Excuse me to say that is a moronic interpretation. That is like saying Michael Moore thinks George Bush is incompetent, but that is not what his movie is trying to say. At least try to give a credible excuse.
You are trying to reason with me that the God of the Bible tries to get His message across by indulging in a flawed understanding of the world, which is obviously inane and quite unlike any omniscient God. I know very well that you only meant the "God is above all" thing as an example, but all I wanted to show you is that your example actually digs a deeper hole for your argument.
Uh oh. More twisting words around. If you tell me that, I can only conclude these things:
1) The earth is flat
2) The are a lot of people who can show me love if I let them.
You obviously understand that if premise 2 is wrong, the whole statement is wrong. If premise 1 is wrong, the whole statement is wrong.
It is like me telling you "God likes to punish His uncle". Now that means God likes to to punish, and God has an uncle. Since the premise that God likes to punish is wrong, the whole statement is obviously wrong. Similarly, since God doesn't have an uncle, the whole statement is wrong. You would have to be unreasonable to ignore the shortcomings of the passage and still try to make it sound like "Gospel".
Like I said before, both. If even one part of the statement is wrong then the whole statement is wrong. Imagine for a moment the sea has no depth, that would obviously mean that God cannot know what it's depth is and therefore the statement is WRONG. A statement can't be part truth and part lie, especially when it applies to matters of the Bible.
I have just shown how "healthy" your reasoning is, that you ignore the very fact that if God essentially told His prophets in a vision that the earth is flat, then it is God who is wrong. If you say that the prophets are wrong in order to save yourself from embarassment, you only dig a deeper hole by me asking why you would then believe anything the prophets say to be true.
This part has nothing to do with out discussion but now you are trying to change your argument to say the writers were just trying to "describe". The writers CLAIMED that their visions of a flat earth were given by God. You CAN'T ignore that and say they were only trying to describe God's greatness. I suggest you go up to the link I provided and read through it to know what the Bible really says about flat-earth. If the truth is in the meaning, then it is quite possible that you have misinterpreted the meaning, which also digs a deeper hold and begs even more questions. And also, just like okinrus, you resort to using the conditional "necessarily" because you know very well that your arguments amount to idle speculation. But as I told even him, I am basing my statements on what the Bible says, not what I want it to say and so he should do the same. Unless there is an indication that the writers of the Bible wanted to use the flat earth scenario as a description of God's power, you are lying to me since you have no reason to believe so.
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Acts 17
22Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:|sc TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
24"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.
The very Bible that you claim to be defending has disqualified your argument. Paul claims to be proclaiming the "unknown god" therefore it is foolish to say "God is unknown to us", since the Bible refutes that line of thinking. Also see
Romans 1
8The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
It is quite clear from this passage that the Bible says God is not "unknowable" or incapable of being verified.
Why should I believe something that is imperfect is the product of a perfect Being? Do you have any valid reasoning behind this? I'm not judging the whole Bible besides, but I'm criticizing the individual book(s) in question and the writers in the New Testament who believed that those books were perfect.
If you claimed that God gave you the answers to both equations, then YES, I would. This is another example of bringing an analogy that has nothing to do with the discussion.
If that is the case, then you are claiming that the reports of the prophets were subjective, meaning that they were outright lying for claiming "Thus sayeth the Lord", since they had bended it to their reality and not what God had said. The Bible very clearly says
Deuteronomy 18
21 You may say to yourselves, "How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD ?" 22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.
Therefore we see very clearly that all your word spinning amounts to nothing by the claim of the Bible. Since the testimony of the prophet is not "true", we can be sure by the Bible's claim that the prophet is a liar.
In that case Jesus' claims about His divinity may have also been altered by the oral tradition. Again, all your speculation does is to dig a deeper hole. If the writer also wanted to give hope to the people, then we can be assured that he was a liar and that we cannot expect any of his testimony to be true. I will however excuse all your speculation to say that this is not the case, since even the disciples believed in their writings that the earth in it's present form was "passing away". You should stop speculating and admit that not only did Jesus believe it, but His disciples believed it too.
That is simply more speculation because we know that Jesus SPECIFICALLY said that some of the people standing before Him would not have died when He came back. That quite obviously points to the immediacy of His return, something you cannot ignore.
If the reason is above your understanding, then you wouldn't have any reason to believe it in the first place so we can safely dismiss that assertion.
If somethings have been altered then you understand that it is not your business to go on believing in erroneous texts. Do you have any reason at all for believing that the original writers themselves did not deify Jesus because of their respective understanding of Him? Do you have any reason for believing that the altered texts remain valid enough for edification?
So you are basing your ignorance of other viewpoints on your feelings towards a religion that said it's savior would come 2000 years ago. Do you now see what I mean when I say I feel sorry for Christians?
It appears from my reading of your post that you are actually being naieve to the evidence and have abandoned reason. If Jesus claimed to be God and yet He was wrong about when He was coming back, surely you understand that it is stupid to assume that any of His other claims are any more valid.
Besides, if it is the fault of the oral tradition, then it can also be the oral tradition that is responsible for conjuring the reports of His miracles, the Nativity, and the resurrection. You do understand that this is also a possibility but you choose to ignore it and go on believing. This doesn't seem like you "realise" the problem at all, rather that you shut your eyes to it.
Have a nice day/night. 