The 100 Tough Questions are all now answered by my Dad as he sees the Ancient of Days face-to-face. www.tributes.com/nabihammari

Thank you to each of you who interacted with my Dad over the years. He loved the intellectual debates and the rigor of writing and interacting with you. The conversations birthed in our home from these entries and your responses were stirring as I am sure you can imagine.

Perhaps someday, I or another relative will continue to stir the pot of food & politics.

Until then, may the God with whom Sodium wrestled bless you from on High.

Sincerely,
Chloride
son of Sodium 

Quoting The Whole Answer To Question (26) Of The " 100 Tough Questions about God And The Bible " By Stephen M. Miller.

By Sodium

( Note: Since the answer given to Question (26) is relatively short, it seems that it is more beneficial to the readers than just selecting a few quotations from it to provide an idea about the answer to the readers of this website. )

Re-citing Question (26):
==========================
" Why do Christian say hell is a fiery place of eternal torture ?  Bible scholars say hell is just an English word invented to translate Hinnom ( Hebrew ) or Gehenna ( Greek ), the name of a valley on Jerusalem's south side.

Below Is The Whole Answer, As Written By Stephen M. Miller:
=======================================================
" Hinnom became more than a valley to the Jews. Much like September 11, 2001, became more than a day on the calendar to Americans.

Hinnom Valley, like September 11, came to represent a firey terror.

Many Jews believed they lost their country because of what happened in that valley.It was there thaqt two of their kings--Ahaz and his grandson, Manasch--actually sacrificed their sons to idols

" He [ Ahaz ] offered sacrifices in the vally of Ben Hinnom, even sacrificing his own sons in the fire " ( 2 Chronicles 28:3 NLT ) "

Some Jews saw this as the worst of Israel many sins, and one of the reasons God unleashed judgment day in 586 BC Babylonian invaders from what is now Iraq decimated the Jewish homeland, leveled Jerusalem, and deported many survivors.

After that, Jews linked the name of Hinnom Valley to Judgment day.

In fact, all twelve times the valley is mentioned in the New Testament (of the Bible )--usually by Jesus--it's a metaphor describing a place of fiery punishment.

Jesus: " If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better to enter eternal life with only one hand than to go into the unquemchable fires of hell ( Gehenna ) with two hands " ( Mark 9:43 NLT ) "

Bible translators try to capture that idea of a place of fiery punishment--Gehenna--by using the English word hell instead of the name of the valley.

Final Words:
=========================
It seems to me that the statement " Some Jews saw this as the worst of Israel many sins " is truly ironic to read in the Twenty First Century, as one take into the current sins of Israel in its brutalization of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank of Palestine.

END.            

Some Quotations From The Answer To Question (25) Of The " 100 Tough Questions about God And The Bible " By Stephen M. Miller.

By Sodium

Re-citing Question (25):
============================
" When bacholar Paul told women to be quite in church and always do what their husbands say, was he really speaking for God--and to women throughout all time ? "

Quotation One:
===========================
" Hear the word of the Lord, from Paul " in the quotations given below:

Quotation Two:
===========================
" Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak.... And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is shameful for women to speak in church.... The things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord. "
 
                                                                 " 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, 37 NKJV "

Quotation Three:
==========================
" Let a woman learn in silence with all submission, And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over  man, but to be in silence. "

                                                                " 1 Timothy 2:11-12 NKJV "

Quotation Four:
==========================
" Those words that Paul wrote in two letters are why many churches refuse to ordain women ministers--churches like the Southern Baptists, America's largest Protestant group. "

Quotation Five:
=========================
" Christians who say Paul was talking about all women in all churches for all time generally insist that men and women are equal in God's sight, but that they have different roles to fill in the church: Men do the talking in public, and women hold down the home front and help at church in supporting roles. But women don't preach. And they do not teach men in Sunday school classes.

Quotation Six:
========================
" Scholars call this the complementary view because men and women complement each other to get the job done."

Quotation Seven:
========================
" Some women today don't seem to feel the complement. "

Quotation Eight:
========================
" " Even though many churches today say they welcom the idea of women ministers, few hire them. A male minister leads nine out of every ten churches in the United States. "

Final Words:
=======================
I do recall once I attended a Sunday mas of a church in Amman, Jordan. And while the head-priest was reading from a Bible which was rested on clothed stand, while some women were talking to each other in the rear section of the hall of the church. Apparently, the head-priest could no longer take it,  he shouted across the hall and in Arabic: " Khaleena ensali, ya niswan " meaning: " let us pray, O' you women. " I felt bursting in laughter, but some how managed suppressing the urge to laugh aloud.

It seems to me now, and after reading Paul's writings about women talking in churches, the Jordanian head-priest was only emulating what Paul had written centuries ago. Amazing.

END.


                                             

Interesting Quotations From The Answer To Question (24) Of The " 100 Tough Questions about God And The Bible " By Stephen M. Miller.

By Sodium

Re--citing Question (2):
===========================
" How killing a goat get rid of a person's sin ? "

Quotation One:
===========================
" Sin is a capital offence as far as God is concerned, Bible writers say. ""

Quotation Two:
===========================
" God made that clear enough in the beginning when he gave the first couple just one rule to obey: " You must never eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evilbecause when you eat from it you will certainly die "  ( Genesis 2:17 ). "

Quotation Three:
==========================
" It's as though sin and holiness can't be in the same vicinity. That might explain why God gave Adam and Eve the divine boot out of Eden after they sinned. "

Quotation Four:
==========================
" Abel, Son of Adam and Eve, was on record in the Bible to sacrifice an animal to God: " Abel also brought some choice parts of the firstborn animals from his flock " The Lord approved of Abel and his offering, "  ( Genesis 4:4 ).

