The answer is that Christians believe that Mosaic Law was fulfilled and is no loger in effect. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Covenant

That is called "smoking pot" and is something I absoluteley, under no circumstance, would want to be part of... Disowning.

As stated previously, the planet might be in the hands of chipmunks, acorns, one or more gods or santa for all I care. There are, and have always been, loonies all over the place and even though I might feel the world would be a less colorful place without them... It´s like the adage:



What I am saying is that the picturesque and colorfulness side of folly fade in tandem with the level of stupidity and the number of followers any given mad idear has got. Scientologists might be a quite a handful mentally, but their modest numbers simply makes them alot less scary than islam or christianity.



So, what you are saying is you will "chip in" (LOL) on my chipmunks if I give you threre hail marys? Is coalition ventures like this common in the religious community? Are there any considerable effects of synergy in sharing each others fantasys?

Sorry I didn’t reply to your questions. I will attempt to do so. Keep in mind these are my views based on my studies and experience. I do not speak for all Christians.



There are Biblical scholars because people view things differently even within Christendom. Pick pretty much any topic (Baptism, Gifts of the Spirit, Predestination/Free, etc.) and you will find Christians who have differing views. The reason I believe there are Biblical scholars is because the Bible was written in 3 different languages (Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic) over a period of a few thousand years. It is important to look at the Bible in context.



A close personal relationship with God is with the individual not a particular group or denomination. Once a person receives Jesus into their hearts as Lord and Savior Christians believe the Holy Spirit of God comes to live inside the person. The idea is that God no longer needs a temple and priests. We believe Christian’s bodies are His temples and Christians are His priests with Christ Jesus as the High Priest.

How can I put this in terms that might be understood? There is a Hindu fable by John Godfrey Saxe about six blind men and an elephant. The first one came up to the elephant and touched its sturdy side therefore thought the elephant was like a wall. The second came up to the elephant and touched its tusk therefore thought the elephant was like a long spear. The third came up to the elephant and touched its squirmy tusk therefore thought the elephant was like a squirmy snake. Perhaps we can all get the picture they had different perspectives on the same animal. They all described what they were able to grasp in their present condition. Yet all were partly right and all were partly wrong. Now the illustration does break down at some point. Humans are finite in their understanding of the universe, life, etc. God is limitless, all knowing, and His thoughts are absolutely amazing. That is a picture of how I view discussions on Biblical teachings and divergences on the same.



Once again scholars are needed because the Bible was written in many languages over a very long period of time. Plus add the need for translation. Plus consider the Bible is the single piece of literature that has the most ancient copies (take the Dead Sea Scrolls for example) in the whole world. In the fact a majority of Christians would say the Bible isn’t just for the learned. Thus the reason it has been translated into so many languages. Through God’s Holy Spirit Christians believe that God can touch a person’s heart directly through His Word.



God’s works are perfect. The Bible tells us creation was a wondrous, good event. God created Adam and Eve as perfect beings. The reason for imperfection is sin (disobedience) entered into the world as Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating of the tree of good and evil. So corruption entered into the world with “the fall” of Adam and Eve’s disobedience. After that point all people born had a sinful nature. This didn’t surprise God though. So no God didn’t “mess up.” God has/had a plan. The Bible foretells of a Redeemer (Messiah) who would succeed where Adam failed. This Redeemer would make the right the choices where Adam did not. This Redeemer would pay the price for all sin and restore the possibility of a relationship with God. The reason we don’t make perfect choices is because we are all born with sin natures that separate us from God. Perfection will only come with Christ’s return to earth to judge the world and re-make everything.

I realize this may not make a lot of sense. But take into consideration 1 Cor. 1:18 “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

Actually it is I who thank you Tdelamater for joining the discussion. It's nice to have someone that can also contribute towards the Biblical side of the argument for a change.

Since these threads largely go nowhere, I try to avoid them. But since you asked & never got an answer, I'll wade into the fray...


We need Bible scholars for the same reason we need financial scholars...because humans are lazy. Christians included. We're too lazy to use a little common sense & initiative to read our Bibles & learn God's Word for ourselves or in financial terms "Live below your means". How hard is that to comprehend? Why did DR become a millionaire by writing books on such a simple subject? Because people are stupid.

