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Title: A Brief History of Interest
Source:
monetary.org
URL Source: http://www.monetary.org/a-brief-history-of-interest/2010/12
Published: Dec 18, 2010
Author: Stephen Zarlenga
Post Date: 2015-07-15 13:02:57 by Pericles
Keywords: None
Views: 9011
Comments: 102
A Brief History of Interest On December 18, 2010, in Research & Articles, by AMI This essay was originally created for the Swiss Money Museum Web site (www.moneymuseum.org/) in mid 1999. It appears here thanks to the gracious permission of Dr. Jurg Conzett, creator of the Money Museum Web site. Updated and adjusted materials taking continuing research on this subject into account are found in The Lost Science of Money book, published four years after this piece (see link below). by Stephen Zarlenga copyright 2000, AMI 1)Early Loans And Interest Were Based On Agricultural Produce From about 30,000 BC human existence became more refined until social and economic forms of agriculture appeared around 10,000 to 7,500 BC. This took the form of hoe gardening done mainly by women and led to matriarchal based societies. From around 6,000 BC the horse was tamed and sheep, goats and cattle were domesticated so that by 5,000 there existed a mixed culture based on animal breeding and hoe gardening. The great plough revolution starting about 4,500 was complete by 4,000 BC. enabling the first city civilizations to arise, and the introduction of writing shortly after, led to a developing “social technology.” Loans in the pre-urban societies were made in seed grains, animals and tools to farmers. Since one grain of seed could generate a plant with over 100 new grain seeds, after the harvest farmers could easily repay the grain with “interest” in grain. (Suggested graphics here showing 1 wheat seed, next to a sheaf of wheat with the large number of new seeds which could be generated by that 1 seed) Also since just so much seed grain could possibly be used, there were natural limits to this lending activity. When animals were loaned interest was paid by sharing in any new animals born. (graphics – a male and female cow/sheep/goat, and the offspring) The Sumerians used the same word – mas – for both calves and interest. A similar Egyptian word meant to “give birth.” What was loaned had the power of generation, and interest was a sharing of the result. Interest on tool loans would be paid in the produce which the tools had helped to create. 2)The Oriental Usury Error On Lending Metals The social organization taken by the developing urban communities in Egypt, Assyria, and Sumeria is known as the Ancient Oriental System. It embraced the idea of a living King as the divine representative and savior, able to organize the welfare of mankind through a powerful Royal household exercising centralized control over the economy. Compulsory labor was required for public works and Pharaohs instructed what and how much to plant and how much of the harvest would be stored. Agricultural and metallic commodities (mainly barley and silver) by weight served as the primitive money system in these societies. The ancient orient made a momentous innovation, allowing usury to be charged on loans of metals, with the interest to be paid in more metal. This was particularly a problem with agricultural, as opposed to loans for commercial or trading purposes. The conceptual error treated inorganic materials as if they were living organisms with the means of reproduction. But metals are “barren” – they have no powers of generation and any interest paid in them must originate from some other source or process. This structural flaw was tempered by central authority. The Royal household, the largest lender and charger of interest, took action to minimize resulting problems by setting official prices for valuing several commodities, in effect monetizing them. Thus farmers depending on their harvest to repay loans, wouldn’t be harmed by seasonal market supply changes where bringing in the harvest would normally lower the prices. This interpretation suggests that ancient price tables, like Hammurabi’s, have been misinterpreted as price maximums and are really official exchange rates of commodities when used as money. In addition, the Royal power would periodically institute “clean slates” where agrarian (not commercial) debts were forgiven and lands returned to their traditional owners. In one culture the term “Amargi” referred to such emancipations from old debt obligations (see Heichelheim below). 3)The Oriental Usury Error Required Solon’s Reform In the Greek city states where the prices of agricultural commodities were not monetized by central authority but valued by more individually determined markets, charging usury on loans of coinage to farmers quickly led to severe social problems. By about 600 BC the class of free small farmers was vanishing, with land becoming concentrated into the hands of the Oligarchy: “Before the introduction of coined money the peasant farmer borrowed commodities and repaid the loan in kind, and … was probably able to meet the obligation without great difficulty; but after the introduction of coined money the situation became decidedly more difficult…he must take a loan of money to purchase his necessary supplies at a time when money was cheap and commodities dear. When a year of plenty came and he undertook to repay the loan, commodities were cheap and money was dear”, wrote Professor Calhoun. Unable to get out of debt, eventually bad weather or a poor harvest would bring foreclosure on their land and even bind them into slavery. This enslavement grew to crisis proportions, when Solon came to Athens rescue with his “Seisachtheia” or “shaking off” of burdens. Personal slavery was no longer allowed as security for debts. He canceled such existing debt contracts; and gave back land which had been seized. Farmers who had been sold into slavery abroad by those to whom they owed money were “bought” back and returned to Athens. Solon also declared a minimum monetary value for each agricultural product setting floor prices for them (see Heichelheim). He switched from the “Aeginatic” to the lighter weight “Attic” monetary standard reducing coinage weights and increased the amount of coinage in circulation. Solon had been a merchant in his youth and understood commerce. Yet he blamed Athen’s problems mainly on the rich Oligarchy. He became known as one of the seven great wise men, presenting the Oracle of Delphi with the “wisdom gift” which became inscribed on the temple entrance there: “Know thyself” and “Nothing too much”. (Fritz Heichelheim’s 1938 work – AN ANCIENT ECONOMIC HISTORY, is recommended for further reading on sections 1 to 3. Also see URBANIZATION AND LAND OWNERSHIP IN The ANCIENT NEAR EAST; edited by Michael Hudson and Baruch A. Levine; published by Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology) 4)Aristotle (384-322 BC) Formulated The Classical View Against Usury Aristotle understood that money is sterile; it doesn’t beget more money the way cows beget more cows. He knew that “Money exists not by nature but by law”: “The most hated sort (of wealth getting) and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange but not to increase at interest. And this term interest (tokos), which means the birth of money from money is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth, this is the most unnatural.” (1258b, POLITICS) And he really disliked usurers: “…those who ply sordid trades, pimps and all such people, and those who lend small sums at high rates. For all these take more than they ought, and from the wrong sources. What is common to them is evidently a sordid love of gain…” (1122a, ETHICS) 5)The Scholastics Differentiated Between Usury And Interest The Scholastics (1100 -1500 AD), the Church scholars familiar with the available writings in existence, echoed Aristotle. Acquinas argued that money is a measure, and usury “diversifys the measure” placing extra demands on the money mechanism which harmed its function as a measure. Henry of Ghent wrote: “Money is medium in exchange, and not terminus.” Alexander Lombard noted: “Money should not be able to be bought and sold for it is not extremum in selling or buying, but medium.” The Scholastics made the first attempt at a science of economics and their main concern was usury; but this was not the same as just charging interest. It was generally not forbidden to earn interest if the lender was actually taking some risk, without a guaranteed gain. Interest could also be charged when the lender suffered some loss or passed up some opportunity by extending the loan. Venice used advanced financial forms for centuries without violating the Scholastic usury bans. Two types of loans were always exempt from bans on interest: the “Societas”, where the lender assumed some portion of the risk of the enterprise. Also exempt was the “Census” – an obligation to pay an annual return based on some “fruitful” property. At first it was paid in real produce, later in money. The Census was normally capitalized at 8 times the annual return, but the risk of the “fruitful” base was on the lender not the borrower, for if the crop were destroyed by weather, the borrower had no obligation that year. Later cities issued “census” obligations based an tax revenues, which came to be called “rents”. Usury was much more than charging interest – it was taking unfair advantage; it was an anti-social misuse of the money mechanism. 6) The Church’s Condemnation of Usury: Observation of its bad effects- Pope Innocent IV (1250-1261) noted that if usury were permitted rich people would prefer to put their money in a usurious loan rather than invest in agriculture. Only the poor would do the farming and they didn’t have the animals and tools to do it. Famine would result. Burudian (d.1358), a professor at the University of Paris wrote that: “Usury is evil …because the usurer seeks avariciously what has no finite limits”. This places its results outside of nature – often outside of the possible. St. Bernardine of Siena (1380-1444) observed that usury concentrates the money of the community into the hands of the few. Divine and human law- All mankind’s moral/legal codes censured usury, normally with mild limits on interest rates. But the Old Testament strictly forbade Jews from taking usury from their “brothers” (other Jews), and discouraged taking it from strangers. The Scholastics looked on all mankind as brothers. Other codes restricted usury: *Code Of Hammurabi (2130-2088 BC) limited usury to 33%; *Hindoo Law – Damdupat – limited interest to the full amount of the loan; *Roman Law limited interest; Justinian’s 6th century Code reduced the 12½% limit of Constantine the Great, to 4-8%, and accumulated interest could not exceed principal. *The Koran totally forbids usury, from the 7th century; *Charlemagne’s laws flatly forbade usury in 806 AD. *The Magna Carta placed limits on usury in 1215 AD. *Most States of the United States enforced usury limits until 1981. Action Against Usurers- Pope Leo the Great (440-461) laid the cornerstone for later usury laws when he forbade clerics from taking usury and condemned laymen for it. In 850 the Synod of Paris excommunicated all usurers. The 2nd Lateran Council (1139) declared that unrepentant usurers were condemned by both the Old and New Testaments. Pope Urban III (1185-87) cited Christ’s words “lend freely, hoping nothing thereby” (Luke 6:35). Judicial action was taken against those openly practicing usury and the Church never condoned Jewish usury activity. Christian usurers who used semantic tricks in making loans were worried about excommunication and being denied the sacraments, especially burial in sacred ground. They used every word trick to avoid the usury label. Goods were sold on credit at a higher price which factored interest in. “Dry Exchange” bills in foreign currency were not sent for collection but resold to the borrower for a higher amount, reflecting interest. Usurers were required to make monetary restitution to their “victims”, and if they couldn’t be found, to the poor through the Church. Vast amounts of such moneys were involved in death bequests. The heirs of usurers were also required to make restitution. Fall Of The Usury Prohibition- Conrad Summenhart, of Thubingen University put aside Aristotle’s view, declaring it was OK to use something in a way that wasn’t intended. The Fuggers of Augsburg, vying with Florence to financially dominate Europe, financed Summenhart’s student John Eck to argue the permissibility of certain loans for five hours before the full assembled University of Bologna in 1515. Eck assured