I was in homeroom today and some Christian kids read this story from the bible. Now before I heard this I was a ok catholic I had my faults and some things I disagree with but this has just shocked me and I dont know what to think about it. I dont know where this story is from in the bible all I know is its a bible story.

Ok so these 2 guys are carrying this ark up to some place to hide it for God ( I wasnt paying attention at the begining). God told them not to touch the ark thing cause it was sacred. So they were carrying it on a stretcher or something. The thing wobbled and one guy put his hand out to balance it and stop it from tipping. The guy has to touch it to save it from falling a breaking. But after he touches it god kills him on the spot.

After I heard this the kids were saying how it shows me must trust in God or whatever. But all the time I was thinking holy shit gods an asshole. Theres no way God would love us and do somethign like that. The guy was just trying to protect something sacred. And it was probably just a reaction anyway you no when you are standing somewhere and something starts to fall you dont really think about it you just try to stop it from falling. I would love to hear from christians and non christians about this. especially hear what christians have to say about this.

Most Christians would probably reply with something like 'if you don't obey God you deserve to be punished' or something like that. I see that as a perfect example of faults in Christianity; it doesn't make any sense to me that God would do something like kill a man for trying to protect soemthign sacred. And what would God have done if it had fallen and gotten dammaged or destroyed, kill them all for fucking up?

my Thoughts exactly man. What the hell was up his ass? Now I am not sure I believe in God I dont know anymore.

Maybe the story never happened, and is in the bible to teach a lesson.Though it is an extreme story maybe it was put in the bible to show the importance of trusting gods words. Or maybe the bible is a hoax, and we were evolved from monkeys. Who knows?

My response would be that God doesn't want you to take it upon yourself to protect an object, especially when God told you not to. Think about it; if God created the whole world, and everything in it, what real use would he have for an ark? God would have prevented the ark from falling if he really wanted to keep it around.

SST

Christianity is screwed up. Seriously.

quote:My response would be that God doesn't want you to take it upon yourself to protect an object, especially when God told you not to. Think about it; if God created the whole world, and everything in it, what real use would he have for an ark? God would have prevented the ark from falling if he really wanted to keep it around.

The ark was to be protected at all times. He also demanded it not to be touched. If it fell, he would not have been protecting it. If he touched it, he would have broken the rule of not touching it.

Both of these would go against what god had asked. Therefore he would have acted logically either way because he would be fulfilling a rule either way; and also breaking one. Not only did god put him in that situation but he killed him for following one of his rules

That's the equivalent of god asking you to never be touched by your friend but also to never evade your friend's attempts at touching you... Very stupid.

dont you know that god works in mysterious ways? http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif)

Yeah ive always thought that one is pretty harsh- the poor bloke probably didn't even think twice about what he did.

This is also one of those accounts which is definately written to be taken literally.

Its a funny one though, cause a bit earlier (in the same book i think , or at least the same time period) David and his rebels steal the "bread of the presence", which was forbidden, and that's all good- Yeshua even affirms it in the Sermon on the Mount.

My understanding of it: is that the ark itself was to be the very place of Yahweh's presence "seated between the cheribum" among the hebrew people, and on earth. As such it was THE holy of holy's. The reason cited for the smoting (is that a word?), i think, is that Yahweh is such a holy God , and we are such an unholy bunch.

A similar principle can be seen in action in the accounts of the giving of the law- anyone who approached Mount Sinai during the period of Yahweh's presence was to be smote- and in most of the other occasions where Yahweh's presence was on earth.

I still think its pretty harsh though...

This is another reason to question the God portrayed in the bible. He does seem very petty and egocentric for such an intelligent being. But of course the bible was written by man complete with man's fallacies. He may not be quite as...personal as the bible makes out. (i.e. possessing a special fondness and desire of creating inane bacteria or the duck-billed-platypus)

It is harsh...but then God cant break laws he set out because of carelessness...

The ark was designed to be carried on a specially made supports, to be carried by men. This was designed so that the event of it falling off would never happen. I think this was during King David's time, and he carried it on a wagon, pulled by Oxen. It fell off, the guy instinctivly put his hand out and died because of it. God doesnt lie according to the bible, so he cant break his own law. In fact, David and everyone there had gone against God's commands which were there to stop this from ever happening.

