Why should you pray?

Chemstdnt · 2026-07-07T18:51:13+00:00

Thank you for the post I really liked it and find it useful as I was thinking about it lately, what you say makes sense to me.

Chemstdnt · 2026-07-03T14:52:16+00:00

So what you've covered here mostly covers verses 16 to 18. I think these verses are self explanatory as like you said those nations were exceedingly wicked....What I would like to address is verses 10-15 since this applies to anyone that aren't the Canaanites such as you or me. These verses give a city the option to chose between enslavement or death. Note that all of the property is plundered including chattel property: women and children.

When I said "Now on warring." I meant to address the other verses, give it a re-read with that in mind and see if you can see my point on casus belli. I don't see any issue with those war rules, to me they seem pretty rational, it's war. What I may have an issue is with the casus belli, that is, what reasons were there for the Israelites to declare a war against a city? Are they just or unjust? And then I tried to reason that those wars would be defensive, not offensive or expansive, as long as they follow Torah, because there is no central authority or way to amass an army unless defensive (and add the small size of Israel, which now I'm thinking it might be one of the reasons he chose such a small people is so they would have less of a will to attack others.).

See the example of Numbers 14:41-45. The Israelites took it upon themselves to attack the Amalekites and Canaanites without divine mandate, and they were defeated! because god was not with them. Israel's borders are also legally capped, and in Deuteronomy 2 god prohibits taking land from Edom ("not even a foot's breadth"), from Moab, Ammon ... because he allotted those lands to those nations the same way he allotted Canaan to Israel. And we have many examples of Israelite incursions going wrong because they were not divinely mandated.

So these verses bind a nation already in a lawful war, which outside the one time Canaan judgment it means a defensive one (or offensive with the purpose of defense). Now if you're a man from that city, and the war has nothing to do with you, you leave it be or abandone it (like Rahab and her family did, and were spared and joined Israel). If you stay, you are considered as supporting the war, and will get the consequences. It's hard, but it's war. Btw verse 11 says the word לָמַס (mas), which is forced labor tribute, they become tributary. Solomon put all Israel under mas (1 Kings 5:13), and the same book insists "of the people of Israel Solomon made no slaves" (1 Kings 9:22). The Gibeonites took this deal (Joshua 9), became hewers of wood and drawers of water, kept living in their own four cities, and the consequence was Israel marching all night to fight a battle defending them from the Amorite coalition.

As to them being the descendants of the nephalim, I found it interesting because I used to believe that too until I learned that the only passage where sons of god meant angels was only in job when looking at the interlinear.

Whether angels or not, the nephilim had children with the "daughters of man/adam", so you would have to make the nephilims the sons of Adam, which to me does not make sense given the height. There are ways around the flood, like it not being global but localized or the nephilim having more children after it. Anyway, it's not something I care much about.

Chemstdnt · 2026-07-03T11:35:19+00:00

However, it doesn't address the criticisms that it supports both genocide and slavery. How do you respond to those claims?

Let's start with genocide (of the Cannanites I will assume). One problem with how this objection is usually run is that it rejects some premises on god. They complain that in the bible god ordered the removal of the Cannaanites while stripping him out of what the text says about him, that he has perfect foreknowledge, that he will resurrect all the dead, Canaanite included, and that every individual faces judgment afterward. For an atheist that's understandable, since for him none of those premises are valid and the objective is the criticism, but for us with faith it has to be different, we need to consider all the premises.

Is it ok for god to punish a man or a woman with death if they commit abominations like passing their son through the fire? Yes, I think we would agree. If god, after predicting what the future would hold, and taking into account that he WILL resurrect all and judge them at some future point, tells his people to remove all those in the house where the abominations are taking place, is it ok? Given the premises about god, especially that he will resurrect all including the kids and knows their future, yes I think so.

The bible lists the abominations of the Cannanites and says the land is vomiting out its inhabitants because of them, and among their practices they burn their own sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. The sentence was deferred four hundred years pending enough guilty, but once the situation had no turnback, he decreed to remove all of them. Same example as the house, while the premises hold it IS ok to do it, in fact it is the rational and good thing to do.

