It's The Books!

[AVG-JOE]

The grand question I raise with this topic is, "What makes Abraham so fucking special?!?"

​

We ALL hear voices... what makes anyone think that the ones in Abraham's head were God Himself?

Joe,

Why was he chosen? No reason. Maybe it was grace.

I read a book in the library that described the early Jews and it described them in Biblical terms as a stiffnecked people, what they ate, and so forth; it kind of made them look like early forms of satanists even though I wish no disrespect nor wish to promote some of the comments because I haven't been able to find the book since to verify it nor do I wish to promote anti-semitism because we're all the same race and God favors the Jews and God made a promise to mankind. God wanted the Jews to be a light and the people (the Jews) kind of describes mankind because we're all sinners. We're hard to work with and God choosing Abraham showed grace.

What was Abraham willing to do? He moved for God. He gave up his homeland. He gave up his family roots. Lot went with him. He also gave up his idols. Abraham was an idolator. If I said divorce yourself from your homeland, divorce yourself from your family and divorce yourself from your gods, that would be very very stressful.

He was also ready to sacrifice his son for God but didn't because an angel stopped him.
This is a man who moved looking for a city whose builder and maker is God.

Hebrews 11:10 For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

He was basically a prophet and people at the time saw him blessed and his other son was also blessed by God so with the heritage he had..we think of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. and Islam thinks of Ishmael.

The Koran mentions Jerusalem but Mohammad changed it to Mecca when the Jews wouldn't convert to Islam. They want the city and because Mohammad coveted the people at the time, modern day Muslims may too covet Jerusalem and Israel. Islam is a State building religion and my thoughts are they want to assimilate everyone like the borg.

It is sort of a competition between religions. The Jews want to keep their homeland and Muslims want Israel for Islam.

Chuck

That's all well and good, ass-u-me-ing that the voice in Abrahams head actually was 'God'.

Big assumption... I've known a few people, myself included, who moved across the country because they felt like something inside was 'telling them to go'.

I'm curious as to why so many people today are convinced that 6,000 years ago Abraham was THE man, and God hasn't found one to talk to since.

 

[Ropey]

The grand question I raise with this topic is, "What makes Abraham so fucking special?!?"

​

We ALL hear voices... what makes anyone think that the ones in Abraham's head were God Himself?

Joe,

Why was he chosen? No reason. Maybe it was grace.

I read a book in the library that described the early Jews and it described them in Biblical terms as a stiffnecked people, what they ate, and so forth; it kind of made them look like early forms of satanists even though I wish no disrespect nor wish to promote some of the comments because I haven't been able to find the book since to verify it nor do I wish to promote anti-semitism because we're all the same race and God favors the Jews and God made a promise to mankind. God wanted the Jews to be a light and the people (the Jews) kind of describes mankind because we're all sinners. We're hard to work with and God choosing Abraham showed grace.

What was Abraham willing to do? He moved for God. He gave up his homeland. He gave up his family roots. Lot went with him. He also gave up his idols. Abraham was an idolator. If I said divorce yourself from your homeland, divorce yourself from your family and divorce yourself from your gods, that would be very very stressful.

He was also ready to sacrifice his son for God but didn't because an angel stopped him.
This is a man who moved looking for a city whose builder and maker is God.

Hebrews 11:10 For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

He was basically a prophet and people at the time saw him blessed and his other son was also blessed by God so with the heritage he had..we think of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. and Islam thinks of Ishmael.

The Koran mentions Jerusalem but Mohammad changed it to Mecca when the Jews wouldn't convert to Islam. They want the city and because Mohammad coveted the people at the time, modern day Muslims may too covet Jerusalem and Israel. Islam is a State building religion and my thoughts are they want to assimilate everyone like the borg.

It is sort of a competition between religions. The Jews want to keep their homeland and Muslims want Israel for Islam.

Chuck

That's all well and good, ass-u-me-ing that the voice in Abrahams head actually was 'God'.

Big assumption... I've known a few people, myself included, who moved across the country because they felt like something inside was 'telling them to go'.

I'm curious as to why so many people today are convinced that 6,000 years ago Abraham was THE man, and God hasn't found one to talk to since.

In the end, it's all assumptive. The fight about Israel is about land. Secondly it's about Jews on the Umma.