Quotation Five:
=========================
" People throughout the ancient Middle East sacrificed animals to their gods. It was a familiar ritual long before Moses came along and declared it God's official law for the Jews. "

Quotation Six:
=========================
" As the Bible puts it, God told Moses to explain the sacrificial system this way: " The life of each creature is in its blood. So I have given the blood of animals to pay for your sin on the alter. Blood is life. That is why blood pays for your sin "  ( Leviticus 17:11 NIRV ). "

Quotation Seven:
=========================
" Human sin. They deserve to die for it, Bible writers teach. But God allows guilty humans to pay for their sins by killing animal as substitutes. "

Quotation Eight:
=========================
" Jews had sacrificed animals to God for several centuries before Moses. "

Quotation Nine:
=========================
" Abraham, the father of the Jews ( and the Arabs ), is famous for almost sacrificing his son. But God gave Abraham a last--second substitute: " When Abraham looked around him, he saw a ram behind him caught by its horn in a bush. So Abraham took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son "  ( Genesis 22:13 ). "

Quotation Ten:
========================
 Jews continued offering sacrifices for some 2,000 years --until the Romans leveled the Jerusalem temple while crushing a Jewish revolt in AD 70.

Quotation Eleven:
========================
" Jews no longer sacrifice animal. Instead, they ask God's forgiveness through prayer. "

Quotation Twelve:
========================
" But as the Bible tells it, Jews have been doing all that all along, in addition to offering sacrifices: " Let my prayer be accepted as sweet smelling incense in your presence. Let the lifting up of my hands in prayer be accepted as an evening sacrifice "   ( Psalm 11:2 ). "

Quotation Thirteen:
========================
" New Testament writers describe Jesus as the sacrifice to end all sacrifices:" He offered a sacrifice once for all, when he gave himself " ( Hebrew 7:27 CEV ). "

Final Words:
========================
There is some discrepancy in the quotations as quoted in the foregoing I will not go in detailing all of them--just referring to one is sufficient:

Since God's initial warning to Adam and Eve was that they would die if they ate from the tree of knowledge, why he did not kill them after they ate from it ?  Instead of killing them, He just kicked them out of Eden. The question is: Why ??

Perhaps to make them and their decedents, ( the human race ),suffer in endless violence, blood shed and endless wars. If He killed them, there would not have been a human race, unless He created another couple, Adam--2 and Eve--2, who would abide by God's instructions to the fullest and stay away from the tree of knowledge, Of course, this is a tall assumption which has stemmed from the fact as presented in Quotation Two, as quoted above.

END. 

Quotations From The Answer To Question (23) Of The " 100 Tough Questions about God And The Bible " By Stephen M. Miller.

By Sodium

Re-citing Question (23):
===========================
" How could Moses have spent forty years in the desolate badlands on the border between what is now Israel and Egypt, with 2 to 3 million refugees ?  That's a bit like Chicago in Death Valley.

Stephen Miller starts his answer, to the question quoted above, by asking an additional question: " What to believe, Math, ( Mathematics ), or miracles  " Then, he offers the following selected quotations as part of his integrated answer:

Quotation One:
===========================
" Here the Bible math: "There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, plus all the women and children "  ( Exodus 12:37 ) "

Quotation Two:
===========================
" To be exact: " The grand total of men who were at least 20 years old and eligible for military duty was 603,5550 " ( Numbers 1:45--46 ). "

Quotation Three:
===========================
" Let say  that on average there was one woman for every man and two kids for every couple--in a day when couples often had many more kids than that. Total about 2.5 million soul. That's roughly the population of Chicago, the third most populated city in the United States, after New York City and Los Angeles. "

Quotation Four:
===========================
" Let's say they crossed through the path God made for them in the sea and they walked nearly shoulder to shoulder in lines 100 yards wide. The back line would have been about 20 miles behind the front line.. "

Quotation Five:
===========================
" After the crossing, the Bible says these refugees spent forty years in the barren Sinai badland--- a Mars-like deathtrap with little water and not much green to sink their teeth into. "

Although Miller included, in his integrated answer, what some Bible experts and scholars attempted to find some sensible and rational explanations to what the Bible said, they, at the end, admitted they really had no idea how God could have pulled it out with such huge numbers of people lost in the bad land lands of Sinai.

Final Words:
===========================
Anyone who adheres firmly to what is written in the Bible, Stephen Miller's analysis, as presented in the above quotations, is not for him.or her. He or she should search some places else for a rational answer that might have been compatible with their belief

END.  

Quotations From The Answer to question (22) of the " 100 Tough Questions about God And The Bible " By Stephen M. Miller.

By Sodium

Re-citing Question (22):
==============================
" Fire and brimstone destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah--and Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt ?  Eidence ?

Quotation One:
==============================
" Twin sin cities Sodom and Gomorrah got themselves scorched off the planet, as the Bible tells it."

Quotation Two:
==============================
" The Lord made burning sulfur and fire rain out of heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah. He destroyed those cities, the whole plain, all who lived in the cities.... Lot's wife looked back and turned into a column of salt "  ( Genesis 19:24--26 ). "

Quotation Three:
==============================
At this point, Stephen Miller raised the question: " What kind of rain could do that ? "
And he answered his own question: " Not acid rain. " And he goes on to add that " no one would describe acid rain as " sulfur and fire. "  And acid rain doesn't wipe out entire cities. At least not yet. "

Stephen Miller discusses the following theories
(A) Snap, crackle and pop theory.
(B) Surfing turf theory.
(C) Fire and flood theory.
(D) It was a miracle Theory.

