Messenger, I honour your commitment to what you believe is correct.

My comments were to suggest that if presenting evidence, it is wise to make sure it is relevant to the
topic under discussion.

Did you click or paste the link and check out the complete article on it. I did not paste the entire article but what I read of it, it was relevant to what Bruno and I were discussing.

Yes, I have gone through the article, not reading word by word, and the "judgement" paragraphs (about whether affected carcases should be approved in part or condenmed in total) makes me very happy to be vegetarian. :)

But I did not see anything about the points you were making, except, as I stated, that it is well known
that humans can catch animal diseases by contact with tissue or secretions.

What about the blood from the turnip? ;-)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/07/990715134714.htm


I guess you just never can be sure!!!

Messenger are you talking about Dr. Jay M. Hoffman by any chance. He is Jewish and was my pastor back in the late 50's and 60's in NY. I was wondering where I had heard that about the urine in the blood. So when you mentioned his name it came back to me. He used to do these lectures down in Manhattan for the Jewish people. I used to run the control room for him. I don't have any of the program stuff that he used so I can't look up any references that he had. I do have a book he wrote called: "The Missing Link". And here is a clinical statement from that book: " Flavor in meat is due to the presence of extractive substances, soluble in water, alcohol, or ether. In addition to carbohydrates and fats just mentioned these include certain non-protein nitrogenous constituents such as creatinine, xanthine, hypoxanthine and so forth. The latter are the chief sources of exogenous uric acid." He goes on to say. Now let me shorten this so that the layman can understand it. These medical terms may be foreign to some. Let us restate it thus: "Flavor in meat is due to the presence of...uric acid." It is the uric acid that gives the flavor to meat.

There is more in the book, but I thought for the time this is enough. And probably what you were looking for.

pk

Praise the Lord my friend pkrause, God does answer prayer I have been wanting to get the reference for awhile now, been praying only lately about it. Yes that is the same Dr. Hoffman. I was living in Up-State New York at the time closer to the Pennsy.State-line, I was a new Adventist it was 1976 -77 he came and gave those health lectures for about a week, many things I learn back then from him changed my life style. By God's grace I got victory over meat and keep following what I learned from Dr.Hoffman. Thank you so much for sharing it with us. Is that book the "Missing Link" still in print? Do you have an address for Dr. Hoffman? You have provided the missing link to this thread too. God is good, thanks again friend, talk to you later!

P.S. Pkrause, I just looked at your profile and saw you were from Lancaster Ma. I was born and raised very close to there in Lowell, Ma small world. Did you go to Atlantic Union College? I tried to see if your were a male or female, do not know to call you brother or sister, but your profile does not say. But I would like to know your real name we may know each other your from Ma and NY. Can you send me a PM. thanks again!

blessings in Christ, messenger

And to further muddy the waters, my good doctor friend in South River, Ontario told me that the analysis of chicken soup compared very closely with that of urine.

Leave it up to you Glad ... to bloody up the waters.

Ha thanks for that gladussee!! You know the funny thing is, in the Jewish household when someone is sick the mother makes chicken soup. hahaha Its suppose to be real good for you. My father loved chicken noodle soup. He once told me that he could eat soup for every meal. I'm not sure I can here someone say chicken soup without thinking about, I'm not even going to say it. hahahaha
I personally have not had the real chicken soup since I was a kid. Now I love to make chicken noodle soup with chicken mckays broth.

pk

Messenger if you google it you will see a few places that you can purchase it. I did notice it on ebay also, its like $25. My book is really old, I believe he gave this to my mom. Dr. Hoffman and his wife are resting in the Lord now. He past away awhile ago and trudie a number of years ago. He and his family moved to California, not sure when. He also had been in some really bad car accident. They said that if it were not for his healthy life style that he should have died. But I think form what I've heard that he contacted Hepatitis form all the blood transfusions that he received, I believe he eventually died from that. I'll have to ask my mom to make sure. My name is Peter Krause, I was raised in NY from the age of 3. I lived there till '72, than moved with Faith for Today to Thousand Oaks, CA. Really did like it so I moved back to NY, than moved to Lancaster in '73 to work for the college press at AUC. I never went to AUC but my brother did, from '68-'72 I believe.