FWIW, most 'Bible scholars' are fallible too. I don't put them on a pedestal. Most of them are just in it to sell books, drive traffic to their blogs, & get their face on TV.


His works aren't perfect because of sin. God didn't mess up man. Man messed up man.

Free will, huh? Who told you that nonsense? Christians don't have free will.

To clarify a little on this idea of covenants and contrast the differences between the two covenants...

I. First what is a Biblical Covenant?

A Biblical Covenant is an agreement between God and humanity recorded in the text of the Bible.

II. Second what are the two primary Covenants in the Bible?

Abrahamic Covenant: – Gen. 12, 15, & 17 (New Covenant)

1. Who was it given to?
Exclusively to Abraham and his descendents. Gen. 17:17

2. What was the promise?
Abraham is promised a land, a great nation, and a blessing to the rest of the world through Abraham’s seed. It is important to note that this covenant was unconditional. It is explained that Abraham was looking for a better, heavenly land who’s builder is God. Heb 11:8-16 This seed was Jesus Christ. Gal. 3:16

3. To who or did/does the promise apply?
All of Abraham’s descendents and those adopted as children of Abraham into God’s family through price paid at the cross Jesus Christ and His resurrection. Gen. 17:17, Gal. 3:7, 26-29

4. How long would it last?
It is an everlasting covenant. It is not replaced by any later covenant. Gen. 17:17

5. How does it work?
This Covenant could not be broken and was unconditional. Abraham accepted by faith God’s promise. So this covenant is based on faith in God’s promises. "Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” Gen. 15:6

6. What is the sign of this covenant?
Circumcision was the outward sign. Gen. 17:10 But physical circumcision had to be matched with circumcision of the heart or the internal sign. Jer. 4:4


Mosaic Covenant: Exodus 19-24 (Old Covenant)

1. Who was it given to?
Moses and the children of Israel.

2. What was the promise?
“Then Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain and said, “This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.” Ex. 19:3-6

3. To who does or did the promise apply?
This applied to the people of Israel.

4. How long would it last?
The Mosaic Covenant was a temporary, conditional covenant, and was broken by Israel. The Mosaic Covenant was to end with the coming of the Messiah. This covenant was completed in and through Jesus Christ. Lev 6:1-39, Deut. 28, Mal. 3:5.

5. How does it work?
According to Charles Hodge: A) The Law of Moses was in first place a reenactment of the covenant of works; viewed this way, it is the ministration of condemnation and death. B) It was also a national covenant, giving national blessings based on national obedience; in this way it was purely legal. C) In the sacrificial system, it points to the Gospel of salvation through a mediator.

6. What is the sign of this covenant?
The Law of the 10 Commandments.

Thanks for that answer, Tightwad. Although I don't agree with you, I appreciate the courtesy of your reply. But the thing I still don't get it that the close personal relationship Protestants have with God (heck, I've seen folks speak in tongues via The Holy Spirit) would obviate the need for Biblical scholarship, wouldn't it? Lazy or not, wouldn't God just tell Christians what He means? Yet there are so many interpretations of the Bible that it staggers the imagination.



Oh, the free will thing is an offshoot of a debate I was having with Eagle in the original ObamaCare thread. Eagle told me that nonsense. If I have time, I'll find the he made.

But in response to your answer, where did sin come from? Didn't God create everything from The Beginning? Since God is perfect, I'd presume that everything He created would be perfect, unless sin could be considered some kind of Cosmic Mutation. But if you buy into the concept of mutation, you're going down the path where evolution is possible.

Again, thanks for your reply. You don't have to answer the queries above, but you can see I just have a hard time buying the whole thing just on the basis of the contradictions.

I personally don't believe in tongues & "holy rolling" if you will. I believe that tongues was a one time event at Pentecost not something that someone needs to do in order to prove they are a Christian. As far as scholarship, just because you profess faith doesn't automatically make you a Bible wizard. You have to learn it & be taught it. That's called discipleship which IMO the church falls woefully short on these days.