them that the method of charging interest had been in use for 40 years with no-one being excommunicated. As economies became more dynamic, with real growth possibilities, it became clear that charging interest on business loans where the borrowing merchant prospered, couldn’t be condemned as greed or lack of charity and by 1516 the idea of a lending institution charging interest for its services had been overwhelming accepted. Calvin’s Reformation- John Calvin finished off the usury ban in 1536. But his arguments were shallow compared to the Scholastics: “When I buy a field does not money breed money?”, he asked rhetorically. For centuries the Scholastics had demonstrated the correct answer is no – it is the field not the money which grows products. Calvin wasn’t enthusiastic about usury: “Calvin deals with usurie as the apothecaire doth with poison” wrote Roger Fenton. He considered usury sinful only if it hurt ones neighbor and that it was generally legitimate in business loans. (Additional recommended reading for sections 4 to 6 are THE ARISTOTELIAN ANALYSIS OF USURY by Odd Langholm; and The Scholastic Analysis of Usury by John Noonan) 7) How Capitalism Viewed Interest The justification for charging interest evolved historically in works promoting capitalism. One recurring theme was to attack Aristotle. Francis Bacon’s WORKS (1610) thrashed the Scholastics for: “almost having incorporated the contentious philosophy of Aristotle into the body of Christian religion…Aristotle…full of ostentation…so confident and dogmatical…barren of the production of works for the benefit of the life of man.” Yet Bacon’s rationale fell flat: “Usury is a thing allowed by reason of the hardness of men’s hearts. For since there must be borrowing and lending, and men are so hard of heart as they will not lend freely, usury must be permitted…” and Bacon was aware of usury’s problems: “… It makes fewer merchants… (and) makes poor merchants. It bringeth the treasure of a realm or state into few hands.” In William Petty’s 1682 QUANTULUMCUNQUE CONCERNING MONEY usury is redefined as: “A reward for forbearing the use of your own money for a term of time agreed upon, whatsoever need your self may have of it in the meanwhile.” This ascetic rewarding of self denial, with religious overtones, is still used by some in the 20th century, but Adam Smith’s 1776 WEALTH OF NATIONS, capitalism’s “bible,” put aside these earlier rationales, and justified usury in economic terms: “The interest or the use of money…is the compensation which the borrower pays to the lender, for the profit which he has an opportunity of making by the use of the money. Part of that profit naturally belongs to the borrower who runs the risk and takes the trouble of employing it; and part to the lender, who affords him the opportunity of making this profit.” This is how interest is popularly viewed today. But Smith overlooked that the lender gets his profit even when the enterprise loses; he ignored the successful business structures used by Venice for centuries, where the lender’s return was based on actual profits. Smith’s endorsement did not remove the stigma against usury; and the debate continued. Jeremy Bentham’s IN DEFENCE OF USURY (1787) created the present mis-definition of usury as: “The taking of a greater interest than the law allows… (or) the taking of greater interest than is usual.” He dismissed the harmful effects of usury on the common man: “Simple people will be robbed more in buying goods than in borrowing money.” An then he really bared his teeth: (translator: he became even more vicious) “If our ancestors have been all along under a mistake… how came the dominion of authority over our minds?” Is he going to cite the strong Old Testament admonitions against usury? No – he ignores them and attacks Aristotle: “Aristotle: that celebrated heathen, who … had established a despotic empire over the Christian world. …with all his industry and all his penetration, notwithstanding the great number of pieces of money that had passed through his hands … had never been able to discover in any one piece of money any organs for generating any other such piece. Emboldened by so strong a body of negative proof he ventured at last to usher into the world the results of his observation in the form of an universal proposition, that all money is in nature barren. …he didn’t consider … (from) a Daric which a man borrowed he might get a ram or an ewe … and that the ewes would probably not be barren.” Its the same argument Calvin used. But the Scholastics had shown it was the “ewes” not the coins that create more ewes. Humanity would have been better served if these fellows had only been able (and willing) to understand Aristotle. Despite continuous pressure and support from the financial community, the various justifications for usury proved inadequate in 1836 when John Whipple, an American lawyer wrote THE IMPORTANCE OF USURY LAWS – AN ANSWER TO JEREMY BENTHAM. Whipple proved the impossibility of sustaining long term metallic usury: “If 5 English pennies … had been … at 5 per cent compound interest from the beginning of the Christian era until the present time, it would amount in gold of standard fineness to 32,366,648,157 spheres of gold each eight thousand miles in diameter, or as large as the earth.” Whipple knew that answering the usury question required an accurate view of the nature of money, and he echoed Aristotle: “(the purpose of money is to facilitate exchange) It was never intended as an article of trade, as an article possessing an inherent value in itself, (but) as a representative or test of the value of all other articles. It undoubtedly admits of private ownership but of an ownership that is not absolute, like the product of individual industry, but qualified and limited by the special use for which it was designed….” One can imagine how advanced the world of finance would be today if someone like Whipple were present at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Had his viewpoint been distilled into law many unnecessary hardships (and wars?) could have been avoided. Instead the delegates operated under a primitive commodity concept of money, similar to that of the ancient oriental system and ignored the crucial monetary questions. 8) 20th Century economists have re-opened the usury question Modern research is re-examining the Scholastic’s work and conclusions. John Noonan writes that they “had an intuitive insight into the problem only now becoming apparent.” Noonan agreed with Pope Innocent’s arguments (see sect. 5) that usury would lead to the abandonment of industry: “Innocent’s argument…may seem naive or exaggerated at first, but the experiences of agricultural communities, such as ancient Greece, or China throughout most of its history offer considerable corroboration.” Historian Henri Pirenne noted in MEDIEVAL CITIES that: “The scourge of debts which in Greek and Roman antiquity so sorely afflicted the people, was spared the social order of the middle ages and it may be that the Church contributed to that happy result.” Despite the omnipresence of charging interest in our lives today, this question is not really settled. Furthermore, the modern world is now getting a taste of real usury. Up to 1981, interest limits (usually under 10%) were in effect in most of the USA. Today credit card debt is very high and growing, along with personal bankruptcy rates. Most people are paying 21 – 25% “interest” on their credit cards each year. Money they really can’t afford to pay. Some economists actually favor letting the market charge whatever interest rates people can be forced to pay. But this should not continue – it will do so much harm to society that all the free market economists in the world chanting in unison won’t be able to hide the damage. Money’s nature must be examined Approaching the usury question intelligently requires a better understanding of the nature of money. The Scholastics maintained that there was a distinction between money, and productive capital. Calvin’s Reformation argued against this. But the Scholastic view has been re-affirmed, for example by Knut Wicksell, the father of modern day interest rate theory who wrote in INTEREST AND PRICES: “It is not true that money is only one form of capital; that the lending of money constitutes the lending of real capital in the form of money. Money does not enter into the process of production, it is in itself as Aristotle showed, quite sterile.” Re-examining these questions will also require more candor (translator: honesty) from the English speaking economics profession. For example in the English translation of Wicksell’s book, that last sentence on Aristotle is significantly left out! Thus the English speaking members of the Austrian School of Economics (who view Wicksell as one of their own) are denied the full benefit of his work and thought. Now that The Lost Science of Money by Stephen Zarlenga is finally published in English, it should become much easier for concerned citizens and scholars to examine these questions meaningfully. This book is highly recomended for those interested in usury, from both a moral and a monetary viewpoint. We hope this brief essay makes clear that history really affects you in the present day, and that an historical understanding of monetary matters is truly essential. Start by reading our recommended works, and if you have questions, don’t hesitate to ask the American Monetary Institute.
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#1. To: Vicomte13, A Pole (#0)
For the classicists.
Now please relate this to the current situation in Greece.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
Why Greece? Why not your home mortgage or credit card usury?
Does nothing mean even the eventual return of what was loaned? If so that is not lending but an outright gift or an act of charity. If so there is no significance to the word or action of lending. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
Why Greece? Why not your home mortgage or credit card usury? First, it is the recent events of Greece that precipitated this conversation to begin with. Second, I am paying my debts, Greece is not. Third, I have always borrowed responsibily only borrowring what I knew that I could pay back even if beset upon by some bad times, Greece did not. Fourth, I am not paying usury on anything and neither is Greece. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
It is clear you have a limited understanding of the issues and confuse debt with interest.
Usury was much more than charging interest – it was taking unfair advantage; it was an anti-social misuse of the money mechanism.
In the best case you are a brainwashed zombie. In the worse case you are dishonest shill for usury.
“If 5 English pennies … had been … at 5 per cent compound interest from the beginning of the Christian era until the present time, it would amount in gold of standard fineness to 32,366,648,157 spheres of gold each eight thousand miles in diameter, or as large as the earth.” Whipple knew that answering the usury question required an accurate view of the nature of money, and he echoed Aristotle: “(the purpose of money is to facilitate exchange) It was never intended as an article of trade, as an article possessing an inherent value in itself, (but) as a representative or test of the value of all other articles. It undoubtedly admits of private ownership but of an ownership that is not absolute, like the product of individual industry, but qualified and limited by the special use for which it was designed….” One can imagine how advanced the world of finance would be today if someone like Whipple were present at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Had his viewpoint been distilled into law many unnecessary hardships (and wars?) could have been avoided. Instead the delegates operated under a primitive commodity concept of money, similar to that of the ancient oriental system and ignored the crucial monetary questions. Despite the omnipresence of charging interest in our lives today, this question is not really settled. Furthermore, the modern world is now getting a taste of real usury. Up to 1981, interest limits (usually under 10%) were in effect in most of the USA. Today credit card debt is very high and growing, along with personal bankruptcy rates. Most people are paying 21 – 25% “interest” on their credit cards each year. Money they really can’t afford to pay. Excellent article. I've long believed that the removal of our laws against usuary in '81, - was the beginning of our finacial insanity, --- which can only end in a complete collapse of the system..