King David was commanded to read the law daily. He was in the wrong for going against the explicit commands set there for everyones protection. Harsh, but then its the fault of the man for going along with the procession, when all Jews at the time clearly knew the law about it. He wouldnt be next to the ark if he wasnt a high ranking official, and he should of known the law.

harsh, but there is a reason for it. God's laws are there for a reason-to protect us... he cant break them beacuse of an accident someone had.

Yeah the rule of 'not touching an ark' is there to protect us from who? From god. If he hadn't made that moronic rule in the first place nobody would have died.

Again, this is like god asking you to not be touched by anyone, but also not to evade any attempts at people touching you. Eventually you're going to get touched and then you're going to get killed.

Not the sign of an intelligent or compassionate being.

"God works in mysterious ways" is just an excuse to compensate for all the faults.

I don't think that the smoting was simply for "rule breaking"- the bible is full of occurances of God not smoting rule breaking- I think it goes much deeper i.e. as i said before.

Maybe the bible isn't the truth. I bet nobody's ever thought of that before.

I wonder if the bloke that God killed went to Hell. He prolly did if God was pissed off enough to kill him. That makes it even harsher. I thought God was supposed to be all-loving. Surely if he loved the guy he coulda done something a little less extreme than killing him. Like a smacked bum. Hah! Supposedly we are the children of God and he loves us all. Imagine you told your kids not to touch something but they do. Ya wouldn't kill them for it right? Especially if they touched it with a good reason.

That's Old Testament. It's not even debateable that the Old Testament is mostly myth.

Seriously... Adam & Eve? Sodom and Gommorah? Noah's Ark? The Exodus? None of that shit ever happened, and if you claim otherwise then you're automatically a loony fundamentalist.

You gotta realize, the Ark (I'm assuming we are talking about the Ark of the Covenant here?) was made, out of pure gold, to house the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments were written in LEAD, and the Ark was GOLD. Lead and Gold together create (static?) electricity, therefore causing someone to be "smited" if they touched it. Now, I highly doubt that the Jews knew of this reaction when they created it, but the Creator most certainly did, He created it! He, therefore, told them that they COULD NOT touch it. That's my insight on it. (I only know the whole story cuz we were talking about it in World History at the beginning of the year...)

-- The Student

The Ark itself was made of wood not gold. It did have golden fixings and decorations of pure gold.

The bible clearly says that god killed him. Now, it may have been that "static electricity" from lead and gold, and then the writers interpreted it as god himself killing him. But to take that as truth you would have to show:

a) That lead and gold do produce electricity

b) That this supposed static electricity was enough to kill a man...

c) How the hell the lead touched the gold, when in fact the ark itself was made of wood.

My phrase of the week: Biblical authors were fans of the unliimited use of hyperbole.

quote:Originally posted by Craftian:

That's Old Testament. It's not even debateable that the Old Testament is mostly myth.

That doesn't bode well for religions that use the mythical Old Testament as an arbiter of reality in which to launch themselves, like Christianity for instance.

The theory I've heard about the electric Ark of the Covenant is that it was a capacitor - the wood acted as an insulator between the gold plating. Of course, for this to work they'd have to be running electric current into the Ark to charge it up in the first place.

It wouldn't work as a battery unless it was filled with seawater or something, and even then I doubt that it would give enough current to kill a man.

quote:Originally posted by Craftian:

That's Old Testament. It's not even debateable that the Old Testament is mostly myth.

Seriously... Adam & Eve? Sodom and Gommorah? Noah's Ark? The Exodus? None of that shit ever happened, and if you claim otherwise then you're automatically a loony fundamentalist.

Adam and Eve didn't happen, it was only metaphor for when people couln't understand evolution.

Sodom and Gommorah was burnt by human from enemy cities.

Noah's Ark is a metaphor about survival against all odds. There are other middle eastern works that speak of a similar incident. The Epic of Gilgamesh is one.

The Exodus, entier countries have been displaced and we see this when the Romans caused the Jewish Diaspora, and when the entire nation of Armenia moved.