The following quotations are taken from the theories listed above, in the order they are listed.

Quotation Four, From Theory (A)
==============================
" An earthquake snapped open pockets of natural gas, according to this theory, Add flames from crackling campfires or village lamps and you get a big pop.

Quotation Five, From Theory (B):
==============================
" Ditto the snap, apcrackle, pop--but add a slide into the sea.
If the villages were built on sand beside the sea, an earthquake could have loosened the ground just long enough for gravity to pull the villages down the beachside slop and into the water.
That's a theory suggested by geologist Graham H. Harris and reported in the Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology, November 199. "

Quotation Six, From Theory (C):
==============================
" Again ditto snap, crackle, pop. But add a flash flood afterward, erasing the villages.
This theory puts the villages on a plain inside what is now the southern Dead Sea shallows. As this theory goes, the earthquake dropped the populated plain enough to allow the Dead Sea water to rush in from the north--almost doubling the size of the sea.

Quotation Seven, From Theory (D);
==============================
" Many Christians have never heard of any of these theory.
And some would not like them if they heard them.
For many believers, if not most, God did  a supernatural miracle when he seared Sodom and Gomorrah off his planet. No natural explanation would do."

Final Words:
==============================
No Comments.

 

A salute to Ms. Margot Wellstrom, Foreign Minister of Sweden.

By Sodium

The writer of this blog wishes to publicly salute Margot Wallstrom, the current Foreign Minister of Sweden, for what she has stated lately about the roots of the problems in the Middle East. She has hit the real score when she has said recently that the real cause of the violence and bloodshed in the Middle East has been the failure of finding a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. I certainly could not agree with her more on what she has advocated. Reasons:

(1) Since the arrival of the destructive and fascist ideology of Zionism to the shores of Palestine from Eastern Europe and Russia initially, in late 19th century and early 20th century, the Middle East has been geared into the current violence and wars, ever since. Using the the seven words, " destructive and fascist ideology of Zionism " has not come from void, but from a life time knowledge of what has been taken place in Palestine. A bunch of hard core adherents to Zionism arrived to the shores of Palestine with determination to force the vast majority of Palestinians to leave their homes, lands and businesses into permanent exiles in the neighboring countries and across the globe. The writings of some Zionist founders and knowledgeable historians of Israel attest to this undeniable facts

(2) Balfour Declaration has committed Great Britain, whose military power of its navy in 1916 ruled the world then, to the establishment of what the world knows now as Israel. For deeper knowledge about what actually had taken place to extract this declaration from Great Britain in 1916, please review an essay that was titled ," Thoughts On Edward Said and T. E. Lawrence, " published on March 19, 2010, on this website.

(3) Sykes--Picot Accord has been the fundamental factor in keeping the Arab World and its people divided and weak and unable to find a solution for their manufactured disunity.For more depth on this accord, which was established secretly between Great Britain and France, in 1916--1917, could be found in an essay entitled, " Balfour Declaration And Sykes--Picot Accord are Roots Of Violence / Wars In Middle East, " published on July 13, 2014, on this website.

There are other reasons, which have to do with Arab political leaders who have failed to overcome their differences and, which, in turn, have made their Arab League ineffective and almost useless organization. But the main reasons remain those that have been cited above.

At any rate, Ms. Margot Wellstrom and the Swedish government, which she represents as its Foreign Minister, do deserve the admiration of every self--respecting human being, who strives for justice for the Palestinians. Wellstrom and her Swedish government have a profound understanding of the root causes that hocked the Middle East to such endless violence and endless wars. The Palestinians leaders and the leaders of the Arab world must reciprocate in kind. One way to do so is to provide Sweden preferences in trade, like importing Swedish products for their needs. For example, Swedish manufactured cars, such as Saab Models are reliable and of high quality and performance. So are the Volvo Models and Scania Models.I am not trying to advertise for these models of Swedish cars, but felt that the least I could do was to suggest something constructive to express my profound appreciation for the Swedish diplomatic honesty, courage and straightforwardness. And I am not a Palestinian.

Final Words:
========================
As the United States of America has emerged as the super power which has replaced Britain and France were in the 20th century, Zionism has moved its main public relations and political activities from Britain to the U.S.A. and gradually has succeeded in controlling what policy and eventually what legislation the American Congress should adopt towards the Middle East. With very few honest and independent congress persons, the vast majority of members of U.S.Congress has become subservient to what the Israel's Lobby, ( meaning Israel's political pressure groups ), dictates, to the self--serving congress men and women, what actions they must do when any issue concerning the Middle East comes up, for discussion, in the halls of congress.

When one witnesses how the members of Congress gave more standing ovations to the speeches addressed to them by the Prime Ministers of Israel than the numbers of standing ovations they had given to speeches,addressed to them by their own Presidents, one may not avoid not getting sad. In fact very sad, indeed. The difference between the honesty of the Swedish political leaders and their self-serving American counter-parts is like the difference between enlightenment and darkness, honesty and crookedness, courage and cowardice.

Humanity needs more Swedish honesty, Swedish courage and Swedish straightforwardness of the Wellstomish type in order to put an end to all violence and wars, not only in the Middle East, but across the globe.

END.

Quotations From The Answer To Question (21) Of The " 100 Tough Questions about God And The Bible " By Stephen M. Miller.

