Regarding the highlighted......With all due respect, this is not a rational statement....but it is typical gibe following your comment on evolution as responsible for creation of all life instead of Almighty God.

I've said the universe is obviously created and that what is created supposes a Creator, I call Almighty God who is uncreated or the problem goes on forever, the whole endless chain of dependent beings as unable to explain itself as each of its links. It is rational to argue to an uncreated Clock-Maker. It is not rational to ask "Who created this uncreated Clock-Maker?"

In order to explain simply..look at God as I hold Him to be...the First Cause. The first is first, is that not so? Of course it is. If there were such an impossible thing as the cause of the First Cause, it would not be the First Cause. Almighty God was not created. If He were, He would be a creature and would have a creator. God always existed. He never began and will never cease to be....He is eternal...He is the Maker of the made.

NEPHILIM_x POSTS #5

Our rights come from God as He is our Creator and we are the created...and God didn't give us a "right" to believe as we please...He gave us free will to make our choices of what we believe.  

I've haven't responded to you becasue you clearly don't understand much about the Bible and with all due respect, it would be a total waste of time...for example this one:

God didn't harden Pharoah's heart, Scripture says he hardened his own heart...8:15, "And Pharao seeing that rest was given, hardened his own heart and did not hear them, as the Lord God had commanded."

God wasn't Himself the efficient cause of his hardness of heart, but He permitted it and by withdrawing grace from him, in punishment of his malice, which alone was the proper cause of his being hardened.

We've been over this already many times here on JU.  Pharoah hardened his heart first about 10 times and then God hardened Pharoah's heart.  If I had my bible with me right now, I'd give you the exact scriptures, but I'm on vacation right now. 

Again, you have to know scripture to know this.  What you just read and quoted here is where God is telling Moses what will  happen ahead of time....the end result.  Keep reading and you'll see exactly what happened in context starting when Moses first went to Pharoah on the very first day. 

I have honestly read it, and it just comes off as the story of a deity drunk with power. So why does God harden pharaohs heart? For the purpose of visiting more atrocities on people?

I'll take your "You just aren't reading it right" as a concession that you really have no counter-argument, because if you cannot give a legitimate, moral reason for these things, it obviously doesn't synch with your world view, so you just toss out the "well you aren't reading it right". I ask again - how is it just for the first born of Egypt to be killed, indiscriminately? Are the sins of the father really supposed to be visited upon their children? Should you be imprisoned or executed for something someone else did? Why does god favour a specific portion of the populace he created? Why could he not make revelations to all?

What does God have against the handicapped?

Leviticus 21:16-23: And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, speak unto Aaron, saying, Whosoever he be of they seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God. For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous, or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded, or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken; No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the LORD made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God. He shall eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy, and of the hoy. Only he shall not go in unto the vail, nor come nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish; that he profane not my sanctuaries: for I the LORD do sanctify them.

And why does he suddenly seem to become much more relaxed about this when Jesus comes by? Could it be that gods character develops? But a change in character would imply imperfect character. Whats even more amusing is that your god would willingly decieve people. But how, you ask?

2 Thessalonians 2:11-13: And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.

In other words, God will cause us to believe lies so that he can damn us to hell, and apparently selects who he wants saved "from the beginning". It apparently makes no difference how good, kind, honest or loving we are; if God didn't chose us, we're damned anyway. These are not distortions, these are not clever rewordings. This is just what your book says.

Finally I ask again what the point of your Obama comment earlier was, and why you apparently feel we all think he'll fix everything wrong with your nation. Actually I may as well try an experiment here: I enjoy universal health care (I'm Canadian) and think that at this point in history it's a necessity for a nation to have to be considered civilized.

NEPHILIM_x POSTS:

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Here is the answer to your question about Pharoah...

God gave Moses the Old Covenant law and told him exactly how the ancient Isrealites were to worship Him in atonement for their sins...it was by offering a sacrifice...it's all there in Lev. 4. and part of Lev.21 which you quoted above.  Moses and Aaron, the High Priest, went to Pharaoh and demanded that he let the people go into the desert to offer sacrifice and Pharaoh saying he didn't know Moses God and wouldn't be commanded by Him to do anything hardened his heart (meaning he was really stubborn) and said no he wouldn't let them go and what's worse, he ordered the Isrealites to work even harder.

Moses and Aaron asked again but Pharaoh's heart remained hardened and so God sent the plagues upon Egypt. Why?

