AI predicts the end of meat!

[CNCAppsJames]

I choose to not go to church because every church I have spent enough time to get to see behind the curtain, always ended up being a massive disappointment when you see the ugliness of people cherry picking and twisting the bible to fit their needs.

Sorry, but that is such a cheesy cop out. 

You are looking for perfection in man, and you will be disappointed every. single. time. EVERY church is filled with humans. Humans with egos, humans with their own issues. No church is perfect, and if you happen to find one, DO NOT join it, guaranteed you'll ruin it.

The bible CLEARLY states we "...should not forsake the gathering together...". It doesn't say you don't have to go if they disappoint you. Find a church that teaches the Word of God line upon line, precept upon precept, and grow and thrive. And for goodness sakes, don;t pay attention to the petty BS that goes on EVERYWHERE. I'm sure there's some disappointing things that go on at your job, but you tolerate it because there's a bigger picture. See the bigger picture @YoDoug .

[beej]

ou are looking for perfection in man, and you will be disappointed every. single. time. EVERY church is filled with humans. Humans with egos, humans with their own issues. No church is perfect, and if you happen to find one, DO NOT join it, guaranteed you'll ruin it.

I would hate to belong to a church that agrees with my own beliefs every single time. I have been wrong too often in my life to ever trust that. I've decided to trust a church that has been around from the earliest days of Christianity, and follow those teachings and to, the best I can, follow what it teaches. that is not easy for me. It's a process. Several things that my church teaches go against some of my political beliefs and then I'm faced with a choice.

Who do I trust? I trust God. How do I know what he says? I read scripture. How do I interpret scriptures that are hard to understand? I trust tradition. There is no way I would trust myself.

Once I was asked a question. If you found out that you disagreed with Peter, or John, or James or Paul, would you still hold to your own belief. I answered no to that. But then when there were obvious disagreements as to what those writers meant by one thing or another by modern theologians, I went back and read the writings of people who were trained by them to see what the original people who were trained by them thought. And I decided to trust those teachings.

[CNCAppsJames]

I've never been to a church were in every way we were in agreement either. I was raised in a home with one of those tradtitional churches that's been around for nearly forever but found it deeply lacking. It was full of tradition with very little biblical teaching. While I was in drug rehab at 17, one of our counselors was a Christian. He was a "plant a seed, ask some questions and go from there" type guy which I really appreciated at the time.

Life and it's spiritual journey is a marathon and no two "races" are the same. Meaning your journey isn't mine and mine isn't yours. We're all unique individuals created in the image of God, and it is up to us to walk in that or not. Accept the gift or reject it. It's up to us... unless we want to debate Calvinism vs. Armenianism.... NO I DO NOT for the record.   I'm just gonna stay in my lane and accept the gift that was given to me, not looking the gift horse in the mouth, and share it where/when I'm given the opportunity.

[YoDoug]

Question; if God specifying that only plants "shall" be for food was not a specific instruction, then why did Noah have to ask God for permission to kill and eat animals?

[beej]

Question; if God specifying that only plants "shall" be for food was not a specific instruction, then why did Noah have to ask God for permission to kill and eat animals?

here is the verse:
29 Here are all the herbs, God told them, that seed on earth, and all the trees, that carry in them the seeds of their own life, to be your food; 30 food for all the beasts on the earth, all that flies in the air, all that creeps along the ground; here all that lives shall find its nourishment. And so it was done.

you inserted the word only into it and by doing so changed the meaning. Only doesn't appear in the original text.

here is your question without the word "only"

if God specifying that plants "shall" be for food was not a specific instruction, then why did Noah have to ask God for permission to kill and eat animals?

as for the second part of your question, could you show me where Noah asked permission from God to kill and eat animals?

[Del.]

And God said to Noah. " How long can you tread water " And Noah replied " Me and you all the way Lord"!

[YoDoug]

here is the verse:
29 Here are all the herbs, God told them, that seed on earth, and all the trees, that carry in them the seeds of their own life, to be your food; 30 food for all the beasts on the earth, all that flies in the air, all that creeps along the ground; here all that lives shall find its nourishment. And so it was done.

you inserted the word only into it and by doing so changed the meaning. Only doesn't appear in the original text.

here is your question without the word "only"

if God specifying that plants "shall" be for food was not a specific instruction, then why did Noah have to ask God for permission to kill and eat animals?

as for the second part of your question, could you show me where Noah asked permission from God to kill and eat animals?

Ok prior to Noah, did anyone in the bible eat meat?

[CNCAppsJames]

Ok prior to Noah, did anyone in the bible eat meat?

There is NO DIFINITIVE evidence one way or the other in the Bible no matter which way you slice it no matter how badly you want it to be so. The human mouth indicates it was built for an omnivorous diet.