By Sodium

Re-citing Question (21):
====================================
" How on earth could the Red Sea have parted so Moses and the Jews could escape from the Egyptian Army ? "

Quotation One:
====================================
According to Stephen Miller: " The Dead Sea has not parted lately--or ever, as far as anyone reading a history book can tell.
Stories like the one in the Bible haven't shown up in the Egyptian history. If the Read Sea ever parted for them, you'd think they'd have written about it.
But the Red Sea might not have been the body of water that parted for Moses and the Jewish refugees when they fled Egypt during the Exodus.
Many versions of the Bible identify the body of water as the Dead Sea --but with as asterisk: " God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea " ( Exodus 1:18 NIV ). The asterisk often reads something like this: " Or the Sea of Reed.. " "

Quotation Two:
==================================
" In two separate studies, scientists specializing in meteology and oceanography concluded that a strong, sustained wind could push back the beachfront water of the Red Sea's narrow Gulf of Suez--mimicking a low tide that extends the beach by about a mile ( 1,6 km ). Then when the wind stopped, the water would rush back within half an hour, and up to ten feet ( three meters ) deep.
    That sounds a lot like what the Bible described " All that night the Lord pushed back the sea with a strong east wind and turned the sea into dryground " ( Exodus 14:21 ). "

Quotation Three:
=================================
" It would also help explain why Na poleon nearly drowned while riding his horse on the Red Sea's beach.

Quotation Four:
=================================
" Many Christians read the story literally and say whatever body of water the Jews crossed, God blew a path through the water for them--just as the Bible says. "

Quotation Five:
================================
" Another option might feature a combo ( meaning combination ) of science, history and exaggeration. Perhaps, some would say, the scientific theories explain what happened. And a touch of exaggeration might explain the "walls of water. " "

Quotation Six:
================================
" However, many Christians, if not all, would take unkindly to someone arguing that the Bible writer exaggerated such a key event in Jewish history. "

Final Words::
===============================
In the 1970's and 1980's of the last century ( the Twentieth Century ), I had made countless business trips to major Egyptian cities, including, of course Cairo, Egypt's capital city. On some trips I had ended up staying for a week or so at the Nile Hilton Hotel, which was located in the middle of Cairo, and not too far from the Egyptian Museum That had made it so convenient to me to make visits to the nearby Museum, after finishing my business obligations and waiting for my flight reservation to fly back to my point of business operations, for the Middle East and part of Africa.

During so many visits to the Museum, not once did I ever encounter a story or a historical evidence that confirmed, in the slightest manner, the story in the Bible with regards to the parting of the Dead Sea.

Furthermore, the Suez Canal was built mainly at the narrow strip of land that connected the Sinai desert land with northeastern Egypt--exactly at the location as the one described in the Bible.

All of the above combined has compelled me to finally raise the following question:

Why during building the Suez Canal, and to my knowledge, no evidences were found of the drowned Egyptian army's soldiers, their horses, or their chariots ?  Just a simple question which needs to be answered honestly and rationally.

I am not trying, here, to take the side of Stephen Miller. Not at all. I am trying, here, to be close to the truth as much as possible. I am not even certain whether or not I have succeeded in coming close to the truth. But, it does not hurt to try, if one can do so.
END.  

" What Cancer Cannot Do "

By Sodium

The following inspirational statements about the human deadly disease called " Cancer " have been found by Sodium; and he, in turn, wishes to share them with the dedicated readers of this website.

        " What Cancer Cannot Do "
    ========================

" Cancer is so limited ":

" It ( Cancer ) cannot cripple love "

"It cannot shatter hope "

" It cannot corrode faith "

" It cannaot destroy peace "

" It cannot kill friendship "

" It cannot supress memories "

" It cannot invade the soul "

" It cannot steal the eternal life "

" It cannot conquer the spirit "
                        Author: Anonymous

Final Words:
=================
I do hope that every reader who has read all of the above inspirational statement,s authored by unknown author or writer,  or by just a simple human being, has enjoyed reading them just as I have.

END

Important Quotations From The Answer To Question (20) Of The " 100 Tough Questions about God And The Bible " By Stephen M. Miller.

By Sodium

Re-citing Question (20):
=====================================
" Wouldn't it seem more reasonabe to believe that Jesus disciples stole his body instead of believing he rose from the deadand walked away ? "


Quotation One
====================================
" As the Bible tells it, Jewish leaders bribed the soldiers guarding the tomb: " They gave the soldiers a large amount of money and told them to say that Jesus' disciples had come at night and had stolen his body while they (the soldiers) were sleeping " " ( Matthew 28:12-1 ). "
" Some wonder what the soldiers' comeback would have been if their commander had asked, " How could you know that if you were asleep  "

Quotation Two::
===================================
" Here one important fact: " no resurrection, no Christian religion. "
" That's how vital the resurrection of Jesus is. "

Quotation Three:
==================================
" Finding the corpse of Jesus would gut the Christian religion."
" The apostle Paul put it this way: " If Christ wasn't raised to life, our message is worthless, and so is your faith " " ( Corinthians 15:14 CEV ). "

Miller has made the point that when Jesus was in the process to crucifixion, all his disciples were in hiding. And while in hiding something dramatic had happened that changed the disciples from a bunch of cowards to martyrs in their loyalty to him. What has changed the disciples from cowards to martyrs is found in the following quotation from the New Testament of the Bible:

Quotation Four:
=================================
" The disciples were afraid of the Jewish leaders,and on the eve of that same Sundaythey locked themselves in a room. Suddenly, Jesus appeared in the middle of the group. He greeted them and showed them his hands and his side. When the disciples saw the Lord, they became very happy."
                             
                                                                                                      " John 20:19-20 CEV "

Quotation Five:
================================
" As the New Testament ( of the Bible ) writers and early church leaders tell it, the disciples were never the same after that. They believed in life after death so much that they practiced what they preached. Most died as martyrs."