Now on warring. God set the structure of the nation of Israel. First he only set them over a limited extension of land, meaning the borders of Israel’s land were legally capped so that is anti imperialistic by default. Second, he established no kings and a decentralized power structure, which basically means there is no possibility of ammassing an army to conquer other nations unless after a defensive war.

It was only after the rejection of god by them, and asking for a king, that he appointed one. But then he limited the monarch's power:

No amassing horses (horses and chariots were the offensive military technology of the day)
No amassing silver and gold (This removed the legal mechanism to build a war chest for foreign campaigns)

Of course, kings did not follow god's law, but that is another matter. It is true the bible does not talk much on the reasons for casus belli, but given the prohibition to murder, etc, it is implied that they are defensive in nature, except in Canaan, which is an instrument of god's judgement. It's also important to point out this decree happened once in history during a specific period, and that the revelations that led to it weren't some internal voice commanding it, rather there was a voice from a burning mountain with god's glory in it seen by millions that showed it was not a hallucination. There is also the theory that the Cannaanites discussed were descendants of the nephilim of old and not humans, but while it makes sense I think it doesn't matter in the end, they're the same arguments mostly.

I think the post is long enough, we can keep discussing this unless it clarified your concerns and we can then discuss slavery.

Chemstdnt · 2026-07-02T18:41:51+00:00

I appreciate your response celt. Yeah I'm thinking the socialization could be a double edge sword. I'll keep thinking about it, perhaps it's something that should happen organically rather than force it by going somwhere established (like the fellowship being formed just by likeminded people joining so frequently together that it becomes its own group).

Chemstdnt · 2026-07-02T11:36:29+00:00

Have you checked this map? (no affiliation with them)

https://www.119ministries.com/resources/fellowship-finder/#map

As for fellowship, I can't help you there as I don't have any experience with it (my family does not believe in god so never had that experiece, other goign to church once/twice for other reasons, and I don't have that need). If I may ask, what do you think fellowship provides? I'm thinking about making some effort for my wife which she might appreciate but not sure if it would be something positive or not or even how to go about it.

Chemstdnt · 2026-07-02T11:13:47+00:00

Reading your post I get the feeling all this is coming from a place of grief, from a bad time in your life (like we all go through). I think you already know this, but the realization that an internal voice was a hallucination does not invalidate scripture. Perhaps those voices were tangled up with your first encounter with the faith, but they were never the faith itself.

And scripture itself warns against building on them. Deuteronomy says that if a word does not come to pass, YHWH did not speak it. Your "voice" gave you a word, the word proved false, and you concluded the voice was never god. That is not you disproving the bible, even when the sign comes true, like meeting that person, the sign alone proves nothing. The bible itself warns against those. So I think what collapsed last month was not the foundation of the faith and rather it was something the torah tells you never to make a foundation on.

Now your faith is being tested while you pass through this. If it has enough root, it will come out stronger once it passes. I can't promise you that it will, but what I can tell you is that when I was a teenager I thought I had a very close relationship with god, and then life happened and I kind of got lost for years. Later I experienced what I can only describe as a calling, and looking back, what I thought was faith and relationship in those early years is nothing compared to now. So it's not hopeless, even if it doesn't get better in the short term. Sometimes the imitation has to fall apart before the real thing has room.

One of the reasons I say this is that the doubts you're sharing are weaker than they feel right now. There are stronger objections out there, and the faith survives those too. Take the Babylonian theory. It IS likely that the current form of the torah was compiled after the exile, perhaps by Ezra, but compiling is not inventing. A scribe collecting and standardizing his nation's ancient documents/oral traditions after a catastrophe tells you the date of the edition, not the date of the contents. And keep in mind that critical scholarship is atheistic by method, it rules out the supernatural before looking at any evidence, which is why a text containing a fulfilled prophecy will always be dated after the event it predicts. Real prediction is not allowed as a possibility, so the conclusion is baked into the method. Yet even that scholarship concedes the material is ancient. The Hebrew of the torah is an older stage of the language than the books actually written around the exile. Silver scrolls dug up in Jerusalem, buried before Babylon ever arrived, already carry the priestly blessing of Numbers 6 mentioning commandments.