Well, 1st----to teach Pharaoh and his people that the God of the Isrealites was also Lord over Egypt, and the one true and ALmighty God. 2---to convert the haughty king so that he would want to obey God's commandments. 3---to punish Pharaoh and his people for their unreasonable idolatry and their cruel oppression of the Isrealites after all they hadn't done anything to the Egyptians. The Egyptians worshipped the Nile as a god and now destruction was brought down upon them by means of it. Disease killed the cattle which also were objects of their worship....so they were punished by the very things through which they sinned.

4---the plagues were sent to teach the pagans that the gods whom they worshipped were in vain and powerless however earnestly they appealed to them, they coould obtain no help. 5---they were to confirm the Isrealites in their belief in the one true God and in confidence in Him who protected them.

By these plagues we see the Almighty God not only manifest His justice but also His merciful patience. He sent the 1st plague only after the miracles worked before Pharaoh had no effect. Like we said, Pharaoh stubbornly hardened his heart to them. If you did read it carefully, then you will notice that the plagues gradually succeeded each other beginning with the least and when these availed nothing, they became more and more dreadful. Moreover, they didn't follow each other day by day, but between the several plagues there was an interval of days, sometimes of weeks.

Now what are we to take from Pharaoh because with most everything in the Holy BIlble there is something to be learned for us as the Holy Bible is for all times and all people? Pharaoh is a warning example of impenitence and obduracy. God didn't warn him only outwardly, by Moses' words and the plagues....He also warned him inwardly by His grace. But Pharaoh wouldn't listen to the quiet admonitions of God nor obey the inspirations of divine grace (sometimes called the voice of conscience)  and so by rendering himself unworthy of further graces, he at last became quite hardened. once or twice he made good resolutions about letting God's people go, but as soon as the pressure of necessity was removed, he didn't keep them.

God foretold to him the last and worst plague some 14 days before it was sent, and would in His mercy have spared Pharaoh and his people this last terrible visitation. Pharaoh however, despised the warning as an empty threat, and remained hardened. He is the type of defiant sinner who won't listen to any exhortations doesn't carry out good solutions, perseveres in sin, and finally becomes hardened. 

Wisdom 19 explains why God showed no mercy upon the Egyptians and how we as creatures created by God are to obey His commands, but like Pharaoh we have a real problem with God Authority...have you noticed that?

Worshipping God is an inalienable right and duty. Why not just let the Isrealites freely go and worship God?  Isn't that something we are dealing with right now in our lifetime? How about freely worshipping God in Communist countries of China and Cuba, N. Vietnam and Korea? How free are the Christians in the mideast to worship? Will I as a Catholic living in the USA always be able to freely worship God? Of late, I seriously wonder.

Wisdom 19 we learn that Pharaoh finally agreed to let the Isrealites go...and then, even while they were mourning the deaths of their children, he changed his mind and pursued them as fugitives...

As far as God causing the death of the first born of the Egyptians...remember we are created by God and we are His to take back to Himself when He so desires...we have no choice in the matter of when we will be called back to our Creator and these children were taken to a far better place.

To understand more read Ecclesissticus 41. Of death, of an evil and of a good name, and of children of sinners.

There are reasons for things...After the Fall of Adam and Eve, disease entered the world....remember here Moses time was about 1500-1450 BC...leprosy was a deadly contagious disease and God was guiding the people as to how to handle such things or else the entire population could have been wiped out....it was God teaching about "quarantine"...we've learned from it and done/do similiar things today..

In Medieval times in the 1300s, the bubonic plague, called Black Death began in China and was carried to Europe where 25 million people died. Today, infectious diseases such as diptheria, typhoid, malaria, influenze have spread around...we are currently experiencing the Swine Flu. Don't you think that when schools are shut down for a week is a type of quarantine?  

Again, after reading your last comments especially this one, I can only arrive at the conclusion that your questioning terminology is based upon a false notion of God. And your telling me to explain this and explain that isn't going to help one iota..for I already tried with explaining the plagues upon Pharaoh.

Just asking.....are you reading this to be really open minded or are you reading this with the sole purpose to prove yourself right? 

I'm sorry but I've been away for over a week and couldn't respond. 

You're only looking at one side of this. 