How to get Israel out of the Ummah? Now that's the question and it sure looks like the old books say the big battle will be there.

And all three proponents of the books are gearing up for that eventuality, not because it's happening, but because they've all believed strongly enough in it that they might well have created a self-fulfilling prophesy for a Middle Eastern Wide war.

Or there is a G-d and he's coming back. It's easy for me to hedge both bets. I follow the ten commandments as best I can.

Which has not been great, but I yam what I yam.

 

[AVG-JOE]

The grand question I raise with this topic is, "What makes Abraham so fucking special?!?"

​

We ALL hear voices... what makes anyone think that the ones in Abraham's head were God Himself?

Joe,

Why was he chosen? No reason. Maybe it was grace.



Chuck

Grace?

I'm not getting how that applies... other than his wealth, Abraham was not notable among his peers in history... he was just as 'Human', just as 'Monkey', as the next guy.

What 'Grace' did Abraham display to warrant being singled out among all humans in history?

 

[Ropey]

The grand question I raise with this topic is, "What makes Abraham so fucking special?!?"

​

We ALL hear voices... what makes anyone think that the ones in Abraham's head were God Himself?

Joe,

Why was he chosen? No reason. Maybe it was grace.



Chuck

Grace?

I'm not getting how that applies... other than his wealth, Abraham was not notable among his peers in history... he was just as 'Human', just as 'Monkey', as the next guy.

What 'Grace' did Abraham display to warrant being singled out among all humans in history?

Yeah, way to hyperbole. I love hyperbole.

I'm a Monkey too.

 

[AVG-JOE]

Monkeys! And Monkey Spawn!

May your journey back to the stars take you there!

 

[The Irish Ram]

The stories of Abraham are interesting... I can just picture him having his initial conversations with God and then packing up his family and moving far away.

I know.
We have no idea how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden before they messed up, but one of the earliest wonderful memories I have is holding my Daddy's index finger while we walked through his garden and he explained how he made things grow.

Adam and Eve walked in the GARDEN with DAD.
Maybe for years and years. When they had to leave, there was no reason for Him to stay. So He went with them. I'll bet that made Him so sad.

But hanging out in Abraham's living room, (the campfire outside the tent flap), and eating Sarah's stew, and laughing, talking. What a trip.

We have a Father powerful enough to create a universe, but what He wants is to hang out with his kids.
We tend to think of Him as a deity, an obscure, remote, aloof, supreme judge and ruler, too vast to comprehend. He's not. He's Dad and we're His bratty kids. I don't know what He sees in us, but He loves us anyway, just as we are.

 

[The Irish Ram]

Monkeys! And Monkey Spawn!

May your journey back to the stars take you there!

You're coming with..........

 

[BreezeWood]

Read them and pray for revelation. The books are profitable to help us find God. But they are useless if we dont use them.

It's The Books!


Reading them is learning how to read that is not a gift given by God at birth - there is then no reason whatsoever to believe reading is necessary in the pursuit of the Everlasting.

the mere act of reading is in fact a disconnect from the gifts given for the purpose of Remission.


maybe they are usefull and are so in shaping society and materialism but as history has demonstrated they are not a path of Holiness.

the disintegration of Earths Garden being left as text only in a book is not a pathway but a hapless ending.

 

[Foxfyre]

The Torah - Penned by human hands and then preserved by human hands for the last 6,000 years.

The New Testament - Penned by human hands and then preserved by human hands for the last 2,000 years.

The Koran - Penned by human hands and preserved by human hands for the last 1,700 years.

The Books.​

Sacred words on paper describing and testifying to The God of Abraham.


Is it because the words in the stories about Abraham's God are connected to their origins across so much time?

What makes those words 'sacred'?​

Descriptions of a unique in history relationship between a mere Monkey and The Creator. Literally starting with the written preservation of stories told 6,000 years ago among a large and growing family about their grandpa Abe and the tales he told.


And The Word was God.



But they're more than just words.... More because so many of the people who're trying to share this little world believe with all their hearts, souls and minds that Abraham truly was THE Man, his God rocks, and the wordsmiths who poured heart, soul and mind out over parchments, papyrus and clay to tell the 3 Ancient Tales of how to approach and win the heart of this God whom Abraham loved, had a connection to the Divine not seen since in mankind.

