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That is certainly one way of looking at the facts, Ros, but where you see in the writings that God repented, I see a writer who's perception of God was filtered by his own lenses of guilt, fear, and shame, where such attributes as blame, anxiety, and vindictiveness were projected upon God by that writer.

Again, such writings reveal the spirituality of the people at that time. And so what we can learn from those writings is not simply what to do or what not to do, as if we were to literally follow and obey the same paths those ancient peoples took on their own particular spiritual journey, but we can also learn about the various viewpoints of a changing people as they came to understand that it isn't God who changes, but it is our perception of God that changes.

For example, one person may view God as being indifferent to the situations in the world, (and therefore non-existent) while yet another may view the worldly situations as being resultant from a totally loving and wise God. Yet are these really true attributes of God? or are they the projected perceptions of God as seen through the spiritual lenses of the persons themselves, one of which may be full of scorn and pride, while the other is full of love and understanding?

The problem with most believers today is that they do not understand this particular view of Scripture, and so they use what is written to support and maintain their own spirituality, whether it be in the form of anger, pride, hatred and/or grief, for example, rather than using those same writings to discern where they are on the spiritual path that will ultimately lead them to the realization that we are all one and the same, and that we are already one with God, unaware that it is our own spiritualness that makes it impossible for us to realize this latter reality.

In this sense, reading scripture allows us to learn forgiveness, love, and mercy, as opposed to condemning others and killing of whole tribes and nations of people because of our own misundersatndings about who and what God really is.

Id' say more, but I have to leave for neuro rehab now, and I will be back later.

What I would ask of you in the meantime, is to [deeply] reflect upon and consider your own motivations and spirituality to discern why it is you feel you must always be on the 'attack', as it were...

doc

..rather, it is the perscription of believers that changed. Thus the Hebrew god was revised to suit the situation at hand. What the prophets spoke was god-breathed.

Why would I reflect upon your misunderstanding of an invented Hebrew god? I will rather challenge your misrepresentation of that fiendish entity of hate and murderous intent. After all, it is you who still clings to that story as if it held some sort of divine super indoctrinated "sense", when in fact, all men were learned in a consciousness ability to decern good and bad behavior.

The Israelites were taught to love their own kinsmen, not anybody else. Life of other people held no worth to the Hebrew god. His people were his ways and means of existence. He had and claimed only one people as perscribed by the inventors of his image that they invented for themselves as a chosen people. They simply did what all other peoples before them had done in inventing an image of a god. They were aware of other gods but other gods would not play to their choseness. Other people who had invented their own gods and constructed themselves as chosen people did not claim[recognize] the god of Hebrews. This was a reasonable standard as ancient gods were ancient gods and we know not one which was more effective than the other when it came to human behavior. Ancient gods always demanded death to enemies.

Reading scripture doesn't have anything to do with learning to forgive. Culture and society through parentage provided that merciful adaptation. And while the Israelites were learning to behave themselves in their laws given by Moses, the rest of humanity was already light years ahead of them in the social sciences. The Hebrew god was at the lower ladder of inventiveness in those ancient days. And in order to re-construct Him every now and then, the Hebrews stole a lot of their "god qualities" from other cultures and peoples. They could not help but revise and revise in order to at least keep up with some of the Jones.

Ros, I sometimes wonder what makes you such an expert on everything you provide your opinion about. Do you *ever* think you might be wrong about something?

She's a FundaGelical Christian Atheist.

Atheists are all geniuses whose conclusions cannot be questioned. They are a lofty class far above mere mortals.

FundaGelical Christians are the infallible children of God. They are a lofty class far above mere mortals.

How the hell could she be wrong about anything?