I'm Genuinely Torn Now...Judaism or Christianity

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
21

Varq, just give me the cliff notes. As I recall from memory these are the leaders I can think off that G-d initially communicated with “out of the blue” and what He told them.

Abraham - follow Me and I will make of you a great nation.
Moses - lead my people from their oppression
Joshua - Restore the laws to My people and I will take you from the desert and give you a home.
David (Solomon was a king through a time when the peolpe of Israel were following God as I recall) - right the wrongs of the king and I will make you a great leader
Mary - I will give you a Son and his name will be…
Saul/Paul - You have done much harm to My people, now get up and go do good.

Those aren’t exact words but the jist. Just please state the person, chapter/verse and what G-d said and I will happily go read that section. I don’t have time to read multiple books. Again, I’m looking for cases where G-d specifically said at the first time speaking with this person - go do great harm to this religion/people because they deserve it. Sodom and Gomorrah (the only other one I can think of) was known for its great sin and had committed great crimes against the angels G-d sent, hence why he was turning it to dust.

And again I’ll ask - do you see the point of what I was trying to say to Headhunter, or do you just wish to debate?

23

[quote]darkocean wrote:
If you want to understand what Judaism is, that is simple. Go and take a look at what the Jews do to the Palestinian people. It is quite an eye opener.[/quote]

TROLOLOLOLOLOLOL…

is obvious.

24

My bet is yet ANOTHER Headhunter account.

25

[quote]pushharder wrote:

I’ll ante up and then raise you: what if Satan inspired you to make this post in order to turn HH from Christianity and Judaism and towards Aleister Crowley?

Ozzie would be so proud of you.
[/quote]

Yes, but would Harriet as well? That is the question that burns in my mind.

So we have three possibilities:

One, that Satan, Prince of Darkness, Father of Lies, the Accursed One himself, is PERSONALLY manipulating Headhunter’s dreams, so as to turn him away from Christianity, which he was only halfheartedly considering anyway (“maybe I’ll be a Methodist. I like chicken.”);

Two, that the aforementioned Accursed One, the Devil Himself, the Tormentor of Mankind, is using me to interpret Headhunter’s dreams in such a way that his vulnerable spirit turns away from the truths represented by Judaism and Christianity;

Or Three, that Headhunter just had a bad dream, and I showed up to help him think it through.

Which seems the most likely to you?

26

Quasi-Tech: I don’t know whether you are a Christian or a Jew. Your use of the word “G-d” is a bit misleading, in that this is generally a Jewish thing, but Jews generally know the Bible pretty well, so I’m gonna have to go with “Christian”.

Anyway, it would take almost as long to compile a list of all the instances in the Bible of God commanding Moses, or Joshua, or Samuel, or someone, to go out and “utterly destroy” an evil tribe whose land they had to commandeer, “smiting” the evil people wirh the “edge of the sword” (sometimes sparing women, children and livestock, sometimes sparing only the young virgin girls, sometimes only sparing one prostitute collaborator, but in many cases ensuring that every living creature, man, woman, child or donkey, was not just merely dead, but really most sincerely dead) as it would for Jewbacca to answer your laundry list of questions about Judaism that you posted on the other thread.

So I will just list a few of the civilizations that are no longer with us today because God commanded that His people exterminate them. You may find he stories in the books of Deuteronomy, 1 Samuel, and Joshua.

Amalekites
Amorites
Canaanites
Hittites
Hivites
Jebusites
Midianites
Perizzites

Note (and I’m looking at you now, Push) that I am making no moral judgment on these actions. They were commanded by God and were therefore morally justified by definition. I bring them up only to assure Quasi-Tech that, contrary to his claim that God “didn’t tell people to go out and commit acts of violence”, that oh yes He did.

27

Multi thread troll is now in progress…all aboard and please mind the gap.

28

I said G-d as such because I assumed there was some sort of filter that prevented it from being posted as God… didn’t realize it was a Jewish thing. So thanks for that clarification :D.

I also said I confirmed that God did indeed tell people to go out and crush their enemies but not at their first meeting/speaking. Ie, He didn’t tell Abraham to crush the guys next door, or for Mary to murder her sister because she would try to prevent Mary from going to Bethlehem. Yes, God did reign down a lot of pain on the Israelites opponents throughout the Old Testament, but as far as I recall - which I don’t believe you addressed, God never commanded the first thing that someone He talked to for the first time, to inflict harm on another.

