Geraldine Fibbers' "The Small Song."

Woot! Your iPod is magic!

Agreed that the discussion is fascinating, and I wish I had some beliefs to be able to take part in it. I really don't, I'm areligious. Enjoying the spicy good reading.

Me, too. On both counts.

Joseph Smith?

Mary Baker Eddie?

Er, Muhammad?

And Swedenborg!

Speaking specifically of Sodom, in Genesis 18, Abraham asks God repeatedly "Would you kill the righteous with the wicked?" and he keeps asking God "What if there were 50 righteous people?" and God says "No, if there are 50 righteous people, I'll spare Sodom," so Abraham asks "What about 40?" "What about 30?" etc. And each time, God says, If I find righteous people there, then I will spare Sodom.

But God didn't find any righteous people in Sodom, and so he wiped it out. He checked first; he didn't just arbitrarily wipe out good folks along with the bad folks.

Sodom's potential corrupting influence on the tribe of Israel was too great, and God's primary motive through the OT is to protect Israel, because it's from that tribe that the Messiah was prophesied to come.

I just had to share this, because it almost made me do a noser. A friend of mine forwarded this to me:

I have a Labrador Retriever.

I was buying a large bag of Purina at Wal-Mart and was in line to check out.

A woman behind me asked if I had a dog.

On impulse, I told her no, and that I was starting The Purina Diet again, although I probably shouldn't because I'd ended up in the hospital last time, but that I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in the Intensive Care Unit with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms.

I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pants pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry. Since the food is nutritionally complete and perfectly healthy, I decided to try it again.

I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was by now enthralled with my story, just hanging on my every word.

Horrified, she asked if ended up in intensive care because the dog food poisoned me.

I told her no, and went on to explain that I'd been sitting in the street licking my balls and a car hit me.

Abraham asks God repeatedly "Would you kill the righteous with the wicked?" and he keeps asking God "What if there were 50 righteous people?" and God says "No, if there are 50 righteous people, I'll spare Sodom," so Abraham asks "What about 40?" "What about 30?" etc. And each time, God says, If I find righteous people there, then I will spare Sodom.

Sadly, this passage doesn't stop the ignorant from statements like "Kill 'em all and let god sort them out." Sometimes, being able to quote scripture is a real pain, because it makes clear how little some "believers" actually know and have thought through their foundational documents.

God didn't find any righteous people in Sodom, and so he wiped it out. He checked first; he didn't just arbitrarily wipe out good folks along with the bad folks.

I completely forget - was there a similar series of events with Gomorah? Was/were their crime(s) the same as Sodom's? It always seems to get left out of the discussion.

I told her no, and went on to explain that I'd been sitting in the street licking my balls and a car hit me.

Bwah!

Woot! Your iPod is magic!

It's on your wavelength, that's for sure.

I was raised by fundies and have read the Bible more times than I'd care to mention. I'm also agnostic, but sympathetic to religious people, even though I can't be one. With that in mind, I think the differences between the OT God and the NT God (or even the differences between how the OT God is perceived at different times by different authors) is compatible with the idea of God as a reflection of humanity and a product of its times. I don't think this precludes the actual existence of a God, because I think religious experience is by definition arational and literally ineffable: you can't argue yourself into it or out of it using logic, although the fathers of Western philosophy thought different.

I completely forget - was there a similar series of events with Gomorah? Was/were their crime(s) the same as Sodom's? It always seems to get left out of the discussion.

It was wiped out at the same time/for the same reason. It's kind of like Minneapolis/St. Paul.