I see this a lot in so called conservatives like SOSO - they think they are defending capitalism's basic principal. I had another poster on here (not SOSO) who never heard that usury was the same as interest. And both that poster and SOSO claimed that concept usury was for high interests not all interests. So there has been a lot of brainwashing of people going on on ideological grounds. When was the last time anyone heard a sermon against usury? I know of it because I read the classical scholars and the church fathers.
“(the purpose of money is to facilitate exchange) It was never intended as an article of trade, as an article possessing an inherent value in itself, (but) as a representative or test of the value of all other articles. It undoubtedly admits of private ownership but of an ownership that is not absolute, like the product of individual industry, but qualified and limited by the special use for which it was designed….” When fiat money is involved - the debt interest devalues the money because more is printed to pay of the compounding interest. So in gold, silver, etc coinage the interest builds to add on more gold than exists in nature and in fiat money, more paper is printed devaluing money. Both are harmful to the economy and are unsustainable.
That's what it means today and that is how you should use the term when communicating to people. Remember when gay meant happy and cheerful? The meaning of words change and the meaning of usery is not the archaic usage of that term. But more to the popint, I clearly expressed to you that I do not dispute that the Bible tells us that God does not want us to charge interest on loans, especially to the poor. Why do you insist on creating BS red herrings? And still you evade to question of repayment of principal. Why is that? потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
Are you claiming that I am paying an unreasonably high rate of interest on the debt I have chosen to assume? Pray tell, what is the userous level of interest say on a 30 year home mortgage? 0%, 2%, 5%, 8%, 10%, 20%? On a car loan? Should the principal amount of my mortgage be forgiven in 7 years? Is that how they do it in Russia? потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
That's what it means today and that is how you should use the term when communicating to people. The clue to what I means is when I mentioned "biblical". The meaning God's word is eternal and unchanging.
Any amount over principal is usury. http://www.jubilee-centre.org/the-great-financial-crisis-a-biblical-diagnosis- by-paul-mills/
Pray tell, what is the userous level of interest say on a 30 year home mortgage? 0%, 2%, 5%, 8%, 10%, 20%? On a car loan? Any amount over principal is usury. Do you understand English? Are you saying any amount over 0% interest is userous? And again you still are dodging the questions of repayment of principal. Does God want the borrower to repay want he borrows or does God command that we lend to anyone at any time with no expectation of being repaid what was loaned? потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
The clue to what I means is when I mentioned "biblical". OJ, I will lend you a clue - speak in clear, understandable, generally acceptable terms. No need to repay this loan. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
I'd say 10% max, based on the fact that in ten years the lender would have received ALL of his principle back, plus having a fully secured loan for 20 more years. In fact 10% max seems fair for all secured loans. And if lenders are stupid enough to give unsecured loans, -- let them have a couple more points, maybe, just to spur economic growth. Here's one kicker, -- I had no problem loaning $20 to other troops for double on payday. It was the risk, -- you never knew when a guy would ship out, never to be seen again, or would simply stiff you, threatening to tattletail about the loan- sharking.. -- Personally, I very rarely had a loss.
Yes, any amount over zero percent charged to fellow faithful is usurious in the English God uses.
God demands that we lend our excess to any brother or sister in faith who asks us, to charge no interest, and to lend it without expectation of repayment. If the brother or sister is honest and has the means, s/he will repay it. Circumstances change and people fall into difficulties, and honest people may not be able to repay the debt as expected. God expects you to let your brother or sister go, release him or her from the debt, if he or she is unable to repay it in six years. If your brother or sister lied to you to steal the money, God knows, and God will repay the thief his or her theft. You are not to haul your brother or sister in faith before the secular courts. That is what God expects of you.
So God expects you to be foolish with your money and freely give it away to those that would abuse your kind heart or otherwise cheat you without you doing any due diligence. Sorry, I do not think that God commands us to be fools or dupes but rather to be good shepards of the bounty He bestows upon us. BTW if it is God's money to begin with He could arrange to give it to them Himself and cut out the middle man. It is clear that in your undrestanding of God's will for us there is no such thing as private property. God owns everything, man owns nothing......not even his life, his soul, his free will and therefore not even his sins. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
What God expects is clearly written and not easily attained - you SOSO show that you have zero idea about this issue. That God is mysterious in what he asks is a given. That you have not spent much time reading the classics is also a given.
Do you ever answer a question you total prick? потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
Man owns his sins. Man doesn't own his life or his money. Let money become an idol, and the money becomes an occasion for sin.
Do you ever answer a question you total prick? I did answer - you want to have your opinions aired against mine. The Bible is not my opinion and my opinion does not matter on the Bible. I cited as best I can the opinions of those that do count. On matters of religion, it is not my opinion or yours that counts. I have no inside knowledge of God's mind. I am not a prophet. Angels don't speak to me. I cited as best one can do on the internet why I wrote what I wrote. As someone of the faith, it is not up to me to have an "opinion" on what my faith teaches is the word of God. What is my opinion is that if all these diverse faiths separated by time and geography came to the same conclusion about a practice than there must be truth in that. The problem I think is that you seem to think your ideas are sound while I base my ideas on what teachers from the past have stated. That could be because I have a classical educational background but I see this more and more. Every man is an expert because his gut tells him so.
That's a pompous recipe for theft and enslavement. People with that kind of mentality are a plague upon the world, but they weasil out of the accusation by claiming it's life in the hypothetical next world that counts.
God is the Creator, of man and every thing in the Universe. God owns what He has created and He has set the day of our death as is His right. He has caused us to have money for our use. Am I making sense to you?
That you have not spent much time reading the classics is also a given. Do you ever answer a question you total prick? If one hints at having read the classics, one doesn't need to answer questions. Claiming to have read the classics should intimidate people enough that they are incapable of asking the question.
It would be "pompous" if it came from a man. But it came from God, so it is the expressed will of the sovereign. It's also the Law of the Universe, whether any of us like it or not. When God does something, it's never "pompous". He's God, for God's sake.
Who created God, and when?
Who created the materials used to make the Universe? We are living in a material Universe, right?
And as the Creator God created sin. So if God owns everthing - including man's life, free will, everthing - God also owns man's sin. Am I making sense to you? Either God owns it all or not. Which is it? потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
Where did the acts of Satan come from? God created Satan with free will as He made the Angels who followed Satan. Did sin come into existence when Satan rebelled against God? The Holy Bible tells us that God cannot sin.
Oh, you are a mindless prick. OK, carry on. "That could be because I have a classical educational background..... Ah, that's why you are such a classical asshole. You come by it honestly. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
I repeat the question. Now please give me a direct answer. Who created God, and when?
I repeat my question. No answer?
But if God created eveything and owes everything He created sin and owns it. You can't have it both ways. Either man owns some things or he doesn't. You don't get to pick and chose based on what suits your view of things. The fact that God created sin is clearly spelled out in the Bible when God told Adam and Eve thou shall not eat of the fruit or they will surely die. Who created and owned Satan's free will? Adam and Eve's free will? According to your philosophy man had no choice but to sin even if God did not sin Himself. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
Free will is ...free will. God can give free will without making a created thing act in a specified manner, in my opinion. If Satan acted in a manner of his own choosing, why should we blame God for how Satan chose?
I repeat my question. No answer? The answer to your question lies within your answer to my question, but you are too evasive and frightened to answer.
Posting with you is starting to be funny. Let me put this in another way. The difficulty in trying to answer your question is the same as the question I gave you. I wasn't around during the time you are interested in nor does the Holy Bible tell us. Can you answer the question I gave you? No? I didn't think so.
Not surprisingly of you non-thinking knee jerk scripture quoters, I never said I blamed God for any actions of man or Satan. I merely stated that if in fact God created everything and owns everything as you and vicomte13 claim then God owns whatever sins man and/or Satan commit. If God didn't create sin by definition neither Satan nor man could sin. According to you God owns every sin that there is as He created them all, even IF as you claim He doesn't own the choice that the sinner makes to sin. Does this make God guilty of or liable for the commission of sin? Or is He divorced from the consequences of His actions? I have been dealing with this Orwellian double speak from you Bible quoters since I was a teenager with the intellect and faith that God gave me. Your ability to subordinate your logic and intellect in favor of mindless recitation of scripture is astounding. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
Right. When I see the stars on a cloudless night, probably 10% of them are galaxies the size of our milky way. Now have the integrity and seriousness to answer my question.
He's gone into hiding.
Loan on a home or car does not have to be usurious, even high one. On one condition - that lender shares the risk. If borrower cannot pay or market value of house goes down the bank can re-posses the fallen asset and borrower can walk away. Usury is when compound interest can grow exponentially like cancer until ruin of debtors or whole economy.
Yep, it's called going to sleep. When you get finished kicking your feet into the air and calm down, think about I said. I answered your question. I realize the position you are in. If God exists, you are in serious trouble. If you don't have to consider that He exists, maybe He will go away. That is called the head-in-the-sand approach. It doesn't work for the ostrich and it won't work for you.
When Christianity does not agree with SOSO world view fck the scriptures.......
Or to even be a loan. Fixed payments over time that pays the principal off plus a fixed profit to the bank.