So again, you either aren’t fully reading what I type, or you are intentionally disregarding parts of my posts - which I have not editted. And if Jewbacca has an issue with my laundry list he doesn’t need to answer. He kindly stated that he would address a few at a time, and I responded why I did what I did. Do you have some issue with an item that doesn’t affect you?

I asked twice now if you see the point I was trying to make to headhunter that his dream was not some “spiritual vision.” I see in subsequent posts that it was made a joke of the whole thing. I guess I need to do a better job of understanding whether someone is just joking or merely that unstable. I still stand by my statement - God never started communication with someone by telling them to commit violence against someone else the first time they spoke. The burden of proof is on you since you claim otherwise and I will happily admit being wrong if you give a book and verse.

Also, you could infer that I am a Christian from referring to New Testament material, however acting like Christians don’t know the Bible is somewhat rude. Yes, many Catholics only know the books covered every Sunday, and there are many other denominations who don’t put much worth in sitting down and reading the “Good Book”, but there are still some who put great time and effort into it. So since I seem to be getting picked at for details, I’ll poke you back for that “generalization.” I personally have not read it in probably a few years, at least not cover to cover, though I do read my favorite passages from time to time. So yes, its highly likely I am amiss of my statement, but again, I’m waiting for you to site an example that satisfies the criteria I’ve listed now three (?) times.

Thanks.

29

The key difference between Judiasm and Christianity, is that modern Jewish people do not believe that Jesus was the savior that fulfilled the prophecies in the Old Testament. They are still waiting for the Messiah. Christians believe that Jesus was the Messiah and therefore fulfilled the prophecies that were made in the Old Testament. I believe that Christ died for me that is why I am a Christian and not Jewish. It is not a matter of just picking something and going with it, it is about a relationship with God

30

Quasi your mistake is taking headhunter seriously. that’s why everybody is making light of HH’s supposed soul rending dream and conflict. he does this all the time. all the time. known troll.

31

I don’t know why people make stupid statement regarding religion… if he wanted to do that he should have done it in Get-A-Life, I’m convinced that is the “joke” forum. This forum has good discussion about serious/important topics.

I’m seriously interested in the topic between Varq and I however. I will do some research tonight when I get home. The destruction of Jericho was one of my favorite stories because they did it with the sound of trumpets - ie they hit resonating frequency of the walls, and it caused them to collapse. I didn’t understand that when younger, but thought that the trumpets sounding was very vivid.

Anywho, I will look into it, I still believe I am correct about God having never visited someone for the first time and telling them to go out and commit violence, but I learn something new every day. For now I need to prep for my English class in 15 minutes :). Thanks Aragorn, I’ll stop responding to his threads!

32

I would like to think that you are not being intentionally obtuse, Quasi-Tech.

Let us see if we can find some light in the wilderness, shall we?

EXODUS and DEUTERONOMY
God’s FIRST words to Moses, up on the mountain, with the burning bush, were that He was going to deliver the people into the land of the aforementioned Canaanites, Jebisites, Hittites, etc. He was saying that the land that was currently theirs was going to belong to Moses’ people. Presumably Moses understood that he would be leading an armed mob to displace these people from their land. I mean, Moses was not a moron. He had worked for Pharaoh before his big escape to Midian, after all, an so he knew how things wen down in the Bronze Age.

You wanted a piece of land and it was full of people who weren’t related to you, you grabbed it. No negotiating, no bargaining. No refugee camps, or reservations, either. You just got a big mob of hard, pipe-hittin’ niggas with spears and swords and axes, and you drove those poor undortunate motherfuckers off their land, or better yet killed them, took their daughters, their sheep, cows and donkeys.

Moses knew the score. And God wasn’t saying that it would go down any different.

See, God, realizing that the first priority was convincing Moses to actually do the first part of the job (prison break) was a little light on the details of how the second half of the job (land grab) was going to go down. At least in this preliminary conference. He does imply that He (God, not Moses) might have to get a little rough if Pharaoh didn’t cooperate (“I’ll stretch out my hand and bitch-slap the Egyptians with my wonders”), and that he would “pursuade” the Egyptians not to be too tight-fisted when the nice Hebrews looted and plundered the city.