I don't know why.​

I consider all the religious spawned by Abraham to be somewhat to mostly based on a psychotic POV about mankind's place in the universe.

Their religious texts are little more than propaganda.

The stories of Abraham are interesting... I can just picture him having his initial conversations with God and then packing up his family and moving far away.

Good thing he was rich. Otherwise his stories more likely would have been written off as opposed to written down.

The stories of Abraham could be history, embellished history, or allegorical explanations. I leave open the possibility for any one of those three things being true. And whichever is closest to the truth does not shake my faith in the least.

There is little difference between the Christian and Jewish faiths in how they view those stories except that the Jews look upon Abraham as their ancestor while Christians are more likely to see him as a teacher or role model. Prior to the emergence of Islam, there is little in the anthropological history to indicate that Arab peoples were adherents to Abrahamic religion or that they gave it any credibility. TThe Arabs who were religious at all were pretty well universally pagan: idol-worshippes, polytheists, Zindiqs (dualism), or Sabines who based their faith in astrology.

Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Isaac fathered the lineage to King David and (according to Christian tradition) to Jesus himself. The Jews mostly believed the Arabs were descendants of Ishmael and thereby distantly related to the Jews but not part of the 'chosen people of God' that God would use to further his purposes.

According to a really REALLY murky history, at some point Mohammed was exposed to Christian thought which is why there are allusions to both Christianity and Abrahamic Judaism incorporated into the Qu-ran, but both Christians and Jews saw Mohammed as a false prophet. And indeed his incorporation of those smidgeons of JudeoChristianity--most especially the attributes of Allah as far as being creator and all powerful--into his texts considerably distorted the common teachings of the JudeoChristian traditions of the Sixth Century.

As for the stories of Abraham and his descendants, they make for fascinating reading when read through the eyes of those who wrote down the stories.

 

[Avatar4321]

BTW Those are not the only Books from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

 

[Alfalfa]

I am constantly amazed at how ignorant people are of the history of the very religions they claim are vitally important to their lives.

 

[Foxfyre]

BTW Those are not the only Books from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

Well the 'books' of the Bible are really whole scrolls and multi fragmented notes gathered together and edited into the format familiar to most people in modern times. And it is a near certainty that we only have a fragment of all the scrolls, notes, and other writings that could have been incorporated into the final edited version. That is true of the Old Testament and evenmore so by New Testament times when literacy was higher and writing had been perfected into a fully coherent process.

As the Apostle wrote in John 21:25 regarding Jesus alone: "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written."

Just imagine how many volumes it would take to have recorded ALL the history of Abraham, Joshua, Moses, Joseph, Daniel, Elijah, etc. etc. etc. and everything these ancient patriarchs of the faith said and did.

 

[The Irish Ram]

Breezie, you are right, we are not forgiven at birth. Our pardon took place 2,000 years ago.

Abraham did have two sons. God's plan was for Abraham to have 1. Sarah planned Ishmael. And when Hagar flaunted her son under Sarah's nose, Sarah made the decision to remove them both from her home.
Abraham's household followed Abraham's God. In fact the 'el' at the end of Ishmael's name pays homage to Abraham's God. When Hagar was expelled, she knew exactly who to call on. She called on the God of Abraham, and her pleas were answered. And she was given prophesy concerning her son, that no woman would want to hear.
I have a feeling spite and jealousy played a big role in adapting the God of Issac into the God she wanted to elevate Ishmael, instead.

 

[Foxfyre]

The grand question I raise with this topic is, "What makes Abraham so fucking special?!?"

​

We ALL hear voices... what makes anyone think that the ones in Abraham's head were God Himself?

Joe,

Why was he chosen? No reason. Maybe it was grace.



Chuck

Grace?

I'm not getting how that applies... other than his wealth, Abraham was not notable among his peers in history... he was just as 'Human', just as 'Monkey', as the next guy.

What 'Grace' did Abraham display to warrant being singled out among all humans in history?

Grace is a Christian concept--unearned and undeserved salvation and/or blessings. The ancient Jew had no such concept but believed and taught that all that was good came from God, and all that was bad came from God as punishment for human wickedness; i.e. failure to keep God's laws.