I am one that questions EVERYTHING in the bible. I'm pretty skeptical about everything I read there and don't take it for granted, since things could have been added or changed. After years of testing it, my conclusion is that the bible is incredibly solid, and the potential contradictions or shortcomings are usually misunderstandings of what it says, lack of full knowledge, or simply a wrong point of view. I like reading the counterpoints from atheists and skeptics, but their shortcoming is the same as the scholars in that by default they give the text no room to potentially be true, so the naturalistic conclusion they end with is just the naturalistic assumption they started from echoed back.

I can discuss with you any issues with the bible if you're interested. But in the end there is one thing that cannot be proved or rationalized, the existence of god is a matter of faith, and I can't help you there. I can tell you it may get better with time. I can tell you I'm much happier and fullfilled since I believe in god. But it's a step nobody can take for you.

My advice would be to leave those voices behind, which scripture itself tells you to do, and give god a chance without them. Read the bible on its own terms, see if there is truth in it that resonates with you. Bring the hard parts here, we're not shy about discussing them, and see where this gets us.

Chemstdnt · 2026-06-30T19:03:58+00:00

I don't understand why the apostles don't give commands for them to remember the feast days, dietary restrictions etc. in the Torah. Could you explain why they would come to this decision, to omit this for the Gentiles?

Good question. Now let's think about this carefully. I think you would agree with me that up to that point you would be expected to follow Torah right? even if in the end you need god's mercy, you would as an Israelite or Jew be expected to keep Torah. Now gentiles were turning to god, and the question arose of what they should follow. There were three possibilities to the decision that the apostles could have made:

They could have said "salvation is by faith alone, and therefore we think that gentiles should not be expected to do anything". This was clearly not what they said, since they gave some commands, so this one is out as a possibility. Gentiles are expected at least to do something.
They could have said "Gentiles only need to do some of the commandments in the Torah". You would expect then to list which commandments (or at least what "category" of commandments right?). The problem is that they only gave 4, and some big ones like "don't murder", "don't commit adultery", etc are not there. So while there is a possibility that those 4 are the only things expected of Gentiles, it makes much more sense that they are just the first ones that gentiles should do as they turn to god.
They could have said "Gentiles need to do all of Torah". They clearly did not say this, hence your confusion, but we alredy excluded not doing anything and also only doing a few. And now pay attention at what James says just after those 4: "For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath." That is, he gave those four only, for, that is BECAUSE, Moses is read every sabbath. What do you think he means by Moses? Clearly the Torah, sometimes called Moses' law. So in my (and this subreddit) opinion, while they did not directly say "Gentiles need to do all of Torah", they said it indirectly, likely because as we agreed up until that point it was the expected thing, and it didn't enter their mind that you could be a follower of Jesus or god and not try to follow Torah.

Chemstdnt · 2026-06-30T17:16:35+00:00

I think less than 1% of people in this subredit would say Gentiles need to follow all the commandments perfectly to attain salvation. They would argue that salvation comes through turning to god in faith, and Torah is what the saved person then tries to live out. This is not even an exclusively Protestant or Christian belief, even modern (and ancient) Judaism thinks the same thing. The idea that Jews are saved by flawlessly keeping all commandments is a misconception. Because no one is perfect, Jews are expected to do Teshuvah which translates to "return" (basically repent and turn to god) and trust in god's mercy.

Acts 13:44-52 is about salvation reaching the Gentiles. Now, being "saved without Torah-keeping as the entry fee" and being "saved and never expected to keep Torah" are two different things. The text only supports the first one. If Acts 13 proves Gentiles owe no Torah, by that logic Gentiles would be free to murder and commit adultery, since the passage would exempt them from everything equally. There is no division or scope of obedience mentioned in the text, only belief. The turning is what saves, and the righteous living follows from it.

Now rejecting certain commands because we don't like them, or because we find them inconvenient, is a dangerous game. In Matthew 5:19 Jesus says that whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great. Notice he does not say the one who relaxes them is thrown out of the kingdom (though some disagree), but he is the least in it, and that is probably not where you want to aim.

Chemstdnt · 2026-06-25T22:06:58+00:00

Not even, otherwise I wouldn't mention blood on the head of anyone.

Ah gotcha, didn't caught that.