Quotation Six:
===============================
" It's not that Roman history ( books ) reports the resurrection as a fact. But it does report the disciples' belief in it as a fact.

Quotation Seven:
===============================
" There was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was good.... Pilate condemned to be crucified .... His disciples didn't abaudon their loyalty to him. They reported that he appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive."
           
          " Josephus ( about AD 7--101, Jewish historian and Roman citizen, Antiquities of the Jews "

Final Words:
==============================
NO COMMENTS.

END. 

Quotations From The Answer To question (19) Of The " 100 Tough Questions about God And The Bibble " By Stephen M. Miller.

By Sodium

Re-citing Question (19):
===================================
" Why do many Christians say the wine and bread of communion actually turn into Jesus' blood and body ? ".

Quotation One:
==================================
" Of all the rituals Christians perform, including marriage ceremonies and baptism, there's one ritual that stand out as the most secred at all-at least in the mind many Christians.It's the ritual of eating a piece of bread and drinking a sip of grape juice or wine. This ritual goes by many names
 
   * Communion
   * The Lord Supper
   * Eucharist
   * Mass

It's so cherished because it's not a ritual that the disciples or other church leaders decided to create. It's the one ritual that Jesus himself established. He set up during his last meal with the disciples, the night of his arrest. Apparently anticipating his crucifixion the next morning. "

Quotation Two:
=================================
Stephen Miller provides the following reference from the Bible to confirm that Jesus himself established such a revered ritual, indeed:

" Jesus took some bread in his hands and gave thanks for it. He broe the bread and handed it to his apostles. Then he said, " This is my body, which is given for you. Eat this as a way of remembering me! "  After the meal he took another cup of wine in his hands.  (he said, " This is my blood. It is poured out for you. "  Luke 22:19-20 CEV "

Quotation Three::
================================
" Today, most Protestants would say that the bread and grape juice or wine that their ministers serve during the sacrament of Communion is just that: bread and juice. It simply represents the broken body and shed blood of Jesus. It's a metaphor. "

Quotation Four:
===============================
" Catholics and Orthodox Christians insist that Jesus said " This is my body and blood, " not " This is a Metaphor."

Quotation Five:
==============================
Stephen Miller says that " Some twenty years after Jesus, Paul said this when he described the ritual to Christians in Corinth (Turkey): "

" What you must solemnly realize is that every time you eat this bread and every time you drink this cup, you reenact in your words and action the death of the Master. You will be drawn back to this meal again and again until the Master returns. "  1 Corinthians 11:26 THE MESSAGE

He called the elements " bread " and " drink, " not the body and blood of Jesus. "

Quotation Six:
=============================
Finally, Stephen Miller provide the following historical information:

" The first church handbook skipped it "  and he wrote:

" The church's first known manual--Didache ( DID ah KAY; Greek: " teaching " )--does not say a word about the bread and winemorphing into flesh and blood. "

Final Words:
============================
NO COMMENTS.

END.
    

Selected Quotations From The Answer To Question (18) Of The " 100 Tough Questions about God And The Bible " By Stephen Miller.

By Sodium

Re-citing Question (18)
==================================
" Given that snake do not say much these dayswhy do many Christians insist that a snake talked Eve into eating the forbidden from the forbidden fruit ? "

The following quotations have been selected  from Miller's answer to the above question:

Quotation One:
=================================
" The snake was more clever than all the wild animals he Lord God had made. He asked the woman, " " Did God really say, " You must never eat the fruit of any tree in the garden " ? " "(Genesis 3:1 ). "

Quotation Two:
================================
" Even the last book in the Bible calls the snake Satan: " That ancient snake, named Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world " "( Revelation 12: 9 ). "

Quotation Three:
===============================
" " Many Bible experts, however, say they aren't so sure that the writer of the first book, Genesis, thought of the snake as anything other than a creepy, crawly critter. "

Quotation Four:
==============================
" Whatever the critter was, it could outtalk a parrot. "

Quotation Five:
==============================
" Some guessed it walked, too. that's just a presumptionbased on the punishment God gave it: You will crawl on your belly. You will be the lowest of animals as long as you live " " (Genesis 3:14). "

Quotation Six:
============================
" The snake in Genesis did pretty much the same as the snake in an ancient story frm Babylon, in which is now Iraq. In the epic of Gilamesh, the hero was about to get a plant that would protect him from death. A snake beat him to it--and ate it. The Bible story twists that plot."

Quotation Seven:
===========================
" Others say they see a mingling of history and symbolism, all mended to explain humanity's broken relationship with God. "

Quotation Eight:
==========================
" Still others insist that the writer ( of the Old Testament of the Bible ) was accurately reporting history, as inspired by God's spirit--and that a talking snake is a talking snake, and we can debate it until our tails rattle, but it's still a talking snake. "

Final Words:
==========================
It seems to me that Quotation Six is most telling, about where the real roots of, at least, part of the Biblical stories came from. This trend seems to hold closer to the truth, as one takes into considerations the historical fact that about 28,000 of the ancient Hebrews, such as the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel, had lived in captivity in Assyria (in what is known now as Iraq), after the Assyrian ruler by the name of Sennacherib conquered northern Israel, about six centuries ago ( 600 hundred years ago ) before the birth of Jesus Christ, and consequently approximately 600 years before the birth of Christianity.

Some of those captives had managed returning to Jerusalem, but most of them remained in Assyria.