The word we translate as "evil" in the Hebrew Scriptures is the word "dysfunction". Of course God is the source of both function and dysfunction - of good and evil. God says so many times. He says he sends evil upon the world, and indeed tells the Hebrews that he is inflicting evils upon them for their disobedience. There is nothing shocking about this, unless one has spun a false doctrine that say that God does not create nor do any evil. Scripture says he does. God, in Scripture, specifically identifies himself as the creator of evil - of dysfunction - as well as good. I take God at his word on this, and not the false human traditions that pretend that God is not the source of evil. God created evil. Evil is dysfunction, it is the falling apart of things and the bad results that come from doing things in a way contrary to God's expressed will. If you do as God has directed, it is functional, and you will function, and it is good. But, if you what God has prohibited, it is dysfunctional, it will not work in the end, it is evil, and God makes sure to send evil upon you, to punish you and to make an example out of you to scare everybody else. God created both good and evil. Now, "sin" is a different thing. Sin is a state of impurity that makes one disgusting to God such that he does not want you to approach in his presence. Excrement is neither evil nor dysfunctional. It is the natural product of disgestion, and it is highly functional as fertilizer. God prescribed that Hebrews should bury theirs. But if one chooses, instead, to roll in one's own excrement and walk around stinking in it, one has chosen to be filthy. The excrement is not per se evil, but it's certainly dysfunctional as a body cream, and choosing to use it that way makes YOU dysfunctional, disgusting, unclean. God doesn't want you in his presence, at his feast, and neither does anybody else until you wash that off. SIN is the choice to roll in the excrement, and it is the presence of the excrement upon you. Some moral sins make the spirit, which we cannot see, ugly and sour to God. He can overlook the ugliness and wash away the impurity, if he chooses to. Involuntary sin is that which, by its nature, God does not like. It's the rolling in excrement because one is working in the field. It happens. Voluntary sin is choosing to roll in the excrement. God made excrement come to be, yes. The excrement is functional, in its sphere. It's dysfunctional elsewhere. God doesn't choose for you to go smear it on yourself purposely. If you do that, you've chosen to enter a state of sin. God didn't make that choice for you, and he doesn't OWN that. He made you capable of making that choice. You are not an automaton. Things that you can't avoid because of nature may still be disgusting and not to be done on the altar or in the sanctuary (crapping, pissing, menstruating, hawking up loogies, etc.). You can choose not to do most of those things in the sanctuary. In the day, God told women (who can't choose to not menstruate) not to attend the feasts of the sanctuary when in a state of sin because of menstrual uncleanness. So, to avoid the offense to his senses, God told the women to simply stay back until her period was finished and she baptized herself. Then she could return. So, God created the uncleanness - the sin - in that case, by creating menstruation. But there is no evil - no dysfunction - in this sin, this uncleanness. It is an uncleanness, a blemish, and that is sin. It is not evil. By contrast, the ability to kill a man is certainly a created reality by the fact that we are an organic machine. God did not make us ethereal. Break our machinery and we die. God made us able to die, he made us like we are - functional, but killable, and the "killableness" is a design feature, a way by which God can break our functionality, and use dysfunction to eliminate us in a way that brings pain and example to other living machines. God made us good, and in so making us, he made us with the ability to break, and inflicts the evil of breaking us when he chooses. But if WE decide of our own volition, which God does not control unless he CHOOSES to take control (which he can: God hardened Pharaoh's heart repeatedly, SO THAT he could inflict more death and destruction and evil on Egypt, SO THAT what he did to Egypt would stand for all time as the monument of how God can lay the mighty low, destroy their gods and do every sort of horror to those who are his enemies). If we decide to act like God and break men's bodies, we do evil, and in the process we taint our spirit with sin which we cannot see, but which God does see and sense. The existence of our ability to choose means that God does not own all of our evils and dysfunctions. We do. God does own inherent dysfunction - evil - that he has made. He doesn't own it when we choose to do it.
No. The loan is the amount given. It is repaid. No "trying to find a way to charge interest without it being interest". No interest at all. Trust God.
In the Holy Bible, God tells us flatly that he creates and sends evil on those who deserve it.
Who created God, and when? To answer your question, we have to use the right words. The word "God" is an English word, from a Norse word "God", which is the word "good". In English, we're actually calling some power "Good". Jesus said "There is only one good, the Mighty One." Jesus used the word "theos" there, in Greek. This in English reads "There is only one good, God", but that would really be "There is only one good, Good", and it is tautological. In Greek, the word "theos" doesn't mean "Good". It means the same thing as "El" in Hebrew. These words mean "Mighty One" or "The Mighty" or "The Power". In Hebrew, the name "El" - Mighty - or "Eloah" - the feminine singular form - appears in compound names, but when the word we translate as "God" appears alone, it is "Elohiym", which is a plural: "Powers". So, if we speak of the ruler of the universe, we are speaking of "The Powers", and your question, phrased in terms that refer to what is revealed about the Deity, is really "Who created the Powers, and when?" And the answer to that is the identical answer that appears in atheistic science: Who created the Natural Powers that inhere in and caused the Big Bang and Natural Law? Where and when did Natural Law and the Natural Powers that Are come into being, and who made them. The answer: nobody made them, they always were and always will be. The same answer for Physics as for Theology, because at root, the Powers of theology and physics are the same identical thing, just looked at two different ways, using different (and in one case very old) language. Nothing more. Nothing less.
There is actually a system that meets the biblical requirement that was like what I wrote - just don't remember the details.
God created evil, yes, for evil is dysfunction, it is the breaking apart of things that work together. When I say "evil is dysfunction", I am being precisely correct. In English, we TRANSLATE the Hebrew word "functional" (or more literally "what works") as "good", and we translate the word "dysfunctional" (literally "what doesn't work") as "evil". Those words reify what is, in truth, a DESCRIPTION. "Evil" becomes a THING, as opposed to a state of being. In Hebrew, a thrown tie rod in your engine is evil. Running an engine without oil is evil. A hole in the roof is evil. A broken pencil lead is evil. They are dysfunctional, they don't work. THAT is what "evil" is, as God uses the word. It is not a mystical or magical state or condition. Neither is "sin". "Sin" is dirtiness, uncleanliness, and a state of (invisible to us) moral blemish that causes one to be offensive and obnoxious to God (who does see the filth). God - the Powers that Be - created function and dysfunction. God created poop and blood and sex. And those things are functional in their sphere. And when taken out of their sphere, the Powers that Be made it such that the dysfunction breaks the machine. But if the thinking machine, the man, chooses to go roll in poop, or smear blood all over himself, or engage in prohibited things that tend to break the machine, and that make him stink before God, he has become unclean, and needs to be cleaned up before God will accept having him in his presence. It is not dysfunctional for dogs to pee. It is when they pee on the carpet.
God did not create disfunction or error. God created free beings that could err.
Only because the traditionalists have decided to say so. God's intent, both Scripture is clear: IT'S NOT YOUR MONEY. DON'T STORE EXCESS. Your brothers and sisters in faith are enslaved by debt - give them the money to let them get out of it, and don't ask anything in return. Of course they're morally expected to pay it back. If they take the loan not intending to pay it back, they're stealing. No, the lender may not make money on lent money. God didn't create any vehicle for that, and didn't do a risk analysis. He commanded the lending, without interest, and letting go in the 7th year. It is all God's money. The stewards he gives more to have a tendency to erect their own rules, because they are greedy, and to start treating it as their own. This is adding to God's law, and it's a sin. No. These structures are not in Scripture, and they are not right. And yes, God is in part testing men in this business of money, as in all things. What is so hard about just doing it God's way? Lend the excess to brother and sister Christians who ask, who need it. Just like that. Without strings. Without interest. Don't expect to be paid back. (But the borrower should expect to pay it back, and should do so - if the borrower borrows without intent to pay back, he's not really a brother Christian, and he's stealing, and God throws liars into the flames at judgment.) It's really straightforward, and God didn't gussy it up.
Yes, he did. God explicitly and directly said in Scripture that he creates evil. He said it, from his own mouth. And therefore it is so. Traditions that say otherwise directly defy and reverse God's own direct words, and therefore such traditions are THEMSELVES evil, human-made evil, dysfunctional, because they strike out God's words and replace them with human traditions. The ancient Hebrews and Jews did that, and were destroyed for it. And Christians do it, and when we do it, we destroy our own Church. Why? Because God created evil and says so directly, so there is, in fact, no philosophical "problem of evil". God creates good AND evil, and says so. We simply have to deal with it. But by creating a false Christian doctrine that God does not create evil, we lie, we lie to ourselves. And then we have a terrible "problem of evil", which WE have created outselves out of wholecloth (because God said flatly that he creates evil and good). And we are unable to resolve the conflict between a universe that is full of evil (which God created) and Satan (whom God created and preserves alive), and our theology, that we made up out of our own imaginations, that God creates no evil. Our theology is a lie, and contradicts what we observe, so we go unfocused and make up MORE lies, and call it all a mystery. And this, in turn, makes our entire theology go queer, and become illogical and insane, and we lose the ability to even speak rationally with other people, because our false tradition has put us in a bash trap that contradicts reason and reality. We destroy our religion by clinging to false theology, and the idea that God is not the creator of evil is a false theology. Completely and utterly false. Untrue. God said so himself, directly and unambiguously. In reality, God created Satan, and God creates evil, and God sends and inflicts evils on men all the time. He says so about a thousand times in Scripture. And what he says is true. All Christian theology that denies this, no matter how old, and no matter who said it, is at best an error (a foolish one, given that we have God's own direct words throughout Scripture, which Christians have always had), or it's a lie devised to serve a theology of God as created by us, but not as he revealed himself. Further, we find a direct conflict in SCRIPTURE ITSELF, where God says he creates evil and sends it, but one of the human psalm writers say that God has nothing to do with evil. So, the Hebrews, too, were indulging in exactly the same sort of tradition- mongering falsification of the truth even back then. This conflict is in the Bible. If one reads the word that God himself says directly out of his own mouth, he is the source of evil and good, and the creator of both. We only find men writing in the Scripture that evil does not come from God. Those parts of Scripture are inferior in authority to the words that proceed forth out of the mouth of God, just as the traditions of the Church that oppose what God said directly are also inferior. We all must make choices. The correct choice is always to accept what God said DIRECTLY. If God said it DIRECTLY in Scripture - not through some writer's oblique opinion, but in "And God said: ..." form, then THAT is what is directly revealed, from God, and true. And whatever conflicts with it, in the Bible or elsewhere, is one of those false traditions of men that crop up and cause such problems. God is the original source of all evils that can exist. He created everything, every spirit. God created Satan, and God created every demon. God created AIDS. No living being exists without God's direct infusion of spirit, and that includes every evil spirit, every disease. God is the original creator of all evil and all good. He said so. And it IS so. The crazy, contradictory Christian traditions that reverse what God said and say otherwise collapse as a matter of logic. God promises US ultimate good, that he will treat us well, IF, and ONLY IF, we obey him and do what he said. Otherwise he promises, and delivers, calamitous evil and disaster upon us, and created Satan and the demons, and viruses and floods and earthquakes, and the Lake of Fire and Gehenna, as the instruments by which this is carried our. Scripture and tradition conflict on this. Scripture conflicts with Scripture on this. But YHWH Elohiym doesn't conflict on it. He says directly that he created evil, and sends it. And therefore he did and whoever and whatever says otherwise is a lie.
