Duchess64 is employing typical reasoning which at every stage excludes God.
God is not in the initial presuppositions.
God is not in any of the ongoing rationale.
God is not in any of the conclusion.
From beginning to end the entire reasoning is without God.
If it is a matter of bringing some knowledge of the Gospel to people who have not heard it, it is only to the skeptic a problem of introducing diseases and what harm might insue.
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The Midianites raised their families amid tragic abominations.
When you enter the land which Jehovah your God is giving you, you shall not learn to do things according to the abominations of those nations. (Deut. 18:1)
The Midianite culture burned their children alive in sacrifices to demon gods.
There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through fire... (v.10a)
The Midianite cultures raised their children to be fatalistic about the signs in the stars, be superstitious about contacting dead relatives, and be enslaved to sorcery and magic.
There shall not be found among you ... anyone who performs divination, practices soothsaying, or interprets omens; or anyone who employs sorcery. (v.10b)
The captives learned of the one true God. They learn the holiness and faithfulness of God.
The Midianite women mercifully were emlighted through the Israelites to the folly of casting spells and being deceived by familiar spirits, including those imitating dead loved ones in seances.
Or casts spells, or anyone who consults a spirit of the dead or a familiar spirit or inquires of the dead. (v.11)
These things can cause life long misery and bondage to people.
Instead of learning that which was an abomination to God they learned among the Israelites what was a godly way to live and be blessed in it.
For everyone who does these things is an abomination to Jehovah; and on account of these abominations Jehovah your God is dispossessing them from before you.
You shall be blameless before Jehovah your God. (vs.12,13)
The MIdianite women learned that it was these things which caused their societies to be dispersed, scattered, conquered, and discontinued. And they had been saved from them.
For these nations whom you are dispossessing listen to those who practice soothsaying and to those who perform divination, but Jehovah your God has not allowed you to do so. (v.14)
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More than this they learned that they were part of a people through whom a Savior from God would come like Moses, a Messiah with more truth from God. They were brought into a great divine plan involving the coming of a Prophet Servant with even greater truth for the world.
A Prophet will Jehovah your God raise up for you from your midst, from among your brothers, like me; you shall listen to Him.
This is according to all that you asked of Jehovah your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly saying, Let me not hear any more of the voice of Jehovah my God, and let me not see this great fire any longer, lest I die.
The people had inadvertently requested God come to them as a man. They inadvertently requested the incarnation of Christ to come to the world - the Son of God.
These assimilating Midianite women would now with their children be a part of this plan to receive a great Prophet.
And Jehovah said to me [Moses], They have done well in what they have spoken.
A Prophet will I raise up for them from the midst of their brothers like you; and I will put My words in His mouth, and He will speak to them all that I command Him. (v.17,18)
From abominations to God to God's eternal purpose the Midianite women were brought.
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@Duchess64
Interesting theory that they had.
Human rights group Survival International said it was possible that Chau had infected the tribe with pathogens to which they have no immunity, "with the potential to wipe out the entire tribe".[86][87]
While you are reading you might consider William Carey who went to India and translated not just the Bible but the people's OWN sacred sanskrit to prove to them that the ancient teaching did NOT command them to burn the wives of deceased husbands on their funeral mounds.
In showing that the tradition of burning widows was not instructed in their own religious writings, this Christian missionary performed a great humanitarian rescue of Indian women.
He translated the Hindu classic, the Ramayana, into English,[10] and the Bible into Bengali, Oriya, Assamese, Marathi, Hindi and Sanskrit.[2] William Carey has been called a reformer and illustrious Christian missionary.[11][12][13]
From Wiki
Other contributions - http://www.missionfrontiers.org/issue/article/william-carey
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William Carey - Christian missionary to India.
He was the first man to stand against the ruthless murders and widespread oppression of women. Women in India were being crushed through polygamy, female infanticide, child marriage, widow burning, euthanasia, and forced illiteracy—all sanctioned by religion. Carey opened schools for girls. When widows converted to Christianity, he arranged marriages for them. It was his persistent, 25-year battle against widow burning (known as sati) that finally led to the formal banning of this horrible religious practice.
http://www.missionfrontiers.org/issue/article/william-carey
Translating the Indian's own religious texts to the illiterate of ancient writing to show them that priests of their own religions were not consistent with these texts in demanding burning of widows on husbands' funeral mounds.
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I believe that praying to God usually fails on its own to cure life-threatening disease.
I think the somewhat bigotted implication of your comment is that only prayer for miraculous intervention is the interest of Christians.
Your comments insinuates that medical solutions are not the purview of Christians seeking to spread the gospel.
Again William Carey is an example of practical and loving service to the lepers of India.
He was the first to campaign for humane treatment of India’s leprosy victims because he believed that Jesus’ love extends to leprosy patients, so they should be cared for. Before then, lepers were often buried or burned alive because of the belief that a violent death purified the body on its way to reincarnation into a new healthy existence.
If God was against medicine it is peculiar that He selected a medical physician Luke, to write The Gospel According to Luke and the book of Acts.
An ample bulk amount of the New Testament therefore was written by a disciple who was a medical doctor.
And other down to earth practical service did Carey render in India in addition to his fervent prayers.
