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Post by Vegas on Aug 19, 2018 13:49:57 GMT
Okay...
There's a story where a prophet of God is trying to wipeout a false god's influence in Israel. To do so, he sets up a demonstration of two wooden altars with sacrifices... and which ever god claims their sacrifice.. is the true god.
He proceeds to soak Jehovah's sacrifice with a ton of water, just for good measure.... and the competition begins.
Fire comes down and engulfs the sacrifice meant for Jehovah.... and then, the prophet begins to taunt the priests of the other god: "Where is your god? Why is he not here?... Maybe, he is taking a shit?" To which, they have no answer and are thoroughly shamed.
Then, to drive the point home, Jehovah's altar shoots it fire to the other altar and engulfs it, too.
Now, this story has always bugged me: At no point, do we ever get to have this demonstrated in our lives.
It seems to me that the same questions can now be asked of God... and they remain as unanswered by today's faithful followers as they were by the false priests of so long ago.
Now, I know that the point of the story was to find a proof of Godhood back then....
But.. It just rings a tad hollow in today's world.
Your thoughts?
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Post by Arlon10 on Aug 19, 2018 13:59:24 GMT
Okay... There's a story where a prophet of God is trying to wipeout a false god's influence in Israel. To do so, he sets up a demonstration of two wooden altars with sacrifices... and which ever god claims their sacrifice.. is the true god. He proceeds to soak Jehovah's sacrifice with a ton of water, just for good measure.... and the competition begins. Fire comes down and engulfs the sacrifice meant for Jehovah.... and then, the prophet begins to taunt the priests of the other god: "Where is your god? Why is he not here?... Maybe, he is taking a shit?" To which, they have no answer and are thoroughly shamed. Then, to drive the point home, Jehovah's altar shoots it fire to the other altar and engulfs it, too. Now, this story has always bugged me: At no point, do we ever get to have this demonstrated in our lives. It seems to me that the same questions can now be asked of God... and they remain as unanswered by today's faithful followers as they were by the false priests of so long ago. Now, I know that the point of the story was to find a proof of Godhood back then.... But.. It just rings a tad hollow in today's world. Your thoughts? An explanation I heard, I won't say where, is that the "water" put on Jehovah's sacrifice was "girl scout water" (lighter fluid). |
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Post by thefleetsin on Aug 19, 2018 17:53:18 GMT
"There's a story where a prophet of God..."
had to rush to the bathroom to evacuate my bowels.
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Post by Vegas on Aug 19, 2018 19:27:43 GMT
"There's a story where a prophet of God..." had to rush to the bathroom to evacuate my bowels. A poop joke within a poop joke.....??! INCEPTION!!! |
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Post by CoolJGS☺ on Aug 19, 2018 21:31:10 GMT
Okay... There's a story where a prophet of God is trying to wipeout a false god's influence in Israel. To do so, he sets up a demonstration of two wooden altars with sacrifices... and which ever god claims their sacrifice.. is the true god. He proceeds to soak Jehovah's sacrifice with a ton of water, just for good measure.... and the competition begins. Fire comes down and engulfs the sacrifice meant for Jehovah.... and then, the prophet begins to taunt the priests of the other god: "Where is your god? Why is he not here?... Maybe, he is taking a shit?" To which, they have no answer and are thoroughly shamed. Then, to drive the point home, Jehovah's altar shoots it fire to the other altar and engulfs it, too. Now, this story has always bugged me: At no point, do we ever get to have this demonstrated in our lives. It seems to me that the same questions can now be asked of God... and they remain as unanswered by today's faithful followers as they were by the false priests of so long ago. Now, I know that the point of the story was to find a proof of Godhood back then....
But.. It just rings a tad hollow in today's world. Your thoughts? I'm not sure that was the purpose. Afterall, the main problem was not agnosticism, but placing faith in Jehovah as opposed to Ball. They were already experiencing proof of God's existence by the famine and drought he said would remain until they turned back to worshipping him. This was more of a mercy mission to show Baal had nothing to offer them. It's a little different circumstances. In OT times, the spirituality of the king was often copied by the people. Because Ahab wrshipped Baal, the people either sided with the king, tried to worship God & Baal, or the prophets were in hiding avoiding being killed This was designed to end the famine by making the people choose. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2018 21:42:16 GMT
It seems to me that the same questions can now be asked of God... and they remain as unanswered by today's faithful followers as they were by the false priests of so long ago. Exactly so. One wonders why they aren't giving all the answers christians have come up with to explain the absence of their god. "Oh, well our god doesn't want to give people proof, because he wants people to believe in him on faith you see. |
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Post by maya55555 on Aug 20, 2018 4:22:35 GMT
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Post by drystyx on Aug 20, 2018 22:45:38 GMT
Yes, totally agree.
Oxymoron at work there, like you point out.
How can we belittle the faith of Jezebel in her belief and yet we are told we have to have even more blind faith?
We weren't there with Elijah. We do have to have faith on that matter.
However, we can look at the "objectivity factor". Elijah clearly had no incentive from the monarchy or anyone else. In fact, the opposite was true. Same for other prophets. One can't question their objectivity, since they were doing the opposite of kissing king's butts. Elisha had the same trouble. So did Isasiah (with King Manassah, the most evil of Hebrew kings, and the one who ruled the longest). Manassah had Isaiah sawed in half. I'd say Isaiah had no Earthly incentive to make up any stories he told.
But today these are just "stories". The Devil works on all of us, and tries to belittle them, and tries to make us believe lies are truth. Over time, he initiates the hatred into our minds. We think "well maybe he really wasn't doing this", but the "objectivity factor" is extremely high in his favor.
Had Elijah the support of people in power, he could manufacture some magician invention without being seen or noted. He could write whatever he wanted.
This is the case with Homer's songs to the kings of Ithaca which lauded and made demi gods out of their ancestors. Odds are that Telemecus, son of Odysseus, was probably an old man in the castle, happy to hear the applause, as was his son and grandson.
With Homer, there is no "objectivity factor" at play. There is no credibility.
It's the exact opposite with the Old Testament prophets, just as it is for the apostles.
One could wonder if Elijah was a bit sado-masochistic, or just masochistic, maybe willing to be a martyr. That's a long shot possibility.
Of course that possibility doesn't exist with the apostles. Four of them were fishermen on the sea of Galilee, where any sort of masochism or suicidal thought would mean they would perish within one season of fishing.
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