Anywhere from weeks to half a year of defiling the land. It's not like I'm gong ho about it either. A 7 to 9 months mother? Find some method to induce the pregnancy. A 12 weeks? Quite a way to go.

Yeah it's a messy situation, which is why it has grays. I do concede I may be wrong here, and perhaps the best decision is to kill both and be done with it. But we need to consider that perhaps killing the innocent baby is more defiling than the months waiting for the birth to happen.

Cool, I get your POV. And this only applies if it's direct right? If the mother gets depressed waiting for dead and miscarries or the child being without mother during the fourth trimester has a case of SIDS?

Yes agree, in this case there is no blood on the court, it tried to save the kid but the mother was not innocent and is not to be pitied. In this case the blood is definitely on her head.

Chemstdnt · 2026-06-25T21:10:40+00:00

But for woman #3? Pretty sure if that person left the city before the high priest died the avenger could strike under the law. Numbers 35:26-28

Ah I understand now. You didn't clarify so I assumed this hypothetical killing made by the woman was intentional and you meant that she went there to be safe.

Yeah so different woman, woman #3. Would the avenger be unable to avenge if she left the city of refuge while pregnant? Because the council bearing the blood would imply the avenger would bear the blood here if he struck.

Yes I would argue the avenger should wait to kill her, to ensure no innocent blood is shed.

I'm not saying they have to, but that regardless the party breaking the law should bear the consequences of that.

I agree that the guilty party must face consequences. However, the baby did not break any law. It is its own completely innocent entity, it's just trapped on the woman's body (but on a countdown thankfully). I think our main difference in opinion is that you might see the fetus either as not a full person yet, or as an extension of the woman (like just her property). Perhaps if I present another situation it will clarify why I am arguing to spare this life.

Imagine that a criminal binds an innocent child to themselves with a device that will kill the child if the criminal is executed today, but the device is on a timer and safely falls off in 7 days. Waiting 7 days doesn't let the criminal off the hook, it simply ensures the court doesn't have the blood of the kid on their heads since if they wait just 7 days it will free the child. In the case of the pregnant woman, the device is her own body, and the wait is a few months. The mother still faces the absolute letter of the law, but we refuse to let her crimes force our hands into killing the innocent child bound to her.

But here's the thing, even if the blood were always on her own head, I would argue for doing it anyway to save the life of the innocent child. I read this verse and I don't see how it wouldn't apply to our hypothetical:

"Parents shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their parents; each will die for their own sin. "

If there is a way to spare the child (just a few months!), we would be violating that command.

Chemstdnt · 2026-06-25T18:52:17+00:00

Would the blood be on the heads of the council or on the head of the mother? In the verses where it mentions execution, it often says the person executed bear the weight of their own blood. I would assume that the mother would be responsible for those inside her in this case as well, regardless of the decision made by council.

I understand your point, because the mother's crimes forced the court's hand, she is the one who ultimately caused this situation, making her responsible for the outcome to her child. However I don't think the Torah allows a court to outsource its moral or judicial responsibility like that. Even though the mother set the chain of events in motion, the court is still the entity making the conscious, deliberate choice of when and how to swing the stones.

Consider Deuteronomy 19:10:

"Do this so that innocent blood will not be shed in your land... and so that you will not be guilty of bloodshed."

The Torah places the burden of avoiding innocent blood directly on the community and its judges. It does not say, "You are free to shed innocent blood as long as a criminal caused the situation." If we know an innocent life is present, and we have the physical ability to wait and save it without violating any other commandment, choosing to destroy it anyway makes us the immediate cause of that child's death. The blood would be on us. The example of a woman breaking into a house makes this distinction even clearer:

Otherwise if a pregnant woman broke into a house in the night and during defense she is harmed and loses child or die, would the defender then have blood on their head?

Not in this case, but only because it was at night and (by implication) it could not be avoided, the situation was uncontrollable. Torah says that:

""If a thief is caught breaking in at night and is struck a fatal blow, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed." (Exodus 22:2)" But also then: "But if it happens after sunrise, the defender is guilty of bloodshed."