pk

Hey brother Peter, it's a small world. Thanks again, Sorry to hear about Dr.Hoffman and his wife. But I knew he would have to be old if still alive,because he was old when he came to our church in 1976-77 I was only 22 yrs old. He had some great health lectures. You moved back to Ma, about the time I left I left in 73 to join the military and then moved to Up-State NY it was Elmira, NY SDA Church were I got baptized in 76 and met Dr. Hoffman. Wow, this is a blessing. Your name sounds familiar but not sure,I will send you a PM message with my real name, I have some Jewish ansestry too many in Ma, anyway I am glad that the info. is now made clear for others to know the dangers of meat etc.

Blessings, Matthew

I still unfortunately still have on occasion a piece of chicken or turkey. And fish also. But not like before. I try to limit it. There was a time that I would pass a burger king or a wendys and the aromour would call to me, but not anymore. Actually when I started to stop eating I would only buy meat that said it came from a place where they were fed organic food.

My father was Jewish, he was from Poland. He also spent time in concentration camps. He worked as a butcher in the Bronx for many years. He used to bring home the best meat. It was so lean it was unreal, absolutely no fat. I remember once going in to an arby's for a roastbeef sandwich, I had to put it back it so much fat on it. hahahahaha They must of thought I was crazy. But I knew what good meat looked like.

pk

Hey PK, I know what you mean. After Dr. Hoffman helped to convince me to become a vegetarian and with prayer and faith I was doing well with it, not missing the meat at all. A couple of years later I became a full-time Literature Evangelist and met a young lady who was also a L.E. we eventually got married, she convinced me to become a vegan with her. After about 10 years of marriage, we split up. I could not cook like her, guess what I went back to eating fast food cheese burgers and KFC chicken, in about one year, I went from very fit,athletic to gaining about 60 lbs and got high blood pressure and some other problems and I saw first hand what meat can do to you, especially after being vegetarian for about 15 yrs. So now I am glad to be a vegetarian again. Health is better again and God's diet is the best, no doubt. And I do not miss all the urine in the bloody meat!

blessings,messenger

pk

now let us all take deep breath



















INHALE
















EXHALE

I don't believe that any of these prohibitions in the OT had anything to do with health from the authors point of view. The drinking of blood has been seen as the source of life energy in many traditions. The ancient Israelites may not have been allowed to do the drinking blood, but they certainly believed drinking it would produce the results of bringing the life energy of the victim to themselves as evidenced by their practice of doing it at times. And this would provide us the meaning of a "blood" sacrifice because the Israelites would sacrifice the blood rather than drink it.

What people don't realize is that early Israelites practiced human sacrifice. This was later limited to the Levites and eventually even they could offer a sacrifice for their first born sons. This is evidenced by the following text...

28 Nothing that a person owns that has been devoted to destruction for the LORD, be it human or animal, or inherited landholding, may be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy to the LORD.
29 No human beings who have been devoted to destruction can be ransomed; they shall be put to death.(Lev. 27:28-29)

"The effectiveness of child sacrifice in dire circumstances, particularly of the high-born offspring of kings is illustrated in 2 Kings 3:26 'And when the king of Moab saw that the battle was too sore for him, he took with him seven hundred men that drew swords, to break through even unto the king of Edom: but they could not. Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. And there was great indignation against Israel: and they departed from him, and returned to their own land.'"

"The story of the Daughter of Jeptath mingles the reality of first-born sacrifice to Yahweh, particularly in times of disaster with a tradition of goddess worship in the high places which lingered ever after: Judges 11:30 "And Jephthah vowed unto the Lord 'If thou shalt deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.' So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the Lord delivered them into his hands. ... And Jephthah came unto his house, and his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; And he rent his clothes, and said, 'Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back'. And she said unto him 'Let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows'. And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains. At the end of two months, she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel, That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year."

