Contradiction in the 'I am a jealous god' commandment

[saizai]

"for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, 10but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments."
So what about someone who is the great grandchild of someone who rejected Yahweh, whose grandparent in turn was someone who loved Yahweh and kept its commandments?

Punished? Loved? Both?

What form does this punishment and/or love for one's ancestors' actions take?

[This Guy]

I think the contradiction goes deeper than that -

Ezekiel 18

20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

KJV

;)

[Kopji]

I don't see the contradiction. This is more of the 'insanity = evil" theme. not all your kids need to be crazy, just the one. A constant reminder that some ancestor did something evil in God's sight, and he's remembering.

God's keeping his word to punish descendants.
So all perfect and good.

[saizai]

Kopji - You didn't address the specific example I raised.

[jesus_freak]

What verse are you refering to here?

[strathmeyer]

What verse are you refering to here?

Yeah, because apparently there's too many ten commandments to choose from.

[Kopji]

So what about someone who is the great grandchild of someone who rejected Yahweh, whose grandparent in turn was someone who loved Yahweh and kept its commandments?

Punished? Loved? Both?

What form does this punishment and/or love for one's ancestors' actions take?

Within the good things that happen to the child is a moral lesson that God rewards his faithful ones. Within the bad things that happens is a moral lesson that God punishes the unfaithful.

If nothing bad happens to the child, this is proof of God's goodness to the faithful. If bad things happen to the child, this is proof of God's punishment of the wicked - even if it was not the wickedness of the child but their great great great whatever.

If there is a 'purpose' to these kind of scriptures, I suspect they help reinforce a point of view where the thought that there is no God does not easily occur. There is simply no place for the idea of 'no god' to take root.

As I mentioned earlier, mental or physical traits tend to run in families so its occurrence in an otherwise 'good' family is easily explained as a form of God's punishment.

Doesn't Jesus weigh in on this question? In the story of John 9:1 Jesus heals a blind man after some questions about if it was his own sin, or his parent's sin that made him blind.

In verse 9:3 Jesus answers “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him." So this at least seems to offer the possibility of a third perspective. That someone's condition might be a test or opportunity for faith.

(Y'all Christians feel free to jump in here and correct me if I'm gettin those c&v wrong)

[This Guy]

What verse are you refering to here?

Deuteronomy 5:9 From the Fundie approved KJV.

[Beerina]

So God will heap blessings on the family where some guy loved him, to 1000 generations, but it sounds like one future guy could mess it up, at least for the next 4 generations, before it returns to the good times.

I also note that if a man loved God, this would extend it another 1000 generations from that point, even if his family were, say, only up to generation 576 of blessings.

I further note that this puts a limit on when the rapture could occur. Assuming about 25 years per generation, if a man loved god today, and many claim to, that will give us 250 centuries, or 25,000 years that the Earth must continue to exist before the rapture, anti-christ, whatever, can occur.

And you know what this implies? Certainly there must have been at least one such man. Now given the Earth was created about 6000 years ago, that, in the worst case scenario (or is it best?) the earliest that the rapture or anti-christ could occur is about 19,000 years from now.

So is this good or bad? For good Christians, this is bad. For almost everybody else (remember, almost everybody is Hellbound), this is bad news because uncounted hundreds of billions more will be born over the coming 19,000 years, almost all also Hellbound.

And that presumes a man loving God is very rare. If it's common, this will go on almost indefinitely.

In fact, there have been an estimated 70 billion people who have lived. If only one of them loved god, that's a rate of about 1/70 billion. But a mere 1% growth rate (which humanity exceeds) will cause the population to out-number the molecules in the universe in 14,000-17,000 years.

Hence, even a 1/70 billion odds will make it statistically certain that one rare guy will come along from time to time and love God. Hence this will snowball out of control and the number of people who go to Hell will grow exponentially fast.

Oh. My. God.

And Yahweh knew all this was gonna happen, the bastard! The bastard! He wants nigh infinite people to be tortured in agony for ever and ever. :mad:


Oh, curse my numerate brain! :covereyes Uncovering the secret plans of a particular transfinite entity and it's murderous designs!

[chriswl]

Its badly written fiction. Why wouldn't it contain contradictions?

[Orangutan]

Punished? Loved? Both?


A Heaven of Sexy Spankings I guess.

[This Guy]

Within the good things that happen to the child is a moral lesson that God rewards his faithful ones. Within the bad things that happens is a moral lesson that God punishes the unfaithful.

If nothing bad happens to the child, this is proof of God's goodness to the faithful. If bad things happen to the child, this is proof of God's punishment of the wicked - even if it was not the wickedness of the child but their great great great whatever.

If there is a 'purpose' to these kind of scriptures, I suspect they help reinforce a point of view where the thought that there is no God does not easily occur. There is simply no place for the idea of 'no god' to take root.

As I mentioned earlier, mental or physical traits tend to run in families so its occurrence in an otherwise 'good' family is easily explained as a form of God's punishment.

Doesn't Jesus weigh in on this question? In the story of John 9:1 Jesus heals a blind man after some questions about if it was his own sin, or his parent's sin that made him blind.

In verse 9:3 Jesus answers “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him." So this at least seems to offer the possibility of a third perspective. That someone's condition might be a test or opportunity for faith.

(Y'all Christians feel free to jump in here and correct me if I'm gettin those c&v wrong)

You may have the correct slant on this tale. But I wonder if the message couldn't also be that he was made blind so that Jesus could then heal him, and show his power? Thus revealing the works of God so to speak.

I don't know. Just thought I'd throw that out there ;)

[St.Michael]

A Heaven of Sexy Spankings I guess.

Really? I'm ready to convert! :D