The Holy Spirit is part of the trinity & is more or less a "guide" if you will for doing God's will but you can still over rule it in this world. That's when your un-Godly acts & deeds become sin. You choose to sin because you have a sinful nature. Man can not & will not choose righteousness without Christ.



God did create the heavens & the earth and everything else. The Garden of Eden was perfection. Sin entered the world when Eve ate the forbidden fruit. It was manifest thru mankind when Adam ate the fruit as well. Some might even call sin a curse.

I agree.

I have expressed my opinion regarding the poor critical thinking skills that some people exhibit. Clearly, at least to many people, fanatically religious people of any faith sometimes exhibit this. Anytime you believe something in spite of vast evidence against it and need to resort to complex and twisted rationalizations, well, you are throwing away all credibility. IF I were to believe in a god I would believe that humans were given intelligence (through the process of evolution) so that they could use that intelligence to understand the world around them. Seeking that understanding drove many religious people up until about 100 years ago. We know many of those individuals as great scientists including Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin. But in the last 100 years science has moved rapidly while religion has failed miserably in keeping up and reconciling its teachings with actual observed evidence. That's just plain idiotic in my opinion.

It's not not religious belief that I have a problem with. It is the intentional dismissing of intelligence and critical thinking.

Frankly, christians, especially fundamentalist and evangelical christians are some of the most uniformed and ignorant people around regarding their own history, philosophy, and religion. They accept what some equally uninformed idiot pastor tells them and then they believe it as fact. Biblical scholars, the real ones with actual doctoral degrees from real universities, whether they are religious or not, at least try to reconcile their knowledge with evidence from history, archaeology, and other sources. But in my observation, many fundamentalist and evangelical christians don't like to be bothered by facts. They just do their thing and wallow in their own ignorance. In that aspect they are no different from the fanatical muslims, jews, hindus, and others that do their own despicable things because they are too stupid to know that those are not the things their religion is about.

And you know what, you DO have murderers, bombers, racists, and other criminals in your midst. I could name names but you already know who many of them are. You just try to make up some twisted explanation about why they really are not like you. But you know what, 99%+ of muslims would say the same thing about the terrorists acting in the name of their religion.

I cut out a lot of the quotes because it was getting unwieldy. Besides, the full quotes are in the posts above. Forgive if in the interest of brevity, I've cut out some context; you can correct me if I'm wrong.

Anyway, to the point: don't the statements above form a contradiction? If we choose to sin, it implies that we have a choice. And that in turn implies that we have free will, doesn't it?

I can agree with much of this which is basically what I said in my earlier post. I have met many Christians who can't answer simple questions about their faith. It's really sad. I also have no problem ripping into a "Bible scholar" if he is teaching something that's not biblical. I had one of the well known end times prophecy authors bad mouth me on his blog just because I asked a simple question that deflated his take on something. I'm not even that popular in my own Sunday school class because I'm outspoken.


Yes and no.

You have a choice to sin or not. Please don't confuse that with being tempted to sin. No where in the Bible does it say you won't be tempted to sin. Jesus was even tempted by Satan.

Christians do not have free will. We were bought for a price. Free will & freedom of choice are entirely different things. If you tell your kids to clean their room or else because you said so, does that give them a choice to obey or not in your eyes? Yeah, they can disobey but at what cost?

I constantly hear Christians praying for God's will in their life but then two seconds later tell me they have free will. Really? Amazing...

So we’re going to bring up again stuff back from the Crusades and the Dark Ages. How about relevant current facts like within the last 50, 100, or 200 years? I noticed there was no comment made on the post regarding Islamic teachings calling people to violence against non-Muslims. I ask again where is something like that called out in the Bible? Particularly in the New Testament by Jesus? Where did Jesus say the three options were convert, become slaves, or die? That is what Islam teaches.

While I’m sure there are some extremist radicals that claim to be Christians you don’t see countries set forth as theistic governments based on Christianity. What about Islam? How many countries in the world have populations of 95-99% followers of Islam? How many of these countries serve as safe havens for the "minority" terrorists? In fact countries that are historically (N. America/Europe as examples) primarily made up of Christians offer more freedoms than those with other religions. Can we agree on that?