The issue of the condemnation of human sacrifice in the early OT was not because the practice was considered wrong, but because they were sacrificing to the wrong god.

"As is usual with the disguise of seasonal cult in the Old Testament, the sacrifice of seven men to the barley harvest after a three-year famine is described in terms of political history with heart-wrenching ovetones for Rizpah the concubine:

2 Samuel 21:1 "Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David enquired of the Lord. And the Lord answered, It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites. ... And [the Gibeonites] answered the king, The man that consumed us, and that devised against us that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts of Israel, Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul, whom the Lord did choose. And the king said, I will give them. But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of the Lord's oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite: And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest. And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night. And it was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done. And David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of Jabeshgilead ... and they gathered the bones of them that were hanged. ... And after that God was intreated for the land."

Hiel of Bethel (9th century B.C.) "built Jericho; he laid its foundation at the cost of Abiram his firstborn, and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub" (1 Kings 16:34). They may however have died accidentally in fulfillment of a curse hovering over the site (Josh. 6:26)" Ahaz, the king of Judah (8th century B.C.): "even burned his son as an offering, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel" (2 Kings 16:3). The same is told of King Manasseh (7th century B.C.) in 2 Kings 21:6.

Such child sacrifices took place primarily in the Valley of Hinnom south of Jerusalem, which is still called the Valley of Fire today, and which gave its name to the New Testament Hell, Gehenna. Some of these may be exaggerated accounts by opponents of the syncretic practices of the monarchy... But not all the Old Testament reports on child sacrifice are based on hostile propaganda, and not all child sacrifices are rejected as Gentile abominations. ... The Old Testament author reports [Jephtha's sacrifice of his daughter] without a word of blame; and in the New Testament Jephtha is praised along with Abraham as a hero of faith (Heb. 11:32; 11:17)."

And this practice of human sacrifice becomes the cornerstone of Christian belief in the sacrifice of Jesus. And this is celebrated by the drinking of blood. To drink the blood of one's god and eat his flesh has its roots in paganism.

We condemn Christians for practicing Christmas and Easter as pagan holidays and yet the core rituals of Christianity are pagan all the way through and this includes communion.

Just think for a minute. Should we give our respect to a god who is ultimately only appeased by blood? And by the blood of his own son?

Yes I agree that the Jews got into sacrificing there children, but that's because they started practicing with the pagan's, just what moses had warned them about. Most pagan's and even when God called Abraham out from his family were all involved in that. I don't believe for a minute that the Jews practice this when right with God.

pk

I'm under the same opinion as pk, that human sacrifice was not of God's intent but an adaptation of the pagan practises around them.



As far as I know the sacrifice of Jesus is not celebrated by the drinking of blood by any Christians. From the time of the Fall in the garden of Eden the sacrifice of Jesus was foretold by the slaying of a lamb, not of a human.

This brings to mind the sacrifice that Abraham was asked to perform- to give up his firstborn. He was stopped at the last minute, God didn't require him to carry through the task but instead provided him with a ram. But knowing the connection with the pagan practise, I'm wondering if the battle in Abraham's heart was more than we even consider.

Richard this far off the topic of this thread about the blood of animals and is quite offensive.

I didn't find what Richard said offensive per se, it's his opinion. I can see where he is relating the practise of drinking human blood to the prohibition of eating any blood with meat.

As I mentioned before, I've heard from another source the idea that the prohibition was derived as a result from the practises of the pagans around the Israelites. That's not a new thought.

Well, unless you don't believe that god gave the Levitical law then this quote becomes rather puzzling...

"28 Nothing that a person owns that has been devoted to destruction for the LORD, be it human or animal, or inherited landholding, may be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy to the LORD.
29 No human beings who have been devoted to destruction can be ransomed; they shall be put to death.(Lev. 27:28-29)"




Some protestants drink Jesus' blood and eat his body symbolically in the practice of communion and Catholics believe that we literally drink Jesus' blood and eat his body through transubstantiation. That is literally drinking the blood of one's god and eating his body. "There's power in the blood?"