The bible is a semi-fictitious historical work. Simply put, you cant prove god or any other weird things but it did show that Hittites really existed.

[This message has been edited by CyberMan (edited 04-21-2004).]

Adam & Eve? Pick a view, any view. Whats interesting is that the literalist rendering of 7 days of creation is fairly recent. The early church, almost entirely upto and including Augustine appeared to interpret it in a similar way to much of John's Revelation- i.e. 7 1000yr periods of time. I personally think that much of the creationism phenomenon is reactionary in response to the claims of modernity.

Sodom & Gommorah?

"The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was thought to be spurious until evidence revealed tha all five of the cities mentioned in the bible were in fact centers of commerce in the area and were geographically situated as the scriptures describe. The biblical description of their demise seems to be no less accurate. Evidence points to earthquake activity, and that the various layers of the earth were disrupted and hurled high into the air. Bitumen is plentiful there, and an accurate discription would be that brimstone (bituminous pitch) was hurled down on those cities that had rejected God. There is evidence that the layers of sedimentary rock have been molded together by intense heat. Evidence of such burning has been found on the top of Jebel Usdum (Mount Sodom). This is permanent evidence of the great conflagration that took place in the long distant past, possibly when an oil basin beneath the Dead Sea ignited and erupted. Such an explanation in no way subtracts from the miraculous quality of the event, for God controls natural forces. The timing of the event, in the context of warnings and visitation by angels, reveals its overall miraculous nature"

Noah's Ark?

View 1) allegorical etc.

View 2) local flood (as far as I understand is well supported both by geology and history)

View 3) world wide flood (weakest)

The Exodus?

The occurance of the exodus is generally unquestioned. The only issue of contention (that i'm aware of) is the dating, and the "debate rages on", however it can be dated, albeit not definately, to 1450 BC.

Whilst you can debate the claims to the Supernatural. The accounts are (with the notable, generous and debateable execptions of perhaps the first 11 chapters of Genesis) historically accurate. And this is generally accepted among most scholars of ancient history .

Looks like our history departments are being overrun with loony fundamentalists...

While there may be a kernel of truth in each of these stories (a lot of myths are partially true), my point was that they're not true as reported.

quote:Originally posted by Craftian:

While there may be a kernel of truth in each of these stories (a lot of myths are partially true), my point was that they're not true as reported.

God obeys his own laws... he doesnt break the laws of nature either to perform miracles..

Why cant he use the laws of nature to his own advantage, or to benefit somebody (the israelites)??

Even the parting of the Red Sea has possibilities-Japanese scientists passed a very high current through water, and it seperated into two blocks. They called it the "Moses effect".

We call them miricles, because we dont understand how they were done. But as we progress-we are understanding these things more and more.

quote:Originally posted by nevermind:

We call them miricles, because we dont understand how they were done. But as we progress-we are understanding these things more and more.

There are some claimed "miracles" that simply violate reality. They require the earth to be flat and for the sun to revolve around it. We know this is not true.

Of course you could formulate some real ad-hoc bullshit and say that the entire dynamic if the solar system was violated during that time to be consistent with the claimed miracle, but what makes more sense? The entire solar system rearranging itself and putting itself back in place with no letha side-effects, or the 'miracle' being fabricated bullshit?

Given the propensity for people to make shit up, I would wager on the latter.

hey where is this story from? i would like to read it... then i could tell u stuff bout it ^^

While I do not remember where that particular story is from, I do know what one you are talking about. Understand that God did not "smite" the man. The Ark of the Covenant was the Throne of God on earth, that is, the presence of God physicaly sat on it. Only the best trained priests could even enter the room with it, and there were many protocols that had to be followed. This is because all men are sinners, and therefore cannot look upon the face of God. Moses was aged merely by being in the presence of God on the mountain. Anyway, because the Ark had been captured and held away from the Israelites, David did not know the correct procedures for handling the ark. The rule about not touching the Ark was not out of spite or meanness, but to protect the people because God cared about them. The man was not killed merely because he sinned, but because he literaly touched God's presence. It was a sin, because God is almighty and would not have allowed his earthly throne to fall to the ground. The man's sin was not in touching the Ark, but in not trusting God to take care of it. After this incident, David made camp and did not leave until he had studied and undertood the laws for dealing with the Ark. I am at the moment unable to find a concordance to look up the passage, but if I find it I will post it.



