Okay. God does not have a “plan”. He is everywhere and everywhen and experiences/experienced/will experience all of Creation in a single instant. There are things that He has ordained, sure. But I would consider that to be the framework of Creation. Man sure isn’t going to upset that.
No, no. :) You can't moot an entire issue by saying that everything to God is one giant "now". That's been tried against me before. :) Take it from the human POV if you want. If you agree that God ordains anything, then you agree that He has some sort of plan within time, as far as we are concerned as observers through time. In this light I hope you would still agree that man isn't going to upset that.
God created the Flood and nobody got out alive that wasn’t supposed to.
OK, good. Now we're talking. :) You acknowledge that the Flood actually happened and that it was by God's hand not only THAT it happened, but how it happened. Others have told me very differently.
But one can take it to ridiculous lengths and claim that because God is not stopping me shooting my neighbour, then He authorizes me to do it. I’ve heard that argument (not taken that far, admittedly) from some of my Protestant brethren right here.
That would depend on very technical issues surrounding the exact premise and the exact response. What does "authorize" mean, etc.? But in general, I agree that the example goes way too far. In the way I'm reading it, to me that is like certain people declaring as knowledge that AIDS is God's punishment against gays, or that 9/11 was God's punishment against the United States. Some Protestants have done this, in error, IMO. We can't presume to know God's motives on such things.
***No, no. :) You can’t moot an entire issue by saying that everything to God is one giant “now”. That’s been tried against me before. :) Take it from the human POV if you want. If you agree that God ordains anything, then you agree that He has some sort of plan within time, as far as we are concerned as observers through time. In this light I hope you would still agree that man isn’t going to upset that.***
The trouble with taking God from a human POV is that we will fail miserably on some points of understanding. God’s ‘plan’ (such as it is) combines the laws of His Creation and the free will of man into one. God is able to incorporate them together. The Reformed God is unable to do so; therefore any good that occurs is by His micromanaging of certain individuals.
***In the way I’m reading it, to me that is like certain people declaring as knowledge that AIDS is God’s punishment against gays, or that 9/11 was God’s punishment against the United States. Some Protestants have done this, in error, IMO. We can’t presume to know God’s motives on such things.***
Houston, we have agreement.
You don't have to "dance" around FK, because you know you are hinting at me, and what I said is that the Flood never happened (not for the reasons given in the Bible). It's a myth, which exists in many other religions (some older then Judaism), in an almost identical form.
It never happened because God doesn't regret anything. And Gen 6:6 clearly states that God regretted having made man (because of man's wickedness).
Add to this the Reformed myth that God is the source of their wickedness by design, and you have a self-cntradicting fairytale, where God, who creates man in sinful nature "discovers" just how wicked and out of control man is (but well within God's "plan"), and he is "sorry" he ever made man, and decides to drown the whole wretched lot along with innocent animals, save for a few good ones.
The myth, like all myths, has a message behind it: the wicked will be punished and the few good ones will be spared. Fear is not uncommonly used in all religions to bring people into compliance with religious rules.
The is also true of Exodus. Historical evidence fails to show Exodus ever happened; in fact, all evidence seems to show it didn't! There is no evidence whatsoever that that the Jews ever lived in Egypt for 450 years prior to that, or that one million of them lived in Sinai afterwards for 40 years. In fact, all evidence shows that they never left Canaan.
But, Exodus is an important part of the Israeli folklore and is an essential part of Judaism and, by extension, Christianity, as religions. But I submit that ti is fundamentally in opposition to Christian mindset because Christian God doesn't kill. God is the source of life and not of death. There is simply no Christ in Exodus, or in the Flood ofr that matter.
The Church, of course, treats Exodus and the Flood as part of the Biblical tradition and therefore "true" in some undefined way for many reasons, least bit of which is a wrathful God of the OT.