Ten times it is said that Pharoah hardened HIS OWN HEART( 7:13,14,22, 8:15,19,32, 9:7, 34,35, 13:15) and then 10 times that God hardened Phaoah's heart.  (4:21, 7:3, 9:12, 10:1,20, 27, 11:10, 14:4, 8, 17)

Seven times Pharaoh hardened his own heart before God FIRST hardened it, though the prediction that God would do it preceded it all......as I already told you. 

Every single plague represented every single Egyptian God.  For example the river turning to blood was a reference to the pagan god Hapi which was the god of the Nile.  The frogs?  That was a direct reference to Heqt which was a god fashioned in the shape of a frog and another spirit of the Nile. 

all the way down to the death of the firstborn which was not only children but cattle and adults as well.  So it has nothing to do with sin being passed down to the children.  But this represented the god Osiris which was supposedly the giver of life and Pharoah was also considered this deity.

All these plagues were to show both the Hebrews and the Egyptians the power of the only real genuine God and to mock the pagan gods who were helpless and had no power at all. 

There was a plan and a purpose for all this starting with the whole reason the Hebrews were in Egypt in the first place.  You'd have to at least start with Joseph in the book of Genesis and read from there on to get a grasp of the awesome plan of God.  This is start of the Hebrew nation and how they were preserved by the Egyptians and then enslaved by them but also how they flourished and multiplied over a period of 430 years before Moses took them out under the hand of God. 

As far as the hardened hearts go.  The scriptures are clear that there is a time when after you hardened your heart so much to God that there is no point of return.  God just leaves you to your hardened hearts.  So when it says that God hardened his heart it really is to be understood that God will not soften his heart.  Because only God can transform the heart.  He says in Jeremiah and elsewhere that it is God who performs heart surgery by taking out the heart of stone and replacing it with a heart of flesh. 

 Pharoah hardened his heart so much after seeing these miracles that God in effect said....."so be it.  You hardened your heart to me these so many times after I revealed myself to you, I will not soften your heart to me now." 

I see this still so much today.  God is everywhere and his message is being brought forth by his ambassadors but people are still hardening their hearts to him.  There is nothing new under the sun.

if good things were the criteria for entering heaven you might have a point.  But that's not how God set it up.  Getting into heaven has nothing to do with how good we are.  The bible is clear that even our best deeds are filthy before God because we are sin tainted.  

There are many non believers I've met that are nice people and do many wonderful deeds, but they are still lost without God.  Instead of depending on God for salvation they depend on themselves.  It's not going to fly with God.  

The 10 commandments were set up to show us how far we fall short.  Not one of us can say we can keep them.  When we break one we are in violation of them all. 

 That's why when he gave us those commandments he also gave us the sacrificial system to go along with it.  This system was to point to the one who would come and be the final sacrifice someday when he would keep the law (commandments) perfectly and atone for our sins once and for all.

It all comes down to either we accept the sacrifice that Christ atoned for us or we don't.  Many would rather choose to work their way in themselves not knowing they don't have to. Christ said on that day many will claim they did all these good works and he will say he never knew them.  Why?  Because he didn.'t.  They didn't do these good deeds for him.  They did them for themselves.

All that is required of us is to lay down humbly at the cross and thank God for his sacrifice for our sins and show others how thankful we are.  Our good deeds should flow from this thankful loving new heart of gratitude.  Otherwise we are doing good deeds for good deeds sake with all sorts of motivations that could be suspect.  Only God knows the motivations of the heart.   People do good things for various reasons. 

What he did was called imputation. It's a banking term and means "added to one's account." 

 There were three such cases of this in scripture.  The first was with Adam when he sinned.  His sin was imputated to our account (Rom 5:12).  So we carried that sin from Adam.  The second imputation was when our sin was imputed to Christ on the cross (Isa 53:5-6, John 1:29).   That's why he cried out on the cross heavily burdened with our sin.  "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" 

 The last imputation was when Christ imputed grace and righteousness to all who put their trust in him (Rom 5:17-19). 

So now when God looks at those who put their trust in this final sacrifice He sees that we are cleansed or called righteous because of HIS righteousness, not our own. 

So we can work ourselves to death and it's not going to buy us heaven.  Heaven is not for sale.  It's already been purchased by the one who died for us.   He redeemed us at the cross and will be back later to collect his inheritance when the final day of harvest is ready. 