I think the story of Abraham was an apologetic designed to justify the lack of child sacrifice among the Jews to their neighbors. It is apparent that the Jews respected the act of human sacrifice when we look at their reaction to the sacrifice of the first born son of the King of Moab. They left the battle field. And they evidently believed that if they didn't justify it, they would be seen as lacking in dedication to their god.

When we begin to study the surrounding belief systems and what the Jews were actually doing in their religious practices we can realize that these dietary laws had nothing to do with any kind of scientific health practices. Vegetarianism is definitely not taught in the Bible as a health practice since even Jesus ate lamb and fish.

And how common was that? And you are saying that the people would drink the sacrificed person's blood?

I find that hard to believe...

I think this rather interesting and certainly within the framework of the topic at hand.

It demonstrates that the blood issue was far from simply a health issue. It was a ceremonial cleansing, a ritual of sacrifice, i.e., the giving up of something of value. If blood was bad, diseased, considered harmful, getting rid of it would be disposal, taking out the garbage, so to speak. Where is the sacrifice of dumping useless or even harmful stuff on the ground?

The transition or supreme paradigm shift that Jesus made was this - The old order of things, giving your blood or that of your valuable (the best of the flock) animals to God will not do you any good. The absolute best, the most you have to offer, even your own blood is not good enough. God turns that around and says, it is not you who must sacrifice your blood to me to fix this mess, it is I, your God, who must sacrifice my first born, my own flesh and blood and waste his valuable blood by pouring it out on the ground. Just as with Abraham, I will provide you with what is needed.

Read Hebrews in this light and you can see that it isn't the blood of bulls and sheep that give us life, but the blood of God himself.

To turn this hugely symbolic matter of blood sacrifice into a mere physical health issue is to trivialize it beyond belief and completely misses the point God was making in this divine object lesson. That lesson had to have made a marked impression on the ancient pagans, to whom the Israelites were to be an example, far more than it does on us being merely preoccupied with our own bodily functions.

Me, too!

The blood in the Jewish system wasn't drank but sacrificed to God by placing it on the alter. And the frequency of this practice is not the issue. The issue is that God appears to ask for human sacrifice at times.

What this text refers to is that early Jewish worshipers offered the first fruits of everything including their first born to god in the form of an actual sacrifice that ended in the death of their first born. In early Jewish belief this was clearly seen as a sacrifice to Jehovah, even though later writers dismissed this connection and used the word Molech which means king and Baal which means Lord. These sacrifices were done near Jerusalem in the valley of fire or Gehena which we get the New Testament idea of hell from.

We have clues that human sacrifice was not seen as wrong in of itself, but was wrong when it was done to appease any other god than Jehovah.

We can see how God was appeased with human sacrifice in this story...

"As is usual with the disguise of seasonal cult in the Old Testament, the sacrifice of seven men to the barley harvest after a three-year famine is described in terms of political history with heart-wrenching ovetones for Rizpah the concubine:

2 Samuel 21:1 "Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David enquired of the Lord. And the Lord answered, It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites. ... And [the Gibeonites] answered the king, The man that consumed us, and that devised against us that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts of Israel, Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul, whom the Lord did choose. And the king said, I will give them. But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of the Lord's oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite: And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest. And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night. And it was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done. And David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of Jabeshgilead ... and they gathered the bones of them that were hanged. ... And after that God was intreated for the land."

It has become more evident that the OT was put together around the 6th century BCE and that when these texts were put together, the editors didn't get all the passive references to human sacrifice out. We see an attempt to combine many different forms of Jewish belief together along with variations of other pagan myths compiled into what would look like an actual history. The problem is that we have references to early cities that did not exist until the 6th century BCE.

When I think of Hebrew firstborns who were dedicated to the Lord, I think of Samuel who was given up (sacrificed) to work in the temple.

I thought that the firstborn was the one who inherited the family head position, who inherited a double portion of the inheritance, not being sacrificed on the altar.