So those were the FIRST words to Moses. God didn’t go into details about which tribes were to be butchered, and who the Hebrews could keep alive, and who had to be completely obliterated, until after they were out of Egypt. He only said he would “deliver” the land to Moses’ people. But on Mt Horeb, that’s where the finely detailed plans were given to Moses.

I predict, however, that you are going to claim that point, though, because God didn’t explicitly say, “Hi, Moses, I’m God. Listen we’ve just met and all, but I want you to do me a favor and commit a teeny little bit of genocide. You think you can do that for me?”

JOSHUA
Okay, so Moses has died, after having seen the land God had promised his people, from the top of a mountain, from across the river. Now the actual business of grabbing the land in great handfuls has to begin. God selects Joshua, a righteous dude who has already proven his mettle at the Jericho massacre (read what happened after the “resonant frequencies” of the trumpets brought down the walls, by the way). God’s FIRST words to Joshua are essentially a field promotion. He is the Generalissimo of the Hebrew People’s Army, and God promises that all the plans he made with Moses back on Mt Horeb (see above) will be carried out by Joshua. lf course Joshua, being Moses’ captain and confidante, already knew the plan, so God didn’t need to repeat it. “So Joshua, just so we’re clear: when you and your boys go in and grab the land, you know you’re supposed to kill everyone, too, right?” “Oh, yeah, Boss. Moses already told me about that part.”

You get the idea. Go read it for yourself. I’m not trying to challenge your faith or anything, just trying (much as in the Japan thread) to encourage you to be a little less naive, to stop making broad generalizations, and to see things with your own eyes.

Shalom.

33

I will say some of the big differences between the big 3 religions is that Judaism and Christianity God will punish/discipline them if they turn away from Him. God uses the righteous to discipline the unrighteous (Varq the list you put up), and when the Jews became unrighteous God brought forth a righteous conqueror of the Jews (Babylon, Persians, Philistines, and others).

Muslims do not think this at all. Look at the Old Testament all the way through, and as mwiersma stated Jews and Christians follow the same religious heritage, but a little different. They are pretty much the same Morally. There are Christians that believe in the “Prosperity Doctrine” and that to me is heresy, so I do not not even want to touch on that.

36

[quote]Neuromancer wrote:
Multi thread troll is now in progress…all aboard and please mind the gap.[/quote]

Mind the Gap…indeed.

37

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

You wanted a piece of land and it was full of people who weren’t related to you, you grabbed it…You just got a big mob of hard, pipe-hittin’ niggas with spears and swords and axes, and you drove those poor undortunate motherfuckers off their land, or better yet killed them, took their daughters, their sheep, cows and donkeys.

Moses knew the score. And God wasn’t saying that it would go down any different.
[/quote]

Ahahahahaha! … Did you just channel DarkNinja?

Varq, I am absolutely convinced if you were a biblical history sunday school teacher it would be the single funniest class ever. I am laughing ridiculously.

38

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

Ahahahahaha! … Did you just channel DarkNinja?

Varq, I am absolutely convinced if you were a biblical history sunday school teacher it would be the single funniest class ever. I am laughing ridiculously.[/quote]

Good catch. I was actually thinking of DarkNinjaa as I was writing that… although the “hard pipe hittin’ niggas” line was a direct consequence of swapping Pulp Fiction quotes with Big Kahuna earlier on another thread.

And believe it or not, quite a lot of people have told me that I should be a minister. Including my grandparents and a few clergymen.

Scary thought.

39

Varq, I’m going to try to post my reasoning and justification for why I take that stance, after that its for you to decide whether you feel my “logic/stance” is sensible or just “naive.” As for the Japan thread, I stated my reason for my reaction and then maturely stepped out, and have not been back. As much as I would like to contribute I don’t want to have to battle every time I do, so I leave it for you more experienced fellows to share. I’ve moved on/forward, I hope others will too.

That being said, I unfortunately can’t copy paste from online Bibles because my workplace Internet blocks religious sites, so I hope my typing this out by hand while looking at my cell phone counts for something :D. I am referencing the NIV version, even though I personally prefer the Old & New King James - I like the old lingo. Perhaps your book is worded differently. I also understand that much gets lost in translation (as with Japanese) when you hop languages. Some of the original verbage meant more than what it was translated to, for example “knowing” someone meant a whole lot more than meeting them in person. Take it for what it is.