~MItS~

quote:Originally posted by Lucky:

I was in homeroom today and some Christian kids read this story from the bible. Now before I heard this I was a ok catholic I had my faults and some things I disagree with but this has just shocked me and I dont know what to think about it. I dont know where this story is from in the bible all I know is its a bible story.

Ok so these 2 guys are carrying this ark up to some place to hide it for God ( I wasnt paying attention at the begining). God told them not to touch the ark thing cause it was sacred. So they were carrying it on a stretcher or something. The thing wobbled and one guy put his hand out to balance it and stop it from tipping. The guy has to touch it to save it from falling a breaking. But after he touches it god kills him on the spot.

After I heard this the kids were saying how it shows me must trust in God or whatever. But all the time I was thinking holy shit gods an asshole. Theres no way God would love us and do somethign like that. The guy was just trying to protect something sacred. And it was probably just a reaction anyway you no when you are standing somewhere and something starts to fall you dont really think about it you just try to stop it from falling. I would love to hear from christians and non christians about this. especially hear what christians have to say about this.



Dude,

That Is NOT in the bible.

what actually made me stop believing in the bible was reading beawolf. I read it and though tto myself "wow this sound alot like the bible". and then i realized it was all a bunch of bullshit.

I also did more thinking and found that people who dont believe in the chirstianity all go to hell. Even if you live on a remote island and never heard of it u go to hell or if your islam and you live a meaningful peacefull life you still go to hell. None of it makes sence and its stupid.

the whole point of the moses thing was it was a MIRACLE. MIRACLE. if it is proven that it can be done, it isn't a miracle anymore because it doesn't need any faith in it. k?

OK cy_psy dude I sathem read it from the bible and all these people are clarifying the stroy I think its in the bible. Maybe its not a huge story or antythign but its there somewhere. Maybe you have a different version though who knows.

quote:Originally posted by One Hot Minute:

the whole point of the moses thing was it was a MIRACLE. MIRACLE. if it is proven that it can be done, it isn't a miracle anymore because it doesn't need any faith in it. k?

So in essence, the entire strength of the story comes the fact that there isn't any proof of its own and it cannot be disproven?

A shaky foundation to believe in something at best.

"While there may be a kernel of truth in each of these stories (a lot of myths are partially true), my point was that they're not true as reported."

What are you basing that on? If you dont have a legitimate reason, or evidence to support your invalidiating of a text, your argument becomes little more than (to use its popular connotation)unsubstantiated dogma used to support your own presupposition.

If we accept the Bible's more ridiculous claims (worldwide Flood, plagues of frogs and water turning to blood, the Sun stopping in the sky for a day) then we should also accept the Illiad's claim that the Trojan War was started by the goddess Discordia starting an argument on Olympus.

A story that is actually in the bible, I can't remember which book, it was some... E book... Eliah, Esaiah whatever...

This guy, some prophet or something is walking around and enters this village. The guy is bald, and a whole bunch of kids come and tease him going like "Baldy! Baldy!" Or whatever they called bald people back then, and this prophet like... Curses all the little boys, and 2 bears come running out of the forest and rip the kiddies to pieces. That IS in the bible, I read it in my own holy book...

And crap why couldn't they tell us that all these things are to be taken as metaphors so that we wouldn't have to run into these debates?

Stop backflipping! Your claim was that the events recorded in the OT were fallacious. After again demonstrating that their historicity is being increasingly confirmed, you run away into the

*fingers in ears eyes shut* "you have to accept everything else" cave.

Your'e missing the entire point. Does anyone dispute that the Trojan war occured? Not that I know of (im sure there's someone though...) Can we attribute it to Discordia? Thats a quantatively different question.

I think its time that you started handling this the way you appear to handle most other things: evenly and on the subjects merits and not through "bible-can't-possibly-be-true" coloured glasses.