Growing up when I got a spanking, I never understood when my parents said that it hurt them more than it hurt me. That didn't make any sense until I had children of my own. I see God in the same light as that. As a dad, I tried to lead my children to be good people, to treat others nicely. I tried to teach them right from wrong and to let them know that there were consequences for their behavior. God does the same with us.
They came from years of slavery and wouldn't have been use to military practices though, unless they had seen the Egyptian army use them.
Man has never been really good at defining God. I believe none of us are fully capable of doing so in this life.
If I didn't know anything else about Jesus His work on the Cross is sufficient for me to believe. Isaiah 53 is also pretty convincing in that many many prophesies are made about the coming Messiah that were all fulfilled in the singular person of Jesus. The Dead Sea Scrolls contain a verbatim manuscript of the chapter and have been dated to at least 500 years before Christ's birth so that's another point to consider... Also, historians of the era that could hardly be construed as sympathetic to the cause (Jocephus, Tacitus, etc...) mention Jesus by name in their writings so the historical figure of Jesus is not in doubt to anyone who is truly without a bias. Yes, like everyone, I have questions and have had doubts about minutiae like talking snakes and donkeys, pillars of fire etc... But a God who can speak the universe into existence can make anything happen...
Fire and smoke itself as a military practice that was set and managed by man (or Moses) wouldn't be viewed that way. The Lord descending fire upon it coupled with the mountain trembling would probably be looked at differently.
I will not make fun of anyone that believes, as that is between them and God (how they perceive Him). But I think my falling out with the Church was not hard to do because I did not grow up in a religious family or atmosphere. When I lived in Florida (born there), for the first ten years of my life I never went to church and never heard the words Jesus or God. It wasn't until we moved to Knoxville and were bombarded with people coming to our door to try to get us to go to church that we finally went (when I was 11). I left the church six years later and never went back. But, if I had been going to church since I was 3 weeks old like a lot of people, growing up on the scriptures and seeing our parents believe, it would be hard to turn away. I see it in my own children, whom I have not pressured one bit, suddenly taking an interest in Buddhism simply because they see me meditating in front of my shrine at the house. We become what our parents are (for the most part). That doesn't mean that as adults we cannot change our minds, of course, or that we are incapable of breaking down our beliefs and deciding for ourselves what we believe in (I believe RockyTop has mentioned he did this during college). But for me, I couldn't fathom an All Loving God that would do some of the things I was being told would happen if you didn't follow His word. If a human did that to his children, he would be locked away for good. And as I got older, the inconsistencies and logical pitfalls in the idea of monotheism just didn't jibe with reality. For instance, the Moses story. There has been zero evidence that the Hebrews were ever in Egypt, nor that they were in the wilderness for 40 years. And the fact that the first five books (particularly Genesis and Exodus) bear a lot of resemblance to Babylonian and Canaanite mythologies is telling. To me, anyway. And that is why I had skeptical doubts. It just didn't make sense to me. And where I couldn't stand sitting in church for 2 hours listening to the pastor, I can easily spend 2 hours at the local Tibetan Buddhist center and meditate for 45 mins and then have a dharma talk. As I am sure devout Christians have no problem sitting through a sermon, enjoying every minute of it as they praise and worship God. May we all find our way, may all of us find the way to cease our sufferings, no matter what path they take.
I think this is true in some cases. Growing up in the same church when I was young that all makes perfect sense. As I have gotten older and the church population has changed I see a lot more parents at church and their grown kids do not attend. I also see several younger families where their older parents don't attend. That was something I didn't remember seeing when I was younger.
Why is the hebrew viewpoint important? Fairly damning if the populace believes something supernatural is going on when it's Moses and his cohorts.
What do you see as Moses relationship with God and how that did or did not play a part in his status with the Hebrews?
If the first is true Id agree. The other (even without personal experience) sounds like "an attention getter".
The simple answer is an instrument of Jahweh. Moses was prepared for the mission at hand. Not unlike Joseph.
Is this why Christians are so adamantly against cloning? They have this bizarre idea that creation implies ownership and control? I bet a Christian came up with the saying: "You're my son, I brought you into this world, I can take you out."
