate the difficulty in what he is attempting to do. For examply if I say that a gospel was "forged" most Christians would immediately scream foul, much like what happened here. If I had used the term, pseudepigraphic, most would have thought I was simply looking at Jesus porn again or something. There are all kinds of reasons that a gospel might have been written by another, i.e. a student of the author or a secratary. Ehrman breaks those possibilities down and discusses them. Like I said, interesting stuff for those such inclined.
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Oh, and so back to my original point. If we don't know who wrote the Gospels, what their motives for changing the wording, (money, political influence) coupled with the fact that whoever was in power of religon also held sway over the masses then, without honestly looking at it for what it is, how are we to assume it was divinely inspired by your Alleged God?If I ever name a rock band, that will be the name of it I just realized. Alleged God.

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Creating a being explicitly to cause it infinite pain is not, as Graham Greene might put it, an act of appallingly strange mercy, but rather an act of such extreme, twisted, and boundless cruelty that the perpetrator should be worshiped only as ants worship a teenager with a magnifying glass.

 

I mean, obviously we disagree on that, but I can see why you take it to the extreme.

 

1. I believe that the Bible is God's word

2. I believe that God made everything in the universe, including the universe itself for his own glory.

3. I believe that He has the right to do whatever He wants.

4. Who am I to question His motivations?

5. He provided a way to be with him in

and not be separated from Himself through Jesus dying on the cross.

6. Anyone can accept or reject this.

7. It doesn't matter if you don't want to worship Him because you view Him as a teenager with a magnifying glass.

8. I believe He still exists, and those are the rules.

 

It's not like I don't understand that this is a hotly contested part of Christianity. I do. I wish God would come down to your house and explain it to you, but I have to live with the reality that that's probably not going to happen. (but pay attention to your dreams or anything else that seems weird... plz thanks.)

 

My belief in God stems from two things:

 

1) My faith lies in the foundation that I believe that the world is too complex and too alike to have happened by chance. In fact, I think that most people would even agree with me that statistically it was nearly impossible, especially life in only 4 billion years. It's an absolutely ridiculously small chance that it could have happened, but using dating and the fact that we are here... people who don't believe in God have to be like Jim Carrey... "so you're saying there's a chance!" It's funny in dumb and dumber because everyone knows how stupid it is for him to believe in something that has a 1 in a million chance, and yet here we are, with all you incredibly intelligent people not even batting an eye at an explanation for something having a smaller chance than winning Powerball every day for a year. I just don't get it. The reason everything has the same DNA and the same origin is because it's the same Dude creating the stuff. The universe didn't come from nothing. That's not possible. We all know that... and yet here we are.

 

2) The 2nd reason is that I have yet to hear anything that even comes close to putting doubt in my mind that the Bible has a fallacy. Randy regurgitating stuff from a bunch of people that hate religion is near meaningless. The "contradictions" in the doctrine and gospel of Jesus Christ simply hasn't changed. Not since 2000 BC. We have very old copies of parts of the Old Testament and everything leading to Jesus is there and has been there, completely unchanged for 4000 years. The odds of that are also ridiculous, almost spiritual. If either of these change, then things would need to be reevaluated. Like if we got a visit from some aliens that said they planted life here, that would be a problem for Christianity. I know this doesn't really address your point about the God with a magnifying glass, but I would just have to point you to #4 at the top.

 

 

 

Modern Scholars would be people like him with extensive histories of Religous studies. Many are published, are chairs of religious studies at Universities, or simply employed by something like the Vatican. They are like any group I suppose, that publishes, debates, investigates and writes about not only biblical knowledge, but the Koran, Book of Moron, etc.I've seen two people go at it for months on end arguing the translation of aramaic and greek, and to be honest, I didn't have a clue what the hell the hell they were talking about, lol.Ehrman has simply struck a chord because he wrote about these topics in a way that laymen could at least get the gist of the discussions they have. Obviously there are tons of critical reviews, though some dissagree on some of his conclusions, they most often agree or appreciate the difficulty in what he is attempting to do. For examply if I say that a gospel was "forged" most Christians would immediately scream foul, much like what happened here. If I had used the term, pseudepigraphic, most would have thought I was simply looking at Jesus porn again or something. There are all kinds of reasons that a gospel might have been written by another, i.e. a student of the author or a secratary. Ehrman breaks those possibilities down and discusses them. Like I said, interesting stuff for those such inclined.
So whatever he says goes? Because a lot of people disagree with the fact that 1st and 2nd Timothy was not obviously Paul. Like hundreds and thousands of PhD's in theology.
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Correct. Blasphemy of the holy spirit is the only sin mentioned in the Bible as unforgivable, and most Scholars believe that that was a sin that could only be committed when Jesus was on Earth and immediately after. It was seeing a work of God, and attributing it to Satan.
Kenobi: "Yes, indeed - if she's a fast ship."Solo: "'Fast ship?' You've never heard of the Millenium Falcon?"Kenobi: "No. Should I have?"Solo: "It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. She's fast enough for you, old man."
The problem with this interchange is that a parsec is a unit of distance, not time. Star Wars folks can have different sorts of responses to this:
  • Tee hee. Oops.
  • Tee hee. Get a life; it's a movie.
  • We can explain that. Explanation
    The Kessel Run was one of the most heavily-used routes in the Galactic Empire[3] Han Solo claimed that his Millennium Falcon "made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs". A parsec was a unit of distance, not time. Solo was not referring directly to his ship's speed when he made this claim. Instead, he was referring to the shorter route he was able to travel by skirting the nearby Maw black hole cluster, thus making the run in under the standard distance. By moving closer to the black holes, Solo managed to cut the distance down to about 11.5 parsecs.[source?] The smuggler, BoShek, actually beat Solo's record in his ship, Infinity, but without cargo to weigh him down. A few months later, Han Solo beat both his own and BoShek's records in a run he made with Luke Skywalker.

Anyway, the point is that sometimes people are clearly just making shit up to patch over a problem with the narrative.

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It's funny, because I used to read the Bible, and get upset because the "common folk" in the Bible never seem to "get" it. Like in the OT, things go terribly for Israel when they start following other gods, and things go great when they only follow the one true God. And yet, they keep doing it. What's the deal, Speedz?Or in the NT when Jesus or Paul lays something out that seems perfectly clear to me, and the people in the Bible are like, "huh? I don't get it". I didn't think those kind of people existed. But they do exist. It's the kind of people that have to try really hard to not make sense out of something, and yet they keep doing it.
That reaction is the intent of the authors. People who disagree with the heroes are portrayed as stupid or evil.
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