Carey was horrified that India, one of the most fertile countries in the world, had been allowed to become an uncultivated jungle abandoned to wild beasts and serpents. Therefore he carried out a systematic survey of agriculture and campaigned for agriculture reform. He introduced the Linnean system of plant organizations and published the first science texts in India. He did this because he believed that nature is declared “good” by its Creator; it is not maya (illusion) to be shunned, as Hindus believe, but a subject worthy of human study.
Carey introduced the idea of savings banks to India to fight the all-pervasive social evil of usury (the lending of money at excessive interest). He believed that God, being righteous, hated this practice which made investment, industry, commerce, and economic development impossible.
http://www.missionfrontiers.org/issue/article/william-carey
But if you want to read about a praying man who had thousands of answers to prayers, you should read about George Muller who established many orphanages in England. His prayers for financial support included many unusual divine interventions as a model servant of God who prayed effectively as well as was practical.
His faith and prayer life demonstrating his reliance of God to the extreme is noteworthy to many Christians.
I would encourage you to be a tad less bigoted in your anti-theism.
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Now let me return to War Crimes in the Bible.
I hope today to demonstrate from the Law of Moses many rules which seem designed to AVOID war with certain cities not in the condemned list.
Did you know that God commanded the Israelites to FIRST ... see if the attacked nation was willing to make peace rather than be completely terminated ?
Let me be fair. First here is an example of HARSHEST conquering. That will be followed by His command for seeking to avoid this IF the nation was willing.
Harshest Conquering:
Only in the cities of these people that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breaths. But you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would sin against the Lord your God. (Deut. 20:16-18)
Now WITH this let us consider a more measured strategy of warfare commanded by God.
When you draw near to a city to fight against it, you shall proclaim peace to it.
And if it responds with peace to you and opens its gates to you, all the people found within it shall become your forced labor; and they shall serve you.
But if it does not make peace with you, but rather engates in battle with you, you shall besiege it. And when Jehovah your God delivers it into your hand, you shall slay every male in it with the edge of the sword.
But the women and the little ones and the beasts and all that is in the city, that is, all its spoil, you shall take as your plunder; and you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which Jehovah your God has given you.
Thus shall you do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not among the cities of these nations.
But of the cities of these peoples which Jehovah your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not allow anything that breathes to live; But you must utterly destroy them; the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the HIvites and the Jebusites just as Jehovah your God has commanded you. (Deut. 20:10-17)
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As a religious fanatic, Sonship keeps showing his bigotry against science.
You're starting to make a fool out of yourself.
What bigotry against science ?
If one of my family members had a life-threatening illness, then I would seek professional medical treatment rather than a clergyman to pray for one's recovery.
I never mentioned clergymen.
I never said "PRAY and DON'T go to a hospital."
Pray, and seek God's guidance. Pray for the doctors to have wisdom to help you also. God's answer may be to humble yourself to come under the authority of a medical staff.
The FALSE DICHOTOMY is your slanderous bigoted accusation.
Does Sonship employ a Christian 'faith healer' as his primary, if not only, doctor?
Now I am on the verge of saying something rude.
For the record, Prayer in faith to God and good medical attention are NOT mutually exclusive matters in my life. And I have been a believer in the Gospel over forty years.
Duchess64 needs to concoct such a slander because her other arguments, while noted, are not as hefty as she originally thought.
Scrap not the bottom of the barrel Duchess64, stereotypeing and lampooning my faith.
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Sonship keeps describing legal abortions as 'genocide' apparently because he
equates a non-viable fetus (even a fertilized egg) with a human being.
Science does NOT assert that a fertilized egg ALREADY is a human being.
Sonship's continuing insults or lies cannot disguise the moral poverty of his arguments.
Paste more than ONE sentence in which I used the word genocide for abortions in this thread if I KEEP doing it.
Sonship, me, used the word "genocide" concerning the millions of unborn women aborted once in this discussion as far as I remember - ONE TIME.
Sonship did not KEEP continuing referring to the abortion on demand since Roe V Wade .as genocide.
And I'll tell you what. I may have used in improperly. So I withdraw the remark.
Sonship (me) was asked to consider doing so by FMF. But I ignore engaging FMF for the most part.
Science does NOT assert that a fertilized egg ALREADY is a human being.
Science asserts little to nothing. SCIENTISTS assert things.
And not all scientists are in agreement what to assert.
The white coated seemingly objective scientist is the wishful myth that scientists are not normal people with preferences, worldviews, and opinions influenced by subjective bias.
Science doesn't tell us what to believe.
Scientists (as people) pronounce their findings AND ... their opinions, some of which are overturned with time. And many of which are their subjective viewpoint influenced by personal philosophy, personal world-view.
It's better than nothing IF NOW Sonship stops referring to abortions as 'genocide'--AFTER
other writer(s) urged him to stop--but it hardly entitles him to act so self-righteous about it.
Your're the liar that said I KEEP doing so.
Its better that you don't say people who believe in the Bible are religious fanatics.
If I drop my faith in Christ and pick up your atheism what will it profit me? What thread have you ever written dealing with the big issues of life's meaning?
You don't have a final judgment in your world-view but are outraged at what some people will get away with.
So in your world of no solid grounding for justice - it is all an absurdity. You have to steal from my worldview to express deviation from what univerally OUGHT to be.
You want your cake and to eat it too.
You want NO God?
You get NO real justice.
You want no Ultimate Judge and be left alone?
Then so does everyone ELSE you so bitterly complain about.