Now, one may be able to make the obvious connections between the telling of quotation six, quoted above, and the story of the snake and Eve, as spelled out in the Old Testament of the Bible--meaning the possible roots of the story was Assyrian cultural beliefs. Of course, the hard core Christians and Jews will reject such possible connections and that is their prerogative to adhere to their beliefs--just as I have rights to adhere to the proposed connections between the Assyrian culture, on one hand, and the snake and Eve story in the old Testament of the Bible, on the other hand.

I have taken my time to write all the foregoing under the subtitle, " Final Words " because I simply could not believe that snakes could talk. No way. You can call me " Zindeeq " if you wish, but I will stick firmly to my human rationality and sensibility. .

END    :






' ? "

Note To The Readers Of This Website.

Dear Readers,

Due to health issues, I have realized that it will take me much more than two years to summarize each answer, given by Stephen Miller, to every question he raised in his book entitled " 100 Tough Questions about God And The Bible " . That's just too long of a time to spend in struggling in writing a summary or outline to each answer of the 100 truly tough questions. In order to provide you with a reasonable comprehension of the content of the answers given by Miller, I shall attempt to provide you with selected quotations which may appear to me important for understanding the core essence of what Miller provides in his answers

Hence, from now on, please expect to read mostly quotations selected from each answer. I intend to make my commentary participation as brief as possible.

Sincerely,
Sodium

An Outline Of The Answer To Question (17) Of The " 100 Tough Questions about God And The Bible " By Stephen M. Miller.

By Sodium

Re-Citing Question (17):
====================================
" God made Eve from Adam's rib ?  Are you ribbing me ?  "

It seems to Stephen Miller that the experts of the Bible do not know bow to explain what has been written in the Bible about making Eve from Adam's rib. To emphasize the the point,, Miller refers to the following quotation from the Bible:

" The Lord God took out one of man.s rib and closed up the flesh at that place. Then the Lord God formed a woman from the rib he had taken from the man "  "( Genesis 2:21-22 )."

Although attempts were made in order to find an acceptable explanation to ( Genesis 2:21-22 ), none of them really provided a satisfying answer. The following theories have been proposed by some of the experts of the Bible:

Theory One: " It's a pun "
======================================
It is a pun-joke, since the word "rib" is taken from a Sumerian language story about a Sumerian god whose name was Enki. It had happened that Enki " had an injured rib. " The story goes on to say that a Sumerian "goddess created a healer called " the lady of the rib, ", or " the lady who makes alive. " What this means is this: It can mean a " rib, " or "to make alive. "  Hence, it is considered by some Bible experts as " a pun ", a joke.

Based upon the Sumerian story as outlined in the foregoing, Stephen Miller says that was why the Bible writer talked initially about the " rib " and later on said: " Eve Became the mother of every living person " " ( Genesis 3:20 ). ".
       .
Theory Two: " It's a handful of flesh and bone "
======================================
This theory says that  "God did not make Eve from just a bone from Adam, but a fistful of flesh and bone. " And this theory relies on what the Adam describes Eve, in the Bible as, " Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh "  " ( Genesis 2:23 ). ".

Theory Three: " It's poetry "
======================================
Some Bible scholars wrote the following prose which sounds like poetry, about the creation of Eve
:
" Eve did not come from Adam's feet to walk on. "
" She did not come from his head to top him. "
" She came from his side to be equal, from under his arm
    to enjoy his protection, from near his heart to experience his love. "

Theory Four: " It's history "
======================================
Some Christians, and Miller says that " perhaps most, say they read the story as history. They argue that there's no reason not to. "

Final Words:
======================================
NO COMMENT. Please reach your own conclusions.

END..

  

Quotations From The Answer To Question (16) of The " 100 Tough Questions about God And The Bible " By Stephen M. Miller.

By Sodium

Reciting Question (16):
===================================
" If Joshua stopped the sun and moon with his battlefield prayer, as the BibLe says he did, that would have halted the 1070 mph ( miles per hour ) rotation of the earth. So why didn't everyone get whiplash ? "

The answer given to the above question is not easy to outline. Perhaps, one way to overcome such an encounter is to present selected quotations from the answer and present them to the reader as simple as possible, concerning the rotation of the earth around itself, and the 12 months journey the earth travels around the sun to provide its inhabitants with the four seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter Seasons, respectively. Scientists in physics and astronomy call it " The Earth Rotations " . The plural form in the word " Rotations " is due to the fact that the earth has two forms of  "Rotation ": One Rotation around the sun and Another Rotation around itself. The rotation around the sun is completed in 12 months while the rotation around itself is completed in 2 hours. . Hence, the following quotations may just convey to the reader the correct idea about the content of the answer, as provided by Stephen Miller:

Quotation One:
==================================
" If ever there was a prayer request more ambitious than those of Jesus-who instantly stopped storms and raised the dead-this it : " Sun, stand still over Gibron, and moon, stand still over the valley of Aijalon "  "( Joshua 10:12 )."

Quotation Two:
=================================
" Go ahead, tell the sun to chill.
That 's what the Bible writer says Joshua did.
The result: The sun stopped in the middle of the sky, and for nearly a day the sun was in no hurry to set "  " ( Joshua 10:13 ). "

Quotation Three:
================================
" Plenty of Christians insist that stopping the sun and moon in the sky would have been no big dealfor the Creator of the universe. So they take the story literally. Many Bible experts say that's probably the way the writer ( Bible writer) intended us to read it. "

Quotation Four:
==============================
" Other Christians raise a few questions from physics class:

* Wasn't it the earth's rotation that would have needed to stop, since that's what produces the illusion of the sun moving ?

* How would the earth sudden stop affect the gravity ?