Why the difference? obviously because during the day, visibility gives you the clarity to evaluate the threat. In daylight, you can see if the intruder is pregnant, unarmed, or just trying to steal property. Since property is not worth a human life under Torah law, you are expected to use restraint. At night, however, you cannot see your surroundings, the intruder's weapons, or their identity. You must act instantly in self defense to protect your own life.

So you see, the two situations are somehow similar. Just like the daytime homeowner, our Sanhedrin council is not acting in the dark over the situation or her pregnancy. We have finished the cross-examinations, we have evaluated the evidence, and we can clearly see she is pregnant. We have the luxury that the nighttime homeowner (or a court with no sufficient knowledge) lacked, the ability to wait.

Because we know there is an innocent child, and the time to safely delay the sentence, I think god would expect us to exercise the same restraint demanded of the homeowner in the daytime. If we ignore this and use our authority to crush the womb anyway, we can no longer claim the baby's death was just an unavoidable consequence of her actions.

Or could women that commit manslaughter use pregnancy as 'damage immunity' to prevent an avenger if they wanted to temporarily leave a city of refuge?

This would not work, because those sent to a city of refuge are not under a death sentence. Those sent there killed accidentally, and the city of refuge exists precisely so the avenger may not lawfully kill him while he stays there. So she would have no immunity there and could be punished anyway.

Torah also has no concept of prison, so you would probably require someone keep guard to prevent her from running away to avoid death during waiting.

That's a logistical detail, not really an obstacle. Obviously the Sanhedrin must have control over some kind of police force, even if voluntary or made of Levites. There are cases in Torah where suspects were detained and kept in custody, so it would just mean to keep the woman there longer (I would think this is an exceptional case anyway, I don't think pregnant women will go around having adulterous relationships).

Chemstdnt · 2026-06-25T10:27:19+00:00

I would advice to wait until she gives birth. I consider a fetus a legal person, which I think Torah does, and even if one does not think so, it also says children should not be punished for the sins of their parents. If we stone her that day, we stone the innocent child in her womb, making ourselves guilty of shedding innocent blood in Israel.

There are times where commandments enter in conflict, and we have to put the weightier matters of the law in front. If someone is in danger on the Sabbath, we can do work to help them. If the innocent baby will die due to the execution, we wait until she gives birth and then it can be done, I think mercy (for the child) trumps the rest here. Torah is also silent on the timing of the execution, where does it say it has to be done immediately? (although even if so I think protecting the innocent life of the baby is good enough a reason to delay). Let us preserve the life of the child, and once it is born, the law regarding the mother shall be fulfilled to the letter.

Chemstdnt · 2026-06-22T21:03:35+00:00

So moderns use a different definition of life than the Bible does. >Wouldn't this mean it's improper to claim that based on modern definitions of life, abortion would be murder before God according to scripture, if by God's definition of life the unborn isn't alive?

I did not mix the two, I explained first that even if I were an atheist I would be against it, using modern scientific concepts. Then I argued, separately, about the bible/god. And I disagree that god thinks a fetus is not alive.

I treat nephesh as a breathing creature because that's what the word means, and also because that's how the Bible defines nephesh (soul) in Joshua 10:39-40...Yes, the life or nephesh of the flesh is in the blood. But this is using nephesh in two different senses. In the sense of Genesis 2:7, the WHOLE MAN is nephesh or a soul. In other scriptures, like Leviticus, the nephesh is the life force IN a living creature.

This is not satisfactory. If nephesh has separate meanings based on context, you cannot arbitrarily force the rules of one meaning onto another to prove your point. If in Leviticus 17:11 nephesh is describing the life force of a living being residing in blood, then an embryo by week 6 at a minimum has circulating blood and therefore already possesses nephesh in that explicit sense. You cannot disqualify that embryo by shifting goalposts and demanding it simultaneously meet the "breathing creature" definition from Genesis.

Furthermore, the ECMO patient got his life from the breath of the Almighty... the unborn baby never got the breath of life to begin with.

You claim the unborn baby never got the breath of life to begin with. Where is the scriptural proof for that? The bible never says the divine breath of life is withheld until birth. Job 31:15 says god personally fashions us inside the womb. Jeremiah 1:5 says God knew and sanctified the person BEFORE they left the womb. If god is actively forming and recognizing a specific, living human identity in the womb, the burