LordReed:
Discuss

LordReed:
Discuss

LordReed:
Discuss

jamesid29:

If I may ask, What is the major reason people make sacrifices to a god?

Faithful4real:


The Bible said Christians will face persecution. So what else do you need.

Maximus69:


Christianity isn't a movement for the first century Jews who are faithless, it was meant to gather all the honest hearted and sincere inhabitants of the earth for the Faith.

Satan must complete his work which is trying to profane pure worship as usual. If he didn't do that separation of God's people from false worship will not be complete.

So God allowed Satan to continue his work after Christianity has been established and we'll documented for the generation that will experience the last days, God's people must be separated from the midst of this crooked generation (they must be taken as a unique people for his name)! Act 15:14

From the beginning until now Satan have been entering the midst of God's people and profaning pure worship after the one God used to establish it has died.

The first generation to be called God's people are Abraham's offsprings but most of his children became idol worshipers so God later separated the Israelites (sons of Israel/Jacob), later ten tribes became Idol worshipers and God separated the Jews (Only two tribes Judah and Benjamin with the Levites officiating in the temple as usual), then the Jews kept killing the prophets of God so Jesus came and after his departure God separated the Christians from the Jews. So for almost 2,000 years now Satan kept toying with the name CHRISTIANS by forming different types of religion in the name of Christ, according the book Atlas of Global Christianity "there are almost 2.3 billion of people worldwide today claiming Christians but they belong to over 41,000 denominations each having it's own doctrines and rules of conduct"

It's during this generation that God finally separated faithful people for his name. In the year 1931 one group out of all the groups claiming Christians were given a divine name Jehovah's witnesses! Isaiah 65:15

So just as Satan have been killing faithful servants of God from Abel till the first century {Luke 11:51} God kept allowing his people to be killed while pure worship was gradually taking shape till our generation!

That's why Jehovah's Witnesses have stood out of all the groups claiming worshipers of God this time with totally different message, orderly and well organized! John 17:20-23 compare to Revelations 18:4

LordReed:


This doesn't answer the question.

LordReed:


Persecution does not equal death. Mandela was persecuted, he wasn't killed.

Faithful4real:


Christians martyrdom.

LordReed:


Appeasement.

jamesid29:

Great... All throughout recorded history, certain individuals or groups of people have always been targeted and murdered for things like their belief system, their ideology, non-conformity and so on .These people were murdered because of what they represented and for some reason their worldview was seen as a threat in the society in which they found themselves.
Take for example, Martin Luther King's assassination and his beliefs in the equality of rights for African-Americans in the society.

Would you say these deaths were in some way a form of appeasement to any god?

LordReed:


Some were, can't be specific on what proportion since that data is not available but I think it is significant enough not to make any sweeping generalizations without acknowledging that.

jamesid29:

True....i do acknowledge there are always exceptions to the rule.

Would you mind giving an example where we would consider those who were being murdered for their counter-culture worldview, a form of appeasement to their god(i mean from the viewpoint of those being murdered)?

LordReed:


Do you mean appeasement to the god of the person being murdered? Jonah in the Bible.

jamesid29:

Yea,I can understand why you would see Jonah as an example on the surface. Luckily the Bible does give us a bit more detail in the story and we also know quite a lot about that time period and about the Assyrian empire which gives us more context to the story. So we understand why Jonah would choose death over any of his other options. There's a lot to unpack but if you don't mind, I'll just skip to the end and pick out the most important point for our discussion so we don't get sidetracked.

So basically the story does tell us that Jonah's God apparently wasn't interested and didn't require Jonah's death in the very least ,as the next verse tell us that Jonah's God sent a fish to scoop him out of the water, kept him alive for 3days and subsequently spit him out in the one place jonah would have preferred not to be.

Also, the entire story had nothing to do with a difference in ideology, beliefs or worldview.
In any case jonah isn't really an example for your position.

LordReed:


It doesn't matter whether it was about ideological difference or not, Jonah was tossed overboard to appease his god, which according to the tale worked. It totally is an example for appeasement of the god of the sacrificed.

jamesid29:

Okay let's leave out the ideology part but as the first point which is the more important aspect states, Jonah himself choose death over any of his other options but his God apparently didn't want that, as the story goes on to clarify.
Now if the story ended with jonah being tossed into the sea and everything went calm, then you would be correct but that isn't the case here

LordReed:


Jonah 1
15 Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm.

jamesid29:


Jonah 1
17 And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

LordReed:


I dunno why you are quoting this, you said the sea didn't calm after Jonah was thrown overboard and I showed you it did.

Faithful4real:


The Bible said Christians will face persecution. So what else do you need.

jamesid29:

Nah, I never said that. Maybe you could point out where I said that.

jamesid29:

Okay let's leave out the ideology part but as the first point which is the more important aspect states, Jonah himself choose death over any of his other options but his God apparently didn't want that, as the story goes on to clarify.
Now if the story ended with jonah being tossed into the sea and everything went calm, then you would be correct but that isn't the case here

LordReed:

jamesid29: Okay let's leave out the ideology part but as the first point which is the more important aspect states, Jonah himself choose death over any of his other options but his God apparently didn't want that, as the story goes on to clarify.
Now if the story ended with jonah being tossed into the sea and everything went calm, then you would be correct but that isn't the case here

jamesid29:

I think you are misreading the the statement. Let me see if I can highlight certain things to make it clearer.



Hope that clears that up

LordReed:


This is called shifting the goal post. There was appeasement, I don't care about the rest of the story or how it ended. Meanwhile, I am done with this rigmarole, if you have a point, get to it.

jamesid29:

, that's not shifting the post.
You can't take one statement out of a story and use it as a smoking gun while ignoring the rest of the story arc that gives it more context. It's like picking out the part where Cinderella runs away from home to attend the ball and use that to make a case for her being an unruly spoilt brat. I believe we can both agree when you plug that aspect of the story into the larger context of the entire story arc, that is not the case.

Matter of fact sir, you were the one who shifted the post when you insisted we let go of the ideology part, which is a major reason why people or a group of people are persecuted. The whole premise of this thread from the beginning was, can we say the persecution of Christians serves as some form of appeasement to the God of the Bible? Put in another way, is the God of the Bible so angry at the world that he needs His followers to be persecuted and killed as a way of pacifying Himself?
My initial premise was, of course not. Throughout history, whenever a person or group of people hold ideas or worldviews that are counter-culture and deemed scandalous in the society they find themselves in, persecution is inevitable.That has nothing to do with quelling any god's anger.
Sometimes it might not even be about one specific ideology, it might be about what the people or person represent that the larger society deems scandalous that makes persecution seem like a good idea.

I was willing to let that go because even without that component, Jonah's story wasn't still about appeasing his God. It was about radical mercy to a people widely hated by almost everybody in the ancient world because of their legendary cruelty and about Jonah's God not letting even death be an escape route for not getting the message of repentance to them.

LordReed:


Oga you asked me for example of appeasement. All these other rigmarole is beside the point which if you have one, make it or don't bother, your choice.

jamesid29:

Baba, I don answer you, even beyond what was expected. . Maybe you are misreading my reply again or maybe you sha no one reason am.. either way, it's fine.

If you have any specific point you disagree with though, I'm happy to continue the discussion

LordReed:


None of your rigmarole answered my question so no you made no point to "reason am".