* What about the atmosphere that rotates with the earth ?  Its momentum would keep it moving at a thousand miles an hour( 1600 km / h  ), creating a wind powerful enoughto sweep the planet clean. "

Quotation Five:
=============================
" Christians who suspect that God worked within the laws of physics that he created look for other ways of understanding what happened. "

Quotation Six:
============================
" Eclips. One theory says the story grew out of a solar eclipse. And , apparently got exaggerated. Solar eclipses do not last all day. "

II can go on and on provide the reader with more quotations from Miller's answer, but the I feel that the above six quotations are enough to serve the purpose of providing a correct idea about Miller's answer to the reader.

Final Words:
===========================
It seems to me that anyone with the fundamental knowledge about the fixed position of the sun and the rotations of the earth around itself and around the sun can only  see the crux of Miller question and the answer he has given. However, Christians' belief must be respected, in spite od all the evidences that contradict what has been written in the Bible. It is their prerogative to adhere firmly to their religious belief.

END.
             

The Essence Of The Answer To question (15) Of The " 100 Tough Questions about God And The Bible." By Stephen M. Miller.

By Sodium

Re-Citing Question (15):
======================================
" God's Law said that if a jealous husband merely suspected his wife of having an affair, he could force her into a trial by ordeal. That's what God calls justice ? "

The Essence of Stephen Miller's Answer:
=====================================
There is a great deal of injustice in this issue because if the husband is suspected of having an affair with another woman, he does not have to endure what the wife has to endure if she is suspected of having an affair with another man. That is the essence of the whole issue. And I am not prepared to go through the entire ordeal the suspected wife has to go through in a cross examination conducted by a priest.

If anyone is interested in the details of the cross examination and the accompanied religious practices perform by the priest can read them in the following sections of the Bible, exactly as given by Miller, as points of references to the trial by ordeal the suspected wife has to go through.:

" ( Numbers 5:14 ) " of the Bible.

                And

" ( Numbers :17-24 ) " of the Bible.


Final Words:
==================================
The detailed religious methodology which the suspected wife of adultery she has to go through, is so degrading to the wife's humanity as a human being. I totally and completely reject it. And indeed, such a religious practices do not belong to the norms, mores and morality of the Twenty First Century.

Any wife who accepts to be degraded by such a religious methodology, then she deserves to be degraded. .  

A Summary Of The Answer To Question (14) Of The " 100 Tough Questions about The God And The Bible " By Stephen M. Miller.

By Sodium

Re-citing Question (14)
================================================
" Inconsistency Alert: John 118 ( jn the Bible) says, " No one has ever seen God," but that's not what other Bible writers say. "

Summary From The Answer Given By Stephen Miller:
================================================
(1) " Jacob Saw God. Proofs ", As stated in Genesis of the Bible, the following clues as provided by Miller, are the proofs:
" Clue 1:.I have seen God face to face, but my life was saved " " ( Genesis 32:30 ). "
" Clue 2.:Jacob named the place Peniel, Hebrew for" Face of God " " ( Genesis 32:30 ). "                   " Clue 3. The mystery man (God) gave Jacob a new name: Israel, which means" He Struggles with       God " " ( Genesis 32:28 ). "

(2) " Seventy Jews saw God ", The proofs are the following quotes provided by Miller, from Exodus of the Bible:
~ " Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and 70 of Israel 's leader. They saw the God of Israel "( Exodus 24:9-10 ). "
" Under his feet ( God's feet ) was something like a pavement made out of sapphire " " Exodus 24:10 ). "
~ " Some Bible experts say that sounds a bit like the short version of a vision the prophet Ezekiel would report seeing a thousand years later. He saw..."

" ...a throne made of sapphire. On the throne was a figure that looked like human. Then I saw what he looked like from the waist up. He looked like a glowing bronze with fire all around it. From the waist down, he looked like fire.A bright light surrounded him. The brightness all around him looked like a rain bow in the clounds. It was like the Lord's glory. "
                                                                              " Ezekiel 1:26-28 "

Final Words:
==============================================
NO COMMENTS.

END.

.:

      

Quoting Part Of The Answer To Question (13) Of The "100 Tough Questions about God And The Bible " By Stephen M. Miller.

By Sodium

Reciting Question (13)
==================================
" To seal the partnership contract between God and Abraham, God told Abraham to circumcise himself. How is cutting on the dotted line anything like signing on the dotted line ? "

 [ Note: With the exclusion of the content of the Final Words, at the very end of this essay, the writer of this particular blog, ( Sodium ), wishes to restrict his job, here, to quoting only what Stephen Miller has given, as an answer to the above question, question (13) ]:

Stephen Miller says that " God made an agreement with Abraham." And Miller has stated that the agreement comprised two parts:

~ " Abraham's part of the deal: "
=================================
* Live in my presence with dignity " " ( Genesis 17:1)."
* You and all your descendants have this continual responsibility...You must cut off the flesh of your foreskinas a sign of the covenant between me and you. From generation to generation, every male child must be circumcised on the eighth day of his birth " " (Genesis 17:9, 11-12 NLT). "

~ " God's part of the deal:"
=================================
* You will become the father of many nations. "  " (Genesis 17: ). "
* I will give you many descendants. Many nations and kings will come from you " " (Genesis 17:6). "
* I am also giving this land where you are living-all the of Canaan-to you and your descendantsas your permanent possession. And I will be your God " " (Genesis 17:8). "

Then, Stephen Miller has made the following statements:" It's anyone's guess why God decided on circumcision a a way to remind the Jews that they had a contract with him. Bible writers seldom explain why God does what he does-presumably because they do not know.