Sam Harris's said it best "The only problem with Islamic fundamentalism is the fundamentals of Islam." When will people realize Islam is a political and religious force that will not be pacified. And this is not limited to actual terrorism. There is a movement by Muslims to peacefully take over countries through Islamization.

Question: Was it not a devout Muslim who killed 13 at Fort Hood? Was he not just simply following the Quran?

“Moderate” Muslims refuse to turn in extremists. Why? Because the “moderate” Muslims know the extremists are following the Qur'an. And if the moderate Muslims object they will be considered infidels and lumped in with all other non-Muslims. Perhaps this is why liberals are so quick to kiss up to the Islamic community. Surely we can agree in the 21st century Islam has the highest percent of violent extremists compared to other religions in the world?

I understand and respect that, and yet given precept that the Bible is the Word of God, I would expect more common interpretation. Surely God does not intend to for the Bible to communicate a different message to different groups of acolytes.


But how is that relevant? Yes, the Bible was written over hundreds of years and by numerous authors over the centuries. I get that. But if that's relevant, how do you know that the particular translation you follow is accurate? It's been filtered through so many fallible persons; how can you be assured of its infallibility?


That fable is an old one, and taught to many schoolchildren. I am familiar with it. But how can it apply here? Does God not reveal all in the Bible? The Bible is complete, is it not? How many denominations focus on one part to the exclusion of other parts? I've always liked that fable. It teaches us to look at all the information available before drawing conclusions, but I don't really think it applies here.


But your answer only emphases the conflict. How do we know that the translations and copies are perfect? If they are perfect, why the need for scholars? If they're not perfect, how can you be assured preservation of its completeness and infallibility? I won't challenge the veracity of the original text itself, since that's a matter of faith. I only challenge the veracity of the veracity of the version that has been handed down.


If Adam and Eve were perfect beings, how did they come to sin (or disobey)? Surely that is an imperfection. And if God's plan was to send a Messiah to save mankind because of Adam's failure, does that mean that God knew from the beginning that Adam would fail? That's the thing that gets me. We talking predestination now. I won't go over the whole Pharaoh discussion again, but it touches on the same principle. Why create people, give them choices, then condemn them when they make the wrong ones unless they go in for redemption? The whole concept is very strange to me.

Eric Rudolf. Abortion clinic protesters that assault women. The idiots who protest at military funerals. Gay bashers. Going only slightly abroad and just a few years ago we have the catholics and protestants killing each other in Ireland. In the last 100 years we had catholic and protestant religious leaders in Germany, Holland, and elsewhere condoning the killing of jews through either inaction or overt action. Muslims were killed in the former Yugoslavian republics with support of religious leaders in many cases.



Oh, I'm not anti-christian, I abhor fundamentalism and extremism in all its colors. I think all people who take religion too far are in the same category. I'll take your word that you accurately quoted the koran. The bible is also barbaric:

Some barbarism from the OT

If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death.

If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife-both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.

If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death.

If ... there is no proof of the girl’s virginity..., she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house.

For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death.

And, a bit from the New Testament as well (on your request):

Ephesians 5:22-24 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

1 Peter 2:13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men; 2:18 Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.

Maybe you think it is ok to say that women must submit to their husbands in everything and that it is ok to own slaves, but that is not something civilized people accept anywhere in the world these days. Those are both violations of human rights. Perhaps it is surprising to you but most of those of us who are intelligent view women as equals and do not think it is ok to view other humans as property.


Are you serious? Read some history. There might not be any theistic christian governments in 2012 (and I don't know, there might be), but it is not out of benevolence. It is because they were all overthrown or dissolved by revolution.

Was it not a devout Christian who killed 82 at Waco?

You can put your blinders on and say there have been not horrible things done by members of your church in the western hemisphere, in the past week, etc. etc. but so what? No one, certainly not I, is saying that all christians are violent murderers. My only point is that, as a group, your hands are dirtier than you want to believe. That belief in your own virtue probably comes from not thinking critically and objectively.

It is the lack of critical thinking consistent with evidence that I consider a serious flaw.