"I form the light, and I create darkness. I make peace, and I create evil. I YHWH do all these things." - God, speaking through the Prophet Isaiah.
You misinterpret. God can punish but in moral sense it is good and just not evil
The Orthodox Sunday school that I remember taught me that it is more of a case of God being all good. Being all good, he allowed free will which deviates. Like a flame, the farther we get from the source the colder we get (hence where evil dwells and because God is the source of light and non light then he is the creator for the conditions of evil. Also, I do recall my teacher stating that demonic possessions sometimes happen because God withdraws his grace or allows it to happen as a lesson. The demons have to ask permission to possess in affect - but my memory is hazy. Also, hellfire was explained to me as your skin being dabbed in alcohol. If you are without blemish alcohol feels soothing on your skin but if you have a blemish it burns. God's light/grace/power works like that. The more sin you have the more it hurts to be in the spirit world because God's power is everywhere there. Hell is being a spirit that died in sin and is burning because his soul is not able to process God's radiating power. This makes sense in the stories where Moses can't look at God directly or will die - as a human form which is corrupted from Adam's fall it can't process God's power directly without some intervening force.
I misinterpret nothing. God SAID "I create evil." THere's nothing there to interpret: God creates evil. He creates it and he sends it. And that makes perfect sense.
Christians have a doctrine that God does not create evil or do evil. They also have a doctrine that the Scriptures are the inspired word of God. God in the Scriptures said point blank that he creates evil and good, and sends both. And that makes perfect sense.
Ouch, that's gonna leave a mark. Pericles, Don best put some ice on that. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
I'm not trying to "leave a mark" or cause any fights with my fellow Christians. I've been trying to stay focused on economics, but when broad questions are asked about the nature of God as a challenge to the notion of God, I need to respond, if only to show that there are really answers to these questions.
Well they are certainly your answers to these questions. It appears that other self-professed Christians have a difference of opinion on them. What's a boy to do? потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
Septuagint/Slavonic: "I form light and create darkness, I make peace and send distress; I the Lord make all these"
A boy is to listen to God. Jesus said to Satan "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds forth out of the mouth of God." Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, even Muslims, say that the Bible is inspired by God. Catholics spend a lot of time ruffing and fluffing about "Tradition" (with a capital "T", mind you), but if you read the summa theologica of their Tradition, the catechism of the Catholic Church, you will find that it is footnoted clause by clause, that most of the footnotes are to Scripture, and that Scripture is accorded the highest status: quotes are to Scripture, first, or to church documents that, on perusal, are themselves footnoted to Scripture. So, roundabout, in their most authoritative and extensive public doctrinal pronouncements, even the Catholics ultimately give primacy to Scripture in supporting each doctrinal position they can. Protestantism is BASED ON the notion of the supreme (indeed SOLE) authority of Scripture. The Orthodox are very much like the Catholics, though less systematic, in part because the Eastern habit of mind does not have the same angular and dry logic to it as the West, and in part because there was no Reformation in the East to create as much need for Easterners to argue the inner tenets ofC Christianity with other Christians. In the Middle East, the threat for 1300 years has been Muslim, not other Christians, and neither Biblical nor Tradition-based arguments are availing against Muslims, who have both different Scripture and different tradition. In the East, you have to look at the Councils, and when you do, you find the great ancient theologians such as Chyrsostom, And when you drill into him, and them, you find their works repose overwhelmingly on Scripture. The nature of the Scripture-source debate is a little different than the West - Septuagint or Massoretic Text, for example, is resolved swiftly in favor of the Greek. This adds a wrinkle when speaking in the West, one which is easy for Catholics to bridge (LXX versus Vulgate did not divide the Church before the Schism, and needn't now) but more difficult for Protestants. In the West it's harder, but in the end, after tumbling through traditions and catechisms and Councils, we discover that East, West or North, the learned theologians of all of traditional Christianity give the highest authority to the written words of Scripture. Tradition that isn't described in Scripture is nevertheless justified by something in Scripture. So, by hook or by crook, all Christians end up at Scripture, because that is the only place in all of Christendom where the words of Christ are recorded. Cutting to the chase, that means that one who wants answers, must ultimately look as a scholar to Scripture, because that's what the Pope and Curia ultimately do, that's what the monks on Mt Athos ultimately do - even if they look to Acquinas or Chrystom, repsectively, Acquinas and Chrysostom refer back to Scripture. Within Scripture, we find a hierarchy of authority that is both plain by content and by logic. In SOME places, God speaks directly as himself. ALL of the law given in Scripture that is treated as divine law comes in the form of God, identified in the text as God, speaking directly, out loud, with his own voice. No law in Scripture ever comes from men "interpreting" God. In every case, the binding laws come directly from God. They are then taken up and repeated, and opined upon, by the other men, but binding law coming from text that says "Elohiym" said, or "YHWH" or "Jesus" or "the Lord". This is important, because it verifies Jesus' direct words to Satan: "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds forth out of the mouth of God." In a case such as "the problem of evil", God says directly over and over and over again that he sends evil. He says that he creates evil. What a boy is to do, is what God said. You look for what God said directly - it's about 10% of the Bible text and all of the law, and it is quite repetitive. The Torah repeats itself three or more times. Jesus is recorded in four versions, with heavy overlap. God's message through the Prophets is so monotonously similar - the same indictment of the Hebrews over and over and over again - that it's hard to read them through. So, you read what God said, and you think about it, and it becomes obviously, painfully obvious, blindingly obvious, what God's rules were, and that God modified some of them for the world by Jesus, but that God intended what he said, and meant it. And then, having read that and understood it, a boy is to do that. Just that, not adding to it, and not subtracting from it. Just walk THAT path. It's hard enough. And when the temptation arises to ignore God on some point, a boy is to dig in and understand that the desire to ignore God is a temptation to sin. And then the boy doubles down and sticks with God. That's what a boy is to do.
"Distress" Look at your LXX. What is this word in Greek.
The Hebrew word here is “Ra” – same word as for the the tree in Genesis. The LXX Greek translates “Ra” in Isaiah as “kaka” – which refers in Greek to evil as an essential character of a thing. So, God says through Isaiah that God makes things that are evil by nature. The LXX translates the same word, “Ra”, in Genesis, regarding the tree, as “poneros”, which also means evil, but in the sense of bad, toilsome. The Greek distinction between these two words comes from Greek sensitivity. It doesn’t exist in the original Hebrew. Now, if one considers God to have directly inspired the LXX translation, such that the LXX Greek is as authoritative as the Hebrew it translated (the KJV-Onlyists take this approach regarding the English translation called the King James Version, considering it directly inspired and more authoritative than the Hebrew or Greek originals), and more authoritative for us because the LXX was more recent in time than the Hebrew, and was used by the Christian Apostles, then we find that the Greek actually further accentuates the point: God states that he specifically makes things that are intrinsically evil: Kaka, and not simply things, such as the tree, which can be perceived as being bad or evil due to being toilsome and wearying. In the Hebrew, the word “evil” is not there at all. “Ra” means “dysfunctional” or “doesn’t work”.
Years ago I was a student at a Catholic college. I became friends with a Jesuit, actuallt an ex-jesuitbecause he left the order, but not the priesthood and taught at the college. Together we took second place at a local bridge tournament. I had another priest acquaintanece who was one of the nation's top chess players with a photographic memory. He didn't need a a chess board to play me. In his younger years he played chess with masters all over the world by mail. He'd play me from the next room by calling out his moves. It was a humbling experience. I only won tree out of 33 games. One of my won games was with a reversed Evans gambit which no one but myself had ever seen before. Ordinarily, I'd begin a game a game then he say somthing like, "This game was played by Morphy vs Staunton in xxxx and he'd recite the continuation and its weaknesses. UGH! In my usual exasperated and contentious manner I asked the ex-Jesuit for a proof of the existence of God. He replied with an honest and truthful answer that was astounding: "it can't be proven. It's gift of faith. Either you have it, or you don't." I have never forgotten it. There was no need for further discussion of the issue. I can tolerate religion to a point. But I'm getting angry with people beating me over the head with what is essentially their blind belief which can't be substantiated. I'm disgusted with people who advance aggressive thundering arguments saying: "God says..." or The scriptures say boom, boom, boom... All your theatrical thundering and angry foot stamping will not defear the Obamas, Marxists, and islamics of the world. In presenting youself as the solitary voice of reason, you tragically lose the argument for all of us. You are attempting to manipulate the discourse into the exclusive focus on "uncaused cause" argument by obstinantly refusing to answer my simple question. You instinctively know if you do you will be checkmated by the logical continuation. But you don't have intellectual consience. You are much like Obama. Contradictions are not an embarassment to you. You're too arrogant, mindless, and blind to see them.