The story of Abraham is the story of one called to give up everything--his birthright, his wealth, his security, his very life if necessary--and obey YHWH's (God's) command. And because he was so called, God would use him to father a great people to accomplish glory that only YHWH could see. Abraham's story is a story of faith and how God calls and uses ordinary people for unordinary purposes. God did not call Abraham for Abraham's benefit. But it is a theme we see repeated through the scriptures.

 

[AVG-JOE]

Still not sure why so many agree that the voices playing inside Abraham's head were indeed The Creator of The Universe (especially against the back-drop of a modern definition for 'Universe'), but oh well... suffice to say that for some, Abe remains, THE man.

​

We'll have to agree to disagree. If forced to ass-U-Me the Divine, I still favor the voice inside my own head for it.

 

[Foxfyre]

Still not sure why so many agree that the voices playing inside Abraham's head were indeed The Creator of The Universe (especially against the back-drop of a modern definition for 'Universe'), but oh well... suffice to say that for some, Abe remains, THE man.

​

We'll have to agree to disagree. If forced to ass-U-Me the Divine, I still favor the voice inside my own head for it.

Why should we question that Abraham was a man of God and called by God whether he was an actual historical figure or was symbolic of a people chosen by God? The entirety of the Old Testament is based on just such a concept as are those who became Christian patriarchs. It is the only concept that would make any sense to the ancient scribes who first wrote down the oral traditions that related the stories.

 

[Foxfyre]

We can go forward with a lot of whys and other questions too, Joe. How did a relatively insignificant group of nomadic people attain such prominence in the world? No people in the history of the human race has been more hated, more persecuted, or more systematically exterminated than have the presumed descendants of Abraham, and yet they are still with us. And no single group of people in the history of the Earth has accomplished more for the benefit of humankind than as the remnants of those same people that make up a quarter of one percent of the world population.

Just some of the Jewish Nobel prize winners:
Chemistry (33 prize winners, 20% of world total, 30% of US total)
•Economics (29 prize winners, 41% of world total, 53% of US total)
•Literature (13 prize winners, 12% of world total, 27% of US total)
•Peace (9 prize winners, 9% of world total, 10% of US total)4
•Physics (50 prize winners, 26% of world total, 37% of US total)
•Physiology or Medicine (53 prize winners, 26% of world total, 39% of US total)
Also:
•Jewish Recipients of the Kyoto Prize (24% of recipients)
•Jewish Recipients of the Wolf Foundation Prize (33% of recipients)
•Jewish Recipients of the US National Medal of Science (38% of recipients)

It is not hard to understand why it is easy to believe that these remarkable gifted people are indeed chosen and ordained by God for some great purpose.

And also there was an even more dedicated and deliberate attempt to stamp out Christianity and destroy all its manuscripts for much of its first 300 years, and yet Christianity has thrived and expanded throughout the world and it's 'book' remains a top best seller decade after decade after decade.

I have to believe that God's hand is in that too.

 

[daws101]

I know of no "word of God", no revelation, that isn't 100% dependent on hear-say (which I type with a hyphen to keep it from being read as heresy). Is there any reasonable position on the existence of God other than agnostic-atheism or agnostic-deism? That eliminates all revealed religions.

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[daws101]

The Torah - Penned by human hands and then preserved by human hands for the last 6,000 years.

The New Testament - Penned by human hands and then preserved by human hands for the last 2,000 years.

The Koran - Penned by human hands and preserved by human hands for the last 1,700 years.

Joe.

It isn't the books.
It is true that no one would follow Mohammad without a book but the problem is Islam has billions of followers and I would say that half are illiterate.
Islam spread by the sword.
They burned passages that contradicted the Qu'ran.
If reading was all that was needed, there would be more Christians because the Koran speaks better about Christ than Mohammad.

Chuck

Are all three then sacred and abused?

By being read and / or by being talked about matters not. The Books are what brings us to this crossroads in history. The question each must answer in the privacy of their own heart is "Are any of the words in those Books Divinely inspired and truly 'sacred'?"

What makes those words 'sacred'?​

the short answer is: intrinsically they are not sacred ...just as all religious writing is not.
the belief in them gives the illusion of sacredness and that is the cause of the greatest and most destructive events in history.

 

[daws101]

BTW Those are not the only Books from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

yes they are. the books you're alluding to are complete fiction as opposed those semi fictional tales.