Ok, so hold on. When the bible says God hardened a heart, what it REALLY meant is the omnipotent God just didn't soften a heart because it had been too much? Sssssssorry but if you're going to dance around a semantic like that (and in fact, create your own interpretation) then I think it shows you've run out of ammo. Considering that God had interfered with mankind plenty prior to that, I don't see why it's an issue. What if we interpret such and such a passage this way, or that way, just to fit an argument? Come now, use reason. That's where you start getting disputes about whether or not masturbation is a sin, or if it was just a sin that one time Onan (iirc) pulled out, when he was explicitly told he was going to knock that woman up? Besides, god directly states the reason he's doing this is to show off his power.

Furthermore as far as contradictions go, there are plenty. I don't even mean minor ones like what Jesus said before he died; that's very small and really not such a big deal. It's as simple as whether or not a divorced woman can remarry.

Deuteronomy 24:1-2: When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife.

Luke 16:18: Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.

Or is wealth a sign of righteousness or wickedness?

For: Psalm 37:25: I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread.

Psalm 12:1,3 Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord... wealth and riches shall be in his house.

Proverbs 15:6: In the house of the righteous is much treasure.

You and I both know about the rich man entering heaven and the eye of the needle. I'll give you that you could argue it means spiritual riches, but I'm more prone to believe it's material (given bread, the distinct use of the term riches). It's a little vague if you want to go the spiritual angle, but the divorce issue clearly isn't vague.

Let's go with one more clear contradiction, again in regards to marriage. Is it ok to marry a nonbeliever?

1 Corinthians 7:12-14 says: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.

2 Corinthians 6:14-17 says: Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?... Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye seperate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will recieve you.

These are just a few of the many, many contradictions present.

Onto the Egyptian plagues. You're right in that some were indeed aimed at insulting Egyptian gods (if you believe the narrative, at least), but there are natural explanations for every single plague: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagues_of_egypt#Natural_explanations

By the way, I'm still waiting for an explanation as to why god favours a certain people over another. If God repeatedly sent judges to bring Israel back into line, why did he not do the same for other nations? Why did he have the Israelites butcher other nations? Why could he not bring them into line peaceably? Does he simply not care about all his creations in the same way? I don't buy this "they were too wicked" nonsense, particularly when later on there's a certain passage about those who live by the sword die by the sword, or that you should turn the other cheek. Swords to plowshares and all that. Why did God go from a jealous deity with an awful temper to (supposedly) all loving, always forgiving?

Lot's of why questions here.  To be honest the "whys" are the hardest to answer but I'll do my best.

God is not a God who shows favoritism.  He didn't favor me in the same sense that we favor each other.  We show favoritism by looking at the outside.  We favor the rich and the powerful for the poor and the shameful.   He reached down, breathed life into me as he did countless others.  I don't know why me.  I just know that once I was dead, and now I'm alive.  I can feel and know the difference. 

Why not other nations?  For the same reason as he chooses individuals.  Not because they were special or better than any other nation.  The whole thing about chosing us as individuals or the Jews was motivated by Love. For a hint read Deut 7:6-8

"For you are a holy people to the Lord thy God.  The Lord your God has chosen you to be a special people to himself above all people that are upon the face of the earth.  The Lord did not set his love upon you nor choose you because you were more in number than any people for you were the fewest of all people.  But because the Lord loved you and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn to your fathers, has the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt." 

God is still the same God in the OT as he is in the NT.  The truth of God's saving nature is  taught in the OT as it is in the NT.  The idea that the God of the OT is a vengeful, wrathful ogre compared to the gentle, loving NT Christ is not at all accurate. 

I can give you OT scripture after OT scripture easily enough about how loving, caring, patient and merciful God was.  You mentioned the Judges.  Have you ever read that book?  If you did, you'd see time and time again, including at the end it says "everyone did what was right in their own eyes."   Yet God still had patience for them.  Even though the Jews apostasized and committed adultery against God repeatedly, he forgave them and loved them still.  Even after he sent his son to die for them, and they rejected this offer, he's still not done with them.  One day, even afterall they've done against Christ, he will open their eyes and they will finally "get it."  That's what this is all about.  That's why we're going thru all of this. 

As a parent, I punished my children when they were rebellious.  That is no diff than God.  But if you only showed up at my house when I punished my kids and never saw my loving caring side then you wouldn't have an accurate picture of me as a parent. 

That's exactly what you're doing as you paint a picture of what you believe God is without  even knowing Him. 

"Come let us reason together."   Isa 1:18