I took no offense at Vicomte's view. It is based on scholarship. SOSO is just trolling.
"I form light and create darkness, I make peace and send distress; I the Lord make all these" That is the line I was thinking of (or trying to remember more accurately) when I mentioned God was the light and the darkness in my statement. This does not mean God sends out evil. The words are subtle.
There are many who can't stand any thought of God. They easily become argumentative and heated in a discussion on God and His sovereignty over Creation.
In Slavonic (which is inspired too) is "bedstviya" (Greek kakos / kaka ) what means misfortunes, afflictions, wants. === kakos An Ancient Greek word meaning bad. Used in a similar way to crap, lame, lamos, pants. "That is kakos!" "I've lost my keys, kakos!" "I've had a kakos day === Ernst Achilles (DNTT, s.v. "evil") summarizes the LXX data: [...] kakos is primarily the evil which objectively hurts one's existence. (i) It is predominantly looked on as God's punishment (Deut. 31:17) which normally corresponds exactly to the preceding sin. The evil which men set in motion is brought back on their heads by Lord. Hence Amos 3:6b can say, "Does evil befall a city, unless Lord has done it?" [...] Behind the evil lies God's gracious purpose of visitation. His final purpose is "to give you a future and a hope" (Jer. 29:1 I c). (iv) The OT reaches the climax of its search for the origin and purpose of evil when faced with God's all-sovereign goodness. For here all questioning is silenced. In Job the three friends seek to link Job's suffering with his sins. Job never denies his sinfulness, but the work as a whole makes no direct connection between his sinfulness and his sufferings. Suffering is not necessarily the result of sin. It may be training in faith and hence testing [...] It is to be noted that the OT very seldom speaks theoretically of evil. It describes it concretely and concentrates on the case in hand. Hence evil is not abstract. The two things to note from this are: (1) the lack of an 'abstract' notion of metaphysical evil (needed for the verse to be asserting the creation of such a notion); and (2) the closer-to-calamity than closer-to-ethical meanings for the predominant usage. This argues against understanding ra' in the passage as referring to some metaphysical abstract principle of ethical evil.
No, it came from defining precise meaning into Greek. And Septuagint was done by the Jews fluent in Hebrew, for the Jews and used by the Jews for generations
This is a language translation problem. Evil in English has come to mean like a satanic thing. The Greek uses 2 words that I am aware of. One is "kako" which in English is best translated as "bad" and it can be like "bad storm" to "bad man". The other word used for evil is "poneros" and this is sort of planned evil - a wickedness - a cunning evil. Trickster spirit. The Greeks also differentiated war in this way. They had the strategic war idea of Athena and the bloody animal blood lust of the Ares/Mars kind of warfare. The fact that Greek had more words than Hebrew to say these abstract things is probably why it was the lingua franca of the world at that time.
Have you bothered to read my post?
The problem of defining the "precise meaning" of one word is that there's no basis to know the "precise meaning" that was meant by a word that was written a thousand five hundred years in the past. But even so, when the translators added those "precisions", real or imagined, to the Hebrew Ra, what they did in the case of God's proclamation of creating evil in Isaiah, was to use the word "Kaka", which means something that is intrinsically evil or bad, and not merely something that a person that isn't intrinsically bad, but that someone might find to be bad were it to occur. Rain isn't bad, in general, but it's bad if it's cold and you have to walk home in it. Cold rain you have to walk in is not "kaka". Disease-infested feces - sewer caca - is intrinsically bad, useful for nothing and dangerous. It is kaka. So in Hebrew God says he creates dysfunction. But in Greek, God says that he creates intrinsic evil. Literal evil is created by God, according to God. God creates things with the intention that they BE evil, to inflict that evil thing. Kaka is not merely that which is perceived by men to be evil. It is something made to be evil by God, in order to inflict that precise evil, intentionally so made, upon man. God creates evil, as evil. He makes the good, and he makes kaka, to BE kaka. The Hebrew doesn't say that. But the Jewish translators into Greek made exactly that specific point, with that specific word, coming straight out of YHWH's mouth. And that's a good thing, because once we accept what God Himself said directly, and see how many times he said that he was inflicting evil, that he created, all of a sudden the whole tangle of impossible philosophical conflict disappears. God is the creator of all things, good and evil. God is good, to be sure, but the good God creates evil. He doesn't just TOLERATE it, he purposely MAKES it. He said that quite specifically. God is the origin of all that is good, and he is the origin of that which is intrinsically evil too. So the "Problem of evil" - "How can evil exist in a world made by a good God" is a dagger of the mind. In the real world, the good God made evil also, and inflicts it, as consequence for men choosing evil. ...if one is a Greek and believes, as you do, that the LXX language is "more precise" than the Hebrew. I personally think that the Greek is not more precise, but that the translators added concepts that are simply not there, and were not revealed by God. God spoke in the Hebrew and revealed it in the Hebrew, so what the text really says is that God creates dysfunction. WE call dysfunction "evil", and abstract thing, but there IS not evil as such, only function and dysfunction. There's no "dark force" battling the "light force". Entropy is not a fundamental force. It's merely the opposite of order. It's the chaos to which things fall when not ordered by OR, which we translate as "light", but which would better be called "energy". Anyway, let's pull back to see what we are doing? Is the "problem of evil" important? Not to me. It doesn't exist to me. It does exist to you, because your tradition has filigreed out nuance that I don't think really exists in the revelation. Having done that, it is necessary to resolve it. I don't think it CAN be resolved other than acknowledging what God said directly in the Greek: he creates the evil. And then leave it at that. "He's not a tame lion." - Narnia Tales
I'd say that the difference between Greek and Hebrew is that Hebrew is extremely ancient, coming from an middle bronze age culture that was limited by its nature to family-level agricultural activity in a borderlands country between empires. Without trees to speak of, the Hebrews were not seafarers of any note. They won the wars they won because of divine aid, not because they were noteworthy or effective warriors. The had no great river bringing wealth and fertility like Egypt and Mesopotamia. They were organized on family/clan principles and had no monarchic tradition. Their unity didn't survive the fourth king, perhaps a century, and the kings there were over unified Israel either proved utterly unsuitable (Saul and Rehoboam), or fell into sexual sin that had disastrous moral and dynastic consequences, resulting in civil wars in David's time, or idolatry and the collapse of the Kingdom in and shortly after the time of Solomon. Israel was a petty state that never rose above low-level agriculture because it was a theocratic state and God did not INTEND for men to become imperialists with grand, lavish economies and the "culture" they produce. The culture was, by design, simple, familial and religious. To get high culture, you need massive excess wealth. And that meant, in those days, massive slavery, which meant conquest. The Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and Romans were all violent conquerors on a grand scale, taking whole states and empires captive by force. This, in turn, generated immense wealth and leisure, which in turn generated the sort of culture that comes from having an idle class with wealth at its disposal. I'm not sure that cultural sophistication is truly a good thing at all, for it comes hand in hand with the depravity required to amass the wealth sufficient to attain it, and then has built within it the vices that will lead to its downfall (for God will not be mocked). Still, the Greeks were certainly far more sophisticated than the rustic, religious, superstitious Jews, which is why they conquered them and injected their culture and language into the Jewish culture. Greek language is more sophisticated because the culture that fed it was younger and far more sophisticated.
Greek is just as ancient as Hebrew and so is Egyptian. The difference is Greek was a literate language - they had a well developed literate language. Phoenicians had an alphabet before the Greeks which the Greeks adopted but the Phoenician never used their alphabet to do anything other than record keeping. To me the best example is I think some American plains Indian languages that had the same word for all kinds off animals - be they buffalo or dog or horse, etc. The speaker and listener understood the animal talked about based on the context. Another example is aloha.
I'm disgusted with people who advance aggressive thundering arguments saying: "God says..." or The scriptures say boom, boom, boom... All your theatrical thundering and angry foot stamping will not defeat the Obamas, Marxists, and islamics of the world. In presenting youself as the solitary voice of reason or contention, you tragically lose the argument for all of us and then strut off with your chests puffed out and proud as peacocks for the continual defeats you have inflicted on all of us in the name of of God and the bible. You deflect realization of what you're doing by saying what happens in this life makes no difference or concern, it's only the afterlife that counts. You are a bigger offence against humanity than the Nazi concentration camps.
atta boy, guy. That's telling them.
Obama has zero to do with any of this. And it is a simple proven fact that all through Christian history until recently interest on loans was considered a bad thing and a crime. You can be an atheist and not be able to refute that was once the norm. That is all that is being argued here. That this current banking system built on debt interest - aka usury is according to every Christian and pagan that ever lived, an abomination.