That said, there is just no command telling people to not eat meat in the first chapter of Genesis. Just like there is no command telling people not to eat salt that we know humans have made part of their diet for millenia.

This is my recourse when questions of wording arise in the Pentateuch. 
https://www.shalomhaverim.org/English/genesis.html 

Straight Hebrew to English translation.

[beej]

Ok prior to Noah, did anyone in the bible eat meat?

It would be easy to assume that they did. The bible says Abel was a shepherd although I suppose he could have just raised sheep for their wool. But I guess if we are only going to use the bible as a source we would have to say we don't know. but you know, the bible also doesn't say they used fire, or that they used cups to drink out of or bowls to eat out of, but that doesn't mean they didn't. If you are willing to go outside of the text of the Bible for history, which I believe is the better source of ancient history. you'd first have to try and pinpoint a date to the flood and then look at the archaelogical evidence of stone tools and bones around fires. But pinpointing the actual evidence of the great flood has been elusive so far. But that's not to say we won't find evidence of it some day. they know from archealogical and DNA evidence that there was some event that nearly wiped out all humans around 70-100 thousand years ago.

[YoDoug]

It would be easy to assume that they did. The bible says Abel was a shepherd although I suppose he could have just raised sheep for their wool. But I guess if we are only going to use the bible as a source we would have to say we don't know. but you know, the bible also doesn't say they used fire, or that they used cups to drink out of or bowls to eat out of, but that doesn't mean they didn't. If you are willing to go outside of the text of the Bible for history, which I believe is the better source of ancient history. you'd first have to try and pinpoint a date to the flood and then look at the archaelogical evidence of stone tools and bones around fires. But pinpointing the actual evidence of the great flood has been elusive so far. But that's not to say we won't find evidence of it some day. they know from archealogical and DNA evidence that there was some event that nearly wiped out all humans around 70-100 thousand years ago.

I'm done, you choose when to "assume" and when to say God's word is literal and accurate. There is no point discussing this with you any further.

[Smit]

Good job @beej 

[CNCAppsJames]

I'm done, you choose when to "assume" ...

But wait a minute. You are making the opposite assumption he is. You're assuming they were vegans before the flood... so your assumption is ok while his is not?

You never answered the question where Noah asked God for permission to kill the animals either. I've been digging and I can find no such thing. And because there is such a thing as nuance, I really can't find where the asking of permission could even be inferred. I'm willing to admit I missed something, because there's A LOT in Genesis, but, you gotta tell me where to look.

[beej]

I'm done, you choose when to "assume" and when to say God's word is literal and accurate. There is no point discussing this with you any further.

fair enough. 
But I told you at the beginning, that I was avoiding going down this road out of respect for you.

[YoDoug]

But wait a minute. You are making the opposite assumption he is. You're assuming they were vegans before the flood... so your assumption is ok while his is not?

I'm not assuming anything.

1. I have posted the scripture where God said green plants and seed bearing fruit "shall be for food". The key word is shall. It is the exact same hebrew word used When God said 'You shall not murder". Or the hundreds of other times God gives direct instruction to man using that word.

2. Then there is no instance in the bible of anyone eating meat until Noah.

3. When God decided to let Noah eat meat he made the point to say that as he previously gave green plants and fruit for food, he is now allowing meat. This is reaffirming his previous instructions to eat plants.

Anybody that looks at those three points and still says we could easily assume man ate meat before Noah is adding their own spin.

As for Noah asking God to eat meat, I was wrong about that. I could have sworn I remembered reading that after the flood waters receded where the bible talks about all plant life being decimated that Noah asked God to eat meat. The actual is after the flood decimated plant life God told Noah he could eat meat.

[CNCAppsJames]

I'm not assuming anything.

...
2. Then there is no instance in the bible of anyone eating meat until Noah.

...

There's no instances of an infinite number of activities people most certainly participated in. I mean if we want to get into the weeds, it's doesn't give any instances of where/how they were to relieve themselves either, yet most assuredly they did. And THAT activity is as natural an activity as there is and probably took place with close the same amount of regularity as eating.


Clearly there were things they were NOT to eat. Those are explicitly spelled out.

The bottom line is you ARE making an assumption. You ARE assuming in the pre-flood world, meat was not eaten. Many of us assume we have been eating meat since the beginning. Since there is nothing in the bible that clearly or definitively states either position, it's probably something that is going to require agreement to disagree. But you just cannot equivocally state "the bible says Noah and the people prior were vegans/vegetarians" and be correct.

One thing that is for certain, Noah's diet did change drastically after the flood. 

Assertions have been made as to why people lived longer then and make assumptions that is was diet that was the factor. I would assert that environmental factors played a larger role than diet.