These policies where the final result of Jewish theology and revisions to the texts as social awareness changed. The story of Abraham and Isaac are an apologetic to allow a sacrificial lamb to ransom the first born. Oddly enough you had to ransom your donkey and if you didn't you had to break its neck. So humans and donkeys had to be ransomed. This appears to be a revision of early first born sacrificial laws.

Before these revisions and alterations to the story, it is apparent that the Jews were sacrificing their children. We have archeological evidence of this. The apologists say that these were disobedient Jews. But the Bible does not condemn child sacrifice, it condemns who the children are being sacrificed to. Because when human sacrifice is done to Jehovah, it is praised as a sign of loyalty to god and god responds by being appeased. One has to look at these laws and conclude that they did not have their source in any superior god, but had their source in the culture and its perceived needs.

One has to also question a god who's best solution to the problem of human suffering is to sacrifice his own son in a cruel and humiliating way. And the ultimate thing that god is appeased by is his own son's blood. This makes no sense to me at all.

If this story was told about Zeus and Hercules we would completely dismiss it as nonsense and superstition.

But Richard- this is the awfulness of the sin problem. God did send His very own son, knowing the manner of death he would suffer, because the problem of sin was so serious. It wasn't God who killed Jesus, it was the Romans and the Jewish leaders.

But He did that so that we could be redeemed from the penalty of our sin. He loves us even enough to not withhold His only Son.

It sounds like you are blaming God... but think about it. If what you are saying is true, then how do you explain the power of God for the good in people's lives? How do you explain how God is able to provide, in the Bible, those promises of hope that actually produce GOOD in people?

If God was the author of human sacrifice, which included, as you are saying, the drinking of blood, then you are saying that we humans have more wisdom than He does, because this behaviour doesn't make sense to our human way of thinking.

If you take a look at the natural world, that was made by God's hand, you will see that God did not create it to be a bloodbath. Even in its modern debilitated state, nature still inspires peace in the heart.

Something with your theory just isn't adding up.

Well, since the God of the Bible claims to be all powerful, he is ultimately responsible since he did not act. And God did remove His Spirit from Jesus. This certainly wasn't forced on Him.

Plus there is no demonstrable proof that this particular solution works for the problem of suffering. I find it unlikely that a God who created the complex inner workings of DNA and reproduction can only come up with a solution that requires a brutal death of his son.



I would much rather have a reasonable conversation with God. That would be far more useful than some complex cryptic and primitive sacrifice.



Well, since I don't believe in that particular god, it is unlikely that I blame something that doesn't exist.

I happen to believe that goodness comes from within people themselves. I find no evidence that it requires a Biblical god for that to happen. Most of what I observe in people who claim these promises of "hope" is really fear under another name.

I think it is far more virtuous for a person who has nothing to gain to express goodness than someone who fears the punishment of a god. I don't deny that there are kind and loving people in churches, but churches, fortunately, are not the exclusive source of great people. And, at least to me, good is not a very useful word. I think goodness is artificial and really only a name we give to some illusion.

I would rather see the lives of people as beautiful rather than good.



Well, it appears that these texts indicate that God was the author of human sacrifice right from Mount Sinai. In addition to instructions to offer every first born to him as a sacrifice, there are death penalties for even the most minor offenses. And I would say that we humans easily have more wisdom than this god.



And fortunately the natural world doesn't behave as badly as the god of the OT.



Most of what I have quoted is fact. The theory is trying to explain how such a brutal god could be considered loving. The easiest explanation, to me, is that this god was made up by tribal culture and needs to be moved past as quickly as possible. This would go a long way in stopping the killing in god's name by Christians, Jews, and Muslims since they seem to be following the instructions and example of this god.

Give us your understanding of what the Bible says is the reason for Christ's death and resurrection.

Also if you were God how would you deal with, or solve, the problem of sin and suffering in the world?

In prayer, you can have such a conversation with God.

But explain how anyone's simply having a reasonable conversation with God would solve the problem of sin, rebellion and death?