Septuagint/Slavonic: "I form light and create darkness, I make peace and send distress; I the Lord make all these" That is the line I was thinking of (or trying to remember more accurately) when I mentioned God was the light and the darkness in my statement. This does not mean God sends out evil. The words are subtle. The words are more subtle that you know! For in the Hebrew, the words that are translated into Greek, and English, as "light" and "darkness" are words that are themselves ambiguous in their first use. Yes, by the time we're talking about the time of Moses and the Prophets, the words "OR" (AWR) and "ChoseHh" (HhWSHh) are use for light and darkness, but at the very first instance, in Genesis 1, the words have a wider and more subtle meaning, a meaning that is expressed by the pictographic sentence that forms the words, in light of the surrounding pictographs. We have to remember that the most ancient Hebrew is like middle Egyptian, it is pictographs whose pictures sound the syllables of words. The words and the pictures are related. The word translated as "light" is the word that sounds like "Or" and it is the root of the word "Order" which is actually a Hebrew word that is used in English and other languages to mean just that, order. OR is the thing that produces order. And the thing over which order is produced is the "mem". Mayim is the word translated as "waters", but the original "waters" are mem, and it means surging chaos, not H20. The darkness doesn't arise, in the text, until OR is spoken by God, and the word "darkness" is, pictographically, a wall (composed of spirit/breath) that has within it El - God, the mighty one - linked to a division and another wall (of spirit). So, with ORDER/Energy (light is the visible form) God divides the mem into ordered day, the light, and ordered night - not chaos anymore - walled off and divided (from chaos) by Spirit. Of course, scientifically speaking, energy is required to order entropy, and Or orders the mem from surging chaos into elements, and day and night, walled off by spirit. The immense richness of the pictographs of the words, read as sentences, is conveyed by the words, but only through a glass darkly. One of the ways that one really KNOWS what the Hebrew means is that the pictures under the word SHOW it. Most amazing of all is the first word of Scripture, "BRASYT" - bereshiyt - which is translated, poorly, as "in the beginning" or "in summit", but which pictographically shows, within the letters, "In the head of God divided in two pointing to the Cross". In other words, before the beginning of time in Genesis, we see the begetting of the Son within the godhead, and it's actually right THERE in the very first, barely translatable word. The word that follows repeats part of the theme, and then we have Gods, Mighty Ones, plural, followed by "AT" El to the Cross. When you SEE it emerge from the pictographs, and the words, you realize that it really is written from the beginning. The Son is actually THERE from the beginning, but hidden to the eyes until revealed. Once revealed, it's just THERE every time you see that strange plural Elohiym - gods - that takes a singular noun. This takes pages to convey in English. Part of the problem is that it really is there, but it's not obvious, even to scholars (hardly anybody studies the pictographs as words; the pictographs themselves were not fully known until our lifetime - yet the intuition of it, and the faithful transmission of it - WAS carried forward to us by the Church, in apostolic succession, even in ignorance of all of the porters. This is why I cannot break with the Church even when clergy do evils and strange rules are proclaimed and then erased: hovering within this place is the Holy Spirit and the Truth, and men haven't been able to destroy it DESPITE their best efforts. It's the negative, unasserted, but I think more real part of infallibility. The men may all fail, but the Truth doesn't and somehow continues along. It's a miracle). Anyway, I don't want to drift too far. I do want to get to a quick reconciliation on what could have become a dispute, because I don't want to dispute, just explain. There are real aggressive attackers of God around, and my strange way of thinking, or your and A Pole's traditional ways, are not in conflict with each other. Yes, there's a grain of real difference of view, and even theology, at the heart of what we're saying, but it is not substantial, in the sense that it doesn't change any of the sacraments or the sanctity of anything. And if my writing it disturbs, I'll just stop writing it, because it's not important enough to me to allow it to become a point of division. I think of it as a point of PRECISION. And really I'm trying to reason with the atheists. They will cut the Church no slack on any apparent logic flaws. And the flaws they think are there are not really there. They need to know that so we can get to where RLK has come out, which is: you either are given the faith or not.
Time and death will defeat them, if they don't defeat themselves. And the Islamics, many of them, can very probably become cooperative allies just as Jews and Christians, and different types of Christians have. There is only one passage in the Koran that forces confrontation between Christians and Muslims, and it does not force war, because there are other passages in the Koran that essentially impose peace on Muslims regarding Christians. Focusing on that passage, in Arabic, allows one to get to the room of Quranic dispute with Christianity, and it's really the same dispute that Judaism has. The answer to Islam is the answer to Judaism too. The difference is that the Quran TELLS Muslims, in straight terms, that Christians are the ones who are closest to them in understanding, and that they are to walk in peace. Culturally, Muslims from the Arab countries carry a lot of additional baggage, of the Haditha. The best route for peace with them is to learn the Koran alone, without their extra traditions, for they will never traduce the Koran, and they will admit that the extra traditions are not core. The Koran doesn't conflict with itself the way the Bible sometimes does, because it was written by one author. So with Muslims who are sincere, there is only one passage that separates them theologically from Christians. It's important and its not resolvable, but the Quran dictates to Muslims that in the non-resolution over the matter of the Prophet Issa (Jesus), that they must nevertheless not resort to war and killing with peaceful Christians. And there is a way, theologically and philosophically, for that Muslim line to be true, and the resolution of it is the same as the resolution of the filioque. Essentially, Muslims and the Orthodox really can understand each other directly, if without communion. We are not fated to fight, and the God of us all, in the books, gives us a way to peace, if we will listen. Most "Muslims" and "Christians" actually WANT to fight, because of culture and history, but that is not the way. However, getting Christians to get along is so hard, that trying to get Christians to understand Muslims, or vice versa, other than one on one with people of real goodwill who WANT to find an answer will lead to a broken heart.
This I agree with. This agrees with the Hebrew. There is no abtract principle of ethical evil. There is function and dysfunction. Dysfunction certainly SEEMS to be abtract ethical evil, but it isn't. It's kaka.
Well, I'd say that miracle - that which breaks the laws of physics - CAN be proven, and that such proof certainly opens the door to belief in that which can break those laws. But I agree that the willingness to sit through the proof of miracle and to take it seriously probably is a gift. Those who don't have the gift, don't have the patience or interest to see the supernatural proven, and then from the supernatural, derive God. Too hard. Unrewarding. And those who don't need it, don't want to see it done because it's superfluous as far as they're concerned. Still, I'm willing, if you're patient.
They were the most qualified linguistically (fluent native Hebrew and high brow Greek) and spiritually (they were from the core group that was the custodian of scriptures and of worship). Yet He does not do evil.
God spoke in Greek too. More - He spoke without words as well. He spoke to the translators and inspired them. Or will you say that the New Testament was originally in Hebrew?
Well they are certainly your answers to these questions. It appears that other self-professed Christians have a difference of opinion on them. What's a boy to do? A boy is to listen to God. Good, that is exactly what I thought and more importantly do. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
Are you claiming that I am paying an unreasonably high rate of interest on the debt I have chosen to assume? Pray tell, what is the userous level of interest say on a 30 year home mortgage? 0%, 2%, 5%, 8%, 10%, 20%? On a car loan? *******CRICKETS********* A Zomibe got your tongue? потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
THe New Testament was originally in Greek. Maybe Matthew was originally a collection of sayings in Aramaic. Who can say? We have only the Greek. For the Old Testament, we have the Hebrew. God does kaka. He says so. Many times. Says it and creates it too.
You were answered.
A Zomibe got your tongue? You were answered. Whane and where did you answer me? What was your answer? потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
It is getting tedious
When and where did you answer me? What was your answer? It is getting tedious Just identify the post in which you answered me. Why are you so evasive about this? потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
Miracle is a self-serving word clutzes apply to anything they either can't, or refuse, to understand. The more ignorant an individual or a society is, the more it is dependent upon the word miracle to explain things. CAN be proven by what standard of valid evidence?
We take the standard understanding of physical and biological science, what he know and believe to be possible. We look for things that cannot spontaneously happen under those laws, but that could happen with the direct application of intelligence. We look for objects that cannot happen under the physical laws, that could happen with the direct application of intelligence, but that could not have been the product of human intelligence under the circumstances of their existence. Those things are things that exist, but cannot. They're miracles. We look at the content of those miracles and note that they convey a lot of information. And through the process, we come face to face with artifacts of divine origin made for our instruction. That's how.
Now, to deal with you and your fruitcake subversive mission. Money that is stored by individuals under a mattress is subject to loss or theft. the solution is to put it an a bank for safe keeping. The bank may loan that money out on a statistical basis that charges a fee, called interest, to make up for the failure of a minority of individuals to pay it back that protects the people putting money in that bank against possible loss. In addition, some people may come for large loans that are impossible for small customers to underwrite. That loan is spread out among hundreds or thousands of small customers to furnish the cash necessary to make the loan. Suppose I were to want to establish a trucking company and my prospects were goo d at being able to pay the cost of the truck in 10 years once I bought the truck. Without the truck my capacity to buy it would be zilch. I would go to a bank, lay out my plan, and ask to borrow the money to buy it on a ten year basis. Do you have any idea how many business and industries were created on this basis? This country would be back in the middle ages without banks and interest. Who is usurying whom? Stick your classical concepts of christian economics up your butt.
You do, but I and other don't. If it were several hundred years ago you would be writing poetic sounding nonsense condemning Galalio for disputing a monopoly on divine instruction.
Money that is stored by individuals under a mattress is subject to loss or theft. No one argued money should be kept in a mattress and Jesus is indeed a subversive. That is why he was executed. As a real conservative I love when I expose so called conservatives like you as the antichrists they are.
The only thing you are exposing is a chance to show your ass. We have been throuh this crap before and it ended with an assertion that you have a tendency to indulge in the fallacy of four terms nonchalontly and repeatedly. It makes good reading for stooges, but poor substance.
Well, RLK, you'll have a divine revelation one day, and then you will know, for your good or your ill.
#2. To: Pericles, Vicomte13, A Pole (#1)
#3. To: SOSO (#2)
#4. To: Pericles, vicomte13, All (#0)
Pope Urban III (1185-87) cited Christ’s words “lend freely, hoping nothing thereby” (Luke 6:35).
