by jimwalton » Sun May 27, 2018 3:52 pm
> From a provable standpoint of science animals are just unintelligent humans, due to this they don’t deserve as much morall consideration as humans but they do warant some. Animals do have brains, they can think and feel as humans do, leaves or volcanos are not.
But since you are having a conversation with a Christian, you want to know what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that animals have value and worth as life with God's breath in them, but they are not just unintelligent humans. According to Christian theology, humans are created in the image of God, and it sets them apart from the animals. I agree that they don't deserve as much moral consideration as humans but they do warrant some.
> God could have just made a new planet instead of killing the old one. He could have given Noah spaceship scemathics. He did not have to kill them.
I don't believe the Flood was global, but was instead a large regional (continental) flood. God didn't kill the planet. My concept was that sometimes the death of innocents (because of our behavior) is motivational and trips our conscience to better choices.
> And in what english language definition of the word love does it state that love requires choice by definition. All I could find was strong affection and liking but it said nothing about it having to be a choice.
Let me play this to its extremes and see if it holds: so if I torture you until you say you love me, when you do I can consider your love for me to be genuine?
> And if I have misunderstood then maybe do the constructive thing and tell me what I missunderstood instead of just stating it.
The Flood was not an expression of God's anger. There is no indication of wrath. The worldview of the ancients was defined by concepts like order, disorder, and non-order. The world had become disordered by humanity's depravity, and God acted to bring it back to a state of order. Sin was an act of disorder that had to be counterbalanced. The people could do that by repentance, but they refused. Here YHWH seeks to redress the situation. He is auditing the accounts because He had made humankind, and in the process enforces a system of checks and balances to part of the equilibrium He is maintaining in the world. Other accounts of such a view and actions by God are in Jer. 26.13; Jonah 3.9-10; Jer. 8.6; 18.1-12; Dan. 5.27.
> From a provable standpoint of science animals are just unintelligent humans, due to this they don’t deserve as much morall consideration as humans but they do warant some. Animals do have brains, they can think and feel as humans do, leaves or volcanos are not.
But since you are having a conversation with a Christian, you want to know what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that animals have value and worth as life with God's breath in them, but they are not just unintelligent humans. According to Christian theology, humans are created in the image of God, and it sets them apart from the animals. I agree that they don't deserve as much moral consideration as humans but they do warrant some.
> God could have just made a new planet instead of killing the old one. He could have given Noah spaceship scemathics. He did not have to kill them.
I don't believe the Flood was global, but was instead a large regional (continental) flood. God didn't kill the planet. My concept was that sometimes the death of innocents (because of our behavior) is motivational and trips our conscience to better choices.
> And in what english language definition of the word love does it state that love requires choice by definition. All I could find was strong affection and liking but it said nothing about it having to be a choice.
Let me play this to its extremes and see if it holds: so if I torture you until you say you love me, when you do I can consider your love for me to be genuine?
> And if I have misunderstood then maybe do the constructive thing and tell me what I missunderstood instead of just stating it.
The Flood was not an expression of God's anger. There is no indication of wrath. The worldview of the ancients was defined by concepts like order, disorder, and non-order. The world had become disordered by humanity's depravity, and God acted to bring it back to a state of order. Sin was an act of disorder that had to be counterbalanced. The people could do that by repentance, but they refused. Here YHWH seeks to redress the situation. He is auditing the accounts because He had made humankind, and in the process enforces a system of checks and balances to part of the equilibrium He is maintaining in the world. Other accounts of such a view and actions by God are in Jer. 26.13; Jonah 3.9-10; Jer. 8.6; 18.1-12; Dan. 5.27.