Prayer is not a conversation. Its a person talking to themselves.

You need to read what I said more carefully. I didn't say a conversation would solve the problems of sin and suffering. I simply said it would be more useful than the myth Christianity basically adapted from various pagan sources.

I appreciate the thought that you have put into the topic of life, Richard, but I simply must disagree. I have know too many people who have been changed by a power outside themselves, who have listened to God speaking to them, who have had help provided for them, to believe otherwise.

God is well able to reach people's hearts. I feel that you are one of those that would need something quite tangible to experience to be able to see differently, and that's okay. :)

As for people changing themselves- with God it is usually when a person admits that they CAN'T make a change on their own that it happens.

"Most of what I have quoted is fact. The theory is trying to explain how such a brutal god could be considered loving. The easiest explanation, to me, is that this god was made up by tribal culture and needs to be moved past as quickly as possible. This would go a long way in stopping the killing in god's name by Christians, Jews, and Muslims since they seem to be following the instructions and example of this god."

No I believe they are following what satan is portraying as God. And they are believing this delution of God.

pk

Relying on reason and logic alone, it doesn't make sense. But there is more to it than that. It is said that the primary attribute, the very essense of God is love. Love is often not reasonable and logical, but when we love, it makes great emotional sense, even if it does not make logical sense. If you leave love out of the analysis, nothing makes sense.

Well, I understand the concept of admitting one's powerlessness. And within this model resentment and fear are the root causes of self destructive behaviors and the cause of harm to others.

My point is that a god who claims he is jealous and spreads fear is not a higher power. That god makes an ideal of resentment and fear. This is opposite of love and these "ideals" have proven to create addictive behaviors.

If people are changing to the positive from a higher power, it is not this particular god. I don't deny that there are powers higher than myself, but I don't believe that the god of the Bible is one of them.

Most of what I have quoted is the Bible itself. There are some ancient versions of Christianity that believed that the god of the OT was the equivalent of Satan.

Well if you are saying it doesn't make sense then you, as well, are appealing to reason.

The idea that God requires blood of somebody to make everything right doesn't make heart sense either.

God asks us to forgive, which is an irrational act, but when it comes to sin, God doesn't really forgive because He still requires his pound of flesh. In this case its the flesh and blood of his own son. God is really not the greatest power in the universe because He is unable to change His own laws in this case.

It seems obvious to me that these OT laws were the products of men to solve their myopic theological assumptions about the behavior and wants of mythical gods in an attempt to make sense of the world around them. It was a way to try and gain a sense of control over famine, crops, societal concerns, one's children, wives, etc. and/or to explain why there were famines, death, suffering, and pain. In their world view, somebody must be at fault. And that is the fatal weakness of that world view. The idea that somebody must be at fault. Its an assumption that has created a lot of suffering in the name of religion.

i read the ot over and over again til i had it pretty well down, and as i read it now, i see more and more clearly that the israelites, other than a handful, started off wrong from the get-go.

i mention reading it over and over to stress the point that we get a sense of the whole as opposed to reading parts and then piecing those parts together somehow.

very few of the israelites ever wanted to know God and learn of His ways. did the israelites get into child sacrifice? YES. did the Lord ever call for that? NO. was it ever meant as symbolic of God killing His firstborn? NO.

the penalty for breaking the law was death. there are "violent" discussions between those who see that death as being imposed by God-as in He was going to kill us- and those who see the death as a result of: if you drink hemlock it will cause you to die, if we sin it will cause us to die.

if we choose to believe that God was going to kill us instead of allowing cause to effect kill, i guess then we have to see God killing Jesus.

the problem with that is that there is no place in the bible that shows that God killed Jesus. i have never seen it from the sacrificial system to the cross. it just isnt recorded.

what is recorded is that Jesus saw we were going to die, and that permanently as in never-ever live again, so He offered to give His life so that if any so wished they could live.

how that works is what we need to study.

child sacrifice was never ordained by God as in, im going to kill my firstborn so you have to kill your firstborn.