#5. To: Pericles (#3)
#6. To: SOSO (#5)
#7. To: SOSO (#5)
Two types of loans were always exempt from bans on interest: the “Societas”, where the lender assumed some portion of the risk of the enterprise. Also exempt was the “Census” – an obligation to pay an annual return based on some “fruitful” property. At first it was paid in real produce, later in money. The Census was normally capitalized at 8 times the annual return, but the risk of the “fruitful” base was on the lender not the borrower, for if the crop were destroyed by weather, the borrower had no obligation that year. Later cities issued “census” obligations based an tax revenues, which came to be called “rents”.
#8. To: SOSO (#5)
I am not paying usury on anything and neither is Greece.
#9. To: Pericles (#0)
Whipple proved the impossibility of sustaining long term metallic usury:
#10. To: A Pole, SOSO (#8)
#11. To: tpaine, A Pole (#9)
“If 5 English pennies … had been … at 5 per cent compound interest from the beginning of the Christian era until the present time, it would amount in gold of standard fineness to 32,366,648,157 spheres of gold each eight thousand miles in diameter, or as large as the earth.” Whipple knew that answering the usury question required an accurate view of the nature of money, and he echoed Aristotle:
#12. To: Pericles, A Pole (#10)
And both that poster and SOSO claimed that concept usury was for high interests not all interests.
#13. To: A Pole, vicomte13 (#8)
I am not paying usury on anything and neither is Greece. In the best case you are a brainwashed zombie. In the worse case you are dishonest shill for usury.
#14. To: SOSO, A Pole, Vicomte13 (#12)
And both that poster and SOSO claimed that concept usury was for high interests not all interests.
#15. To: SOSO, A Pole, Vicomte13 (#13)
Pray tell, what is the userous level of interest say on a 30 year home mortgage? 0%, 2%, 5%, 8%, 10%, 20%? On a car loan?
#16. To: Pericles (#15)
#17. To: Pericles, A Pole, Vicomte13 (#14)
That's what it means today and that is how you should use the term when communicating to people.
#18. To: SOSO, y'all (#13)
Pray tell, what is the userous level of interest say on a 30 year home mortgage? 0%, 2%, 5%, 8%, 10%, 20%? On a car loan?
#19. To: SOSO (#16)
#20. To: SOSO (#16)
#21. To: Vicomte13, perilcles, A Pole, redleghunter, rlk (#20)
If your brother or sister lied to you to steal the money, God knows, and God will repay the thief his or her theft.
#22. To: SOSO, Vicomte13, perilcles, A Pole, redleghunter, rlk (#21)
So God expects you
#23. To: Pericles (#22)
What God expects is clearly written and not easily attained - you SOSO show that you have zero idea about this issue. That God is mysterious in what he asks is a given. That you have not spent much time reading the classics is also a given.
#24. To: SOSO (#21)
#25. To: SOSO, Vicomte13, A Pole (#23)
What God expects is clearly written and not easily attained - you SOSO show that you have zero idea about this issue. That God is mysterious in what he asks is a given. That you have not spent much time reading the classics is also a given.
#26. To: Vicomte13 (#24)
Man doesn't own his life or his money.
#27. To: rlk (#26)
#28. To: SOSO (#23)
#29. To: rlk (#26)
#30. To: Don (#27)
God is the Creator, of man and every thing in the Universe. God owns what He has created and He has set the day of our death as is His right.
#31. To: rlk (#30)
#32. To: Don, rlk, vicomte13 (#27)
God is the Creator, of man and every thing in the Universe. God owns what He has created and He has set the day of our death as is His right. He has caused us to have money for our use. Am I making sense to you?
#33. To: SOSO (#32)
#34. To: Pericles (#25)
As someone of the faith, it is not up to me to have an "opinion" on what my faith teaches is the word of God.
#35. To: All (#30)
#36. To: rlk (#35)
#37. To: Don, vicomtes13 (#33)
The Holy Bible tells us that God cannot sin.
#38. To: SOSO (#37)
#39. To: Don (#36)
To: rlk
#40. To: rlk (#39)
#41. To: Don, vicomte13 (#38)
God can give free will without making a created thing act in a specified manner, in my opinion. If Satan acted in a manner of his own choosing, why should we blame God for how Satan chose?
#42. To: Don (#40)
(Edited)
We are living in a material Universe, right?
#43. To: All (#42)
#44. To: SOSO (#13)
Pray tell, what is the userous level of interest say on a 30 year home mortgage? 0%, 2%, 5%, 8%, 10%, 20%? On a car loan?
#45. To: rlk (#43)
#46. To: SOSO, Don, vicomte13 (#41)
Not surprisingly of you non-thinking knee jerk scripture quoters,
#47. To: A Pole, SOSO (#44)
Loan on a home or car does not have to be usurious, even high one.
#48. To: SOSO, Don (#41)
#49. To: Pericles (#47)
#50. To: SOSO (#37)
The Holy Bible tells us that God cannot sin.
#51. To: rlk (#35)
repeat the question. Now please give me a direct answer.
#52. To: Vicomte13 (#49)
o. The loan is the amount given. It is repaid. No "trying to find a way to charge interest without it being interest". No interest at all. Trust God.
#53. To: SOSO (#32)
And as the Creator God created sin. So if God owns everthing - including man's life, free will, everthing - God also owns man's sin. Am I making sense to you? Either God owns it all or not. Which is it?
#54. To: Vicomte13 (#53)
#55. To: Pericles (#52)
There is actually a system that meets the biblical requirement that was like what I wrote - just don't remember the details.
#56. To: A Pole (#54)
(Edited)
God did not create disfunction or error.
#57. To: (#54)
(Edited)
#58. To: Vicomte13 (#57)
#59. To: Vicomte13, A Pole (#56)
If one reads the word that God himself says directly out of his own mouth, he is the source of evil and good, and the creator of both.
#60. To: A Pole (#58)
You misinterpret. God can punish but in moral sense it is good and just not evil
#61. To: Pericles (#59)
#62. To: Vicomte13, Pericles, Don (#61)
God in the Scriptures said point blank that he creates evil and good, and sends both. And that makes perfect sense.
#63. To: SOSO, Pericles, Don (#62)
uch, that's gonna leave a mark. Pericles, Don best put some ice on that.
#64. To: Vicomte13, Pericles, Don (#63)
I need to respond, if only to show that there are really answers to these questions.
#65. To: Vicomte13, Pericles (#61)
#66. To: SOSO (#64)
Well they are certainly your answers to these questions. It appears that other self-professed Christians have a difference of opinion on them. What's a boy to do?
#67. To: A Pole (#65)
#68. To: A Pole (#65)
(Edited)
#69. To: Don (#45)
(Edited)
#70. To: Vicomte13, SOSO, Don (#63)
#71. To: Vicomte13, A Pole (#65)
Septuagint/Slavonic:
#72. To: Pericles (#70)
#73. To: Vicomte13 (#67)
Look at your LXX. What is this word in Greek.
#74. To: Vicomte13 (#68)
The Greek distinction between these two words comes from Greek sensitivity. It doesn’t exist in the original Hebrew.
#75. To: A Pole, Vicomte13 (#73)
#76. To: rlk (#69)
#77. To: A Pole (#74)
No, it came from defining precise meaning into Greek. And Septuagint was done by the Jews fluent in Hebrew, for the Jews and used by the Jews for generations
#78. To: Pericles (#75)
#79. To: Vicomte13 (#78)
(Edited)
I'd say that the difference between Greek and Hebrew is that Hebrew is extremely ancient, coming from an middle bronze age culture that was limited by its nature to family-level agricultural activity in a borderlands country between empires.
#80. To: All, addendum to comment 69 (#69)
(Edited)
I'm disgusted with people who advance aggressive thundering arguments saying: "God says..." or The scriptures say boom, boom, boom... All your theatrical thundering and angry foot stamping will not defeat the Obamas, Marxists, and islamics of the world. In presenting youself as the solitary voice of reason, you tragically lose the argument for all of us.
#81. To: rlk (#80)
#82. To: rlk (#80)
#83. To: Pericles (#71)
#84. To: rlk (#80)
All your theatrical thundering and angry foot stamping will not defeat the Obamas, Marxists, and islamics of the world.
#85. To: A Pole (#73)
This argues against understanding ra' in the passage as referring to some metaphysical abstract principle of ethical evil.
#86. To: rlk (#69)
"It can't be proven. It's gift of faith. Either you have it, or you don't."
#87. To: Vicomte13 (#77)
But even so, when the translators added those "precisions", real or imagined
"He's not a tame lion." - Narnia Tales
#88. To: Vicomte13 (#77)
the translators added concepts that are simply not there, and were not revealed by God. God spoke in the Hebrew and revealed it in the Hebrew
#89. To: Vicomte13 (#66)
#90. To: A Pole (#13)
am not paying usury on anything and neither is Greece. In the best case you are a brainwashed zombie. In the worse case you are dishonest shill for usury.
#91. To: A Pole (#88)
#92. To: SOSO (#90)
A Zomibe got your tongue?
#93. To: A Pole (#92)
#94. To: SOSO (#93)
Whane and where did you answer me? What was your answer?
#95. To: A Pole (#94)
#96. To: Vicomte13 (#86)
that miracle - that which breaks the laws of physics - CAN be proven
#97. To: rlk (#96)
#98. To: Pericles (#82)
it is a simple proven fact that all through Christian history until recently interest on loans was considered a bad thing and a crime. You can be an atheist and not be able to refute that was once the norm. That is all that is being argued here. That this current banking system built on debt interest - aka usury is according to every Christian and pagan that ever lived, an abomination.
#99. To: Vicomte13 (#97)
(Edited)
through the process, we come face to face with artifacts of divine origin made for our instruction. That's how.
#100. To: rlk (#98)
(Edited)
Now, to deal with you and your fruitcake subversive mission.
#101. To: Pericles (#100)
(Edited)
As a real conservative I love when I expose so called conservatives like you as the antichrists they are.
#102. To: rlk (#99)
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