First communication between God and Moses, Exodus 3-4.
4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses, Moses.” And Moses said, “Here I am” 5 "Do not come any closer, " God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6Then He said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. 7The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of My people in Egypt. I have head them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey - the home of the Cannanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perrizites, Hivites, and Jebusites. 9And now the cry of the Israelites has reached Me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10So now, go. I am sending you to Pharoah to bring My people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

It continues where God speaks of how he will make this all happen.

First communication between God and Joshua, Joshua 1:1-5
1After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’s aide: 2"Moses My servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give them - to the Israelites. 3I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. 4Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates - all the Hittite country - to the Mediterranean Sea in the West. 5No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.

And then Joshua and the Israelites cross the river, send scouts to Jericho, and so begins that part of the story.

Now. I would debate that the above are good examples of “game plans” of summaries of what will occur. They are God laying out His plan for the Israelites to their soon to be leaders. Similar to say going to a bank to buy a home and the bank loan manager says the following, “Welcome to X Bank, I understand you want to take out a home loan. My name is Steve I’ll be working with you. What I’d like to do today is cover your Credit Report/Score, discuss the current options available to you based on your Credit Score, and then let you know how much you can afford to take out.” At that moment, I can not stand up and say, “I’ve just talked about buying a home, I’m ready to go.” Yes, I covered the broad overview of my coming meeting, but not the details. Just like going to a conference and after the introductory slide of the presentation I get up and leave because I’ve already learned everything the presentation was going to present.

Similarly, its difficult to deduce from God’s word that the immediate answer to what He said was violence. Just as God freed them from the Egyptians without the Israelites raising a single hand in rebellion, how too were they to know that the land becoming theirs would require they kill? Did that inevitable end up being the “solution”, yes, but there was no command of violence from God at the time, only His plan for the Israelites. I would also like to point out the following, based on the above Scripture, and the one below, which is more akin to Headhunters original “troll” post of his dream?

Samuel 15:2-3
God commanded Saul and Israelites, "This is what the Lord Almight says,“I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attach the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”

Typically in the Old Testament (and this was relatively true in the New Testament also), when God spoke to someone for the first time He did the following:

  1. Introduced Himself
  2. Provided a Plan for the new leader
  3. Gave first steps to the plan

Yes this varied in some cases, but overall that was the situation. As HH was obviously not already involved in a strong relationship with God - apparent by his post (assuming serious and not a troll - which it wasn’t serious) why would God ever order such a drastic, significant act of violence, and with no purpose? I realize this is now all a joke, but my understanding is that if you believe to have a better understanding of the Biblical Scripture than me - which you very well might and probably do, then you also know this to be true. I tried to find Scripture of the first time God spoke to David, but again, my ability to search on a blocked work Internet and crappy connection out here in the manufacturing area on my phone has hindered that. I will look into it though for the sake of self-learning and am happy to share if I discover anything. I’m also curious on his initial interactions with Saul - which may have been a violent command, Isaac, etc. I know Jacob was not violent at all, at least in the beginning of his story as he was the victim.

I don’t expect you to 100% come out and say you were wrong or that I’m 100% right. I am merely providing my perspective and my side of the debate, in detail. You may find this ironic and hard to believe, but I was given similar direction as you - that I had great potential to become a priest, pastor, or youth minister/leader. I don’t feel myself worthy of such responsibility however and I understand that leadership suffers the most temptation - because if a leader falls, so often will the followers, if not off the horse then into chaos. That all was quite a long time ago. So see, in some other universe or alternate reality, we could actually/possibly get along quite well as we seem to have similar interests based on both your posts I’ve seen and your avatar :D. Not that we aren’t being civil with one another, but I highly doubt you’ll be sending me a Happy Birthday card any time soon ;).

Hope you enjoy. It was fun to research and write-up over my lunch break.

40

[quote]darkocean wrote:
If you want to understand what Judaism is, that is simple. Go and take a look at what the Jews do to the Palestinian people. It is quite an eye opener.[/quote]

Punish immoral and grave behavior against innocent people? The horror.