Final Words:
===============================
After reading the whole answer given by Miller to question (13), I have found mysrlf compelled to make the following two comments:

Comment One: I simply do not believe that the Almighty God could only find Abraham's private part, meaning Abraham's penis, as the instrument to establish a contract with Abraham. No way.

Comment Two: Who ever wrote in the Bible, (Old Testament's part of the Bible), that God,had given lands, including the land of Canaan to Abraham, whether intentionally or unintentionally, had actually made the Almighty God a mere real estate agent. Ridiculous.

END..     

The Essential Points In the Answer to Question (12) Of the " 100 Tough Questions about God And The Bible " By Stephen M. Miller.

By Sodium

Re-Citing Question (12):
=======================================
" Why do most Christians believe there was a global flood in the time of Noah when most geologists say otherwise ? "

The Essential Points In Stephen Miller's Answer:
=======================================
~ Not all Christians believe in the global flood.
~ Those Christians who do not believe in the global flood believe in a local flood that took place in the Fertile Crescent Region  which really meant the Middle East, including the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq.
~ But most Christians believe in the global flood exactly as described in the Bible. They cite the following reasons for adhering firmly to their belief:

(A) They say: " where do you see a regional flood in a passage this ? " The water covered even the highest mountains on the earth, rising more than twenty two feet above the highest peaks.....God wiped everything on the earth." Genesis 7:19, 23 NLT.

(B) They say:: " Flood stories you can find them all over the world, woven into the history                   of at least seventy centuries from one side of the planet to the other, including that of the                     American Indians, China, the South Pacific, and Ireland. "

(C) They say " Greek and Roman children grew up listening to the story of Deucalion and                   Pyrrha, a couple who saved their children and assortment of animals from a flood by herding               them all into big boat shaped like a box. "

 (D) They say: " Middle Eastern kids, in what is now Iraq heard a similar story. In the Epi of                 Gilgamesh, a man named Utnapishtim (call him (U-Guy) saved his family in much the same               way Noah did. He built a boat, waterproofed it with tar, loaded it with family and animals,                   survived the flood, and even released a dove as Noah didto make sure the water had receded               enough to disembark. "
       
~ The essential points raised by those people who do not believe in the global flood can be summed up as follows:

(E) "If God created plants on day three, how did they survive without the sun, which God did              not create until day four?"

(F) "Why should we interpret the six days of creation as six twenty-four-hours days when God           did not make the sun and moon-our tools for measuring twenty-four-hour days-until day four?"

(G) "What's wrong with interpreting the "days" of creation as long stretches of time when other           Bible writers say that " one day with the Lord is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are           like one day ( 2 Peter 3:;8, see also Psalm 90:)?"
       
Final Words:
=======================================
Near the end of his pro and con argument about the global flood, as described in the Bible, Stephen Miller has made the following statement: " On the flip side, Christians defending the Bible's literal history of creation say that questions like these ( E, F, and G ) underestimate the power of God." With such a dogmatic view, one cannot really caries on the discussion any further, but it is good to know how each of the two groups thinks with regard to the Biblical global flood.

And lastly, I personally cannot ignore the scientific facts which  say that the earth is 2.5 billion year old and the universe's age is 14 billion year old. Incredible numbers !! And way before Noah's time.
                               

A Brief Summary of the Answer to Question (11) of the "100 Tough Questions about God And The Bible" by Stephen M. Miller.

By Sodium

Re-Citing Question (11)::
===========================
" Given what we know today from science, why do so many Christians say the universe was created in six days, a few thousand years ago? "

Stephen Miller's answer, to the above question, can briefly be summed up into the following points

(1) Stephen Miller says that " two out of three churchgoing folks seem to believe in just that that ", meaning that the universe was created in just " six days, a few thousand years ago. "
(2) A Gallup poll that was taken in 2012 said that 46 percent of Americans believed also as the churchgoing Christians do. "
(3) Based on the two statistical facts above as points (1) and (2), respectively, Miller has encountered both points with the following statement, and I quote it exactly as it is written, as a part of his answer: " That leaves many thinking souls wondering whatever happened to science classes. "
(4) On the other hand, some churchgoers, as well as Jews, have applied their own scientific approach-calling it " creation science " which basically says that the Genesis section of the Bible is the history of creation as revealed by God Himself. And hence, their scientific evidences are totally different from Miller's evidences which says that " the earth is 2.5 billion years old, and the universe is about 1 billion years old ", and not six days. You have read it correctly, meaning, the numbers given are in billions, not millions.
(5) Some of the scientific evidences Miller has stated have to do with what the geological evidences say. No need to burden the reader with it. here. Anyone who is interested in such details, should get a copy of Miller's book and read it from cover to cover.
(6) Miller has questioned the creation of earth in six days and he does so with basic science and he has accompanied his basic science with an additional tough scientific question concerning the validity of what was created in each day of the six days of the creation, as described in the Genesis of the Bible.
(7) Since Miller has attempted to be as objective as he possibly could,, he made the following statement, at about the end of his challenging questions concerning the Biblical creation of the universe in six days: " On the flip side, Christians defending the Bible's literal history of creation say that questions like these underestimate the power of God. " What he has implicitly  meant by offering such a statement is this  when Christians inject the power of God in such a manner, one cannot possibly continue the discussion endlessly, because such a discussion will lead no where.  

Final Words:
===========================
As it can be seen from point (1) through point (7), the disagreement between the advocates of the six days of creation of the universe and the non-advocates of such Biblical creation is so huge, I refrain from telling you what I really believe in, and thus leaving it to each reader to reach his or her own conclusion, concerning the entire human differences in the belief of creation of Mother Earth and the Universe.

END.