Good morning Timer,
Your assumption of "eventually you'll understand the noah flood story as a myth based on a KATRINA type hurricane" is incorrect. I will not. And please stop referring to Noah and his family as "illiterate pakistanis" that passed their tribes history down through lore. God's Word has been carried through the generations and it has not changed. It
is the only constant you can base your soul on in this world. Do I picture the ark as paintings from Sunday School - no. Do I picture the ark, as you do, as some raft covered with goat skin - no.
Your analogy of children whispering a phrase in each others ears and it becoming unrecogizable is true and when I was a child I did that. For that reason I agreed with you in my last reply, however you may not equate that with God's Word.
Also you believe the story of Noah is a "security blanket" and allows me to hide from the truth - How?
Your next paragrph of "the devil has always been a trickster....he'll snare you too", is partly true. I pray he will not snare me or others. But yes, he warps and changes the Word to fit his plan. At times he even says it is a myth and shouldn't be listened to. Things are hidden in the Word and it is up to us to search for it. We may find that truth on different levels but it should never contradict each other's idea of the truth. It has to fit together, to become one.
Your statement of:
"Once again he'll use the trick hitler used on the german people : You are BEAUTIFUL, FANTASTIC, SUPERIOR in every way. A CON ALWAYS SOUNDS WONDERFUL. It wouldn't work if it didn't SOUND WONDERFUL. That's how the SUCKER is always hooked."
That is not the trick he will use. If he could trick us so easily, if we were so vain, if we had not read God's Word with understanding and knew that He loved all His children, we would not be true Christians. He will deceive many of those that love Christ but not with that ploy.
Your next paragraph:
"Jesus said that you are worth more than the whole earth. What he's referring to is your QUALITATIVE SPIRIT, not your puny little body walking around on an ocean bottom. When you die it's your SPIRIT body that goes on. Me? I'm a righteous guy, finding out the TRUTH of things is what I'm about, not going with the buffalo herd over the cliff...."
Of course Jesus was talking about our soul, all of it is about our soul. (by the way - my puny little body never walked around on the ocean bottom). I'm glad that you are a "righteous guy" but be very careful. If you continue to step on His Word and disregard it so blatantly by believing yourself to be so much wiser than it is you may indeed walk over a very deep cliff. Remember, "And the Word was God".
So Timer, I don't wish to be conned, be a sucker, look for the Big Prize in the mail, and certainly have no ambition to be a nazi, or any of the other slurs you threw my way but I do search. That is the reason I ask for your opinion and others. I do value those opinions but I must have them witnessed from His Word.
Thank you for this reply and I look forward to your next in which you speak of "cliffs and floods: the flood road".
We talk different languages. By ocean bottom I mean ocean of AIR, about 4/5ths nitrogen(N2)and 1/5th oxygen(O2). You see, physically you are a bottom dwelling fish in an OCEAN of some 10^15 tons of AIR. Jesus referred to people as "fish", an early christian symbol was a FISH, remember? The first disciples were FISHermen.
Genetically you are descended from FISH. Way back when you were a lung fish crawling out of the water ocean onto a sandy beach, escaping PREDATORS. Many, many evolutionary iterations later you are STILL a FISH of sorts : bony spine, lungs; even our cross-wired right/left brains were already there in FISH.
You've even internalized ocean currents : your blood flow. Ever TASTED your blood, salty as the ocean, yes? Look at vast crowds of people walking along an urban street, how different is that from a stream of fish swimming in an ocean?
You need to read Erdman's critique of the bible, the obviously outlandish numbers. 600,000 MEN leave with moses and go into the desert? NONSENSE! It was more like 600 or even 6,000; but NOT 600,000! With wives + 2 children/couple that's over 2.4 MILLION people. READ the subsequent exodus account and it's not talking about 2.4 MILLION people, 2400 people sounds more rational.
Or Jesus being crucified on good friday. THREE DAYS and THREE NIGHTS in the grave, remember? The early catholics got it WRONG! He was crucified on THURSDAY, the day before the high holy day of preparation(friday)before the saturday sabbath. THAT makes THREE DAYS and THREE NIGHTS.
Or Jesus' birthday on Dec 25(3 days before the winter solstice and the "birth" of a new year - days get longer again). That was the Roman God JUPITER'S birthday, thus JESUS replaced JUPITER in early catholic mythology. He was ACTUALLY born in early january as the eastern orthodox church believes.
Two biblical accounts of Saul/Paul's being ZAPPED by our lord on the road to damascus, but they don't agree! How come? Simple : these are VERBAL accounts passed down through the years, the generations; and finally written down, in TWO DIFFERENT VERSIONS!
So you see what I mean : HUMAN mis-communication of GOD'S WORD. Look at any average e-mail : how many mis-spellings, diction mistakes, do you see? The same fumble bunny-scribes were writing the bible way back when.
So you can thunderously POUND on the bible, or hide under it like linus under his blanket, but if you were an honest, righteous man, worthy of heaven, you would see it as a grab bag of human mis-translation; a glimmer of eternal truth here and there, and a whole lot of errata that is a result of imperfect human COPYING.
Xerox a sheet of text on paper, then xerox that copy, then another and another, a 1000 times. With the 1000th copy you have a meaningless blur. Go ahead, try it with a ream of paper and all afternoon in front of a xerox machine.
Or why does a new and improved bible come out every decade or so? New standard revised, etc, etc. And thus you see why modern, scientifically trained minds see the bible as fairy tales, full of errata, the obviously false numbers...you'll NEVER convert them until YOU have the righteous COURAGE to correct the flaws in the bible. And the koran, with its terrorist fanatics, is out there, as a COMPETITOR!
So, get your own house in order before you do battle with them. What did our lord say about the splinter in your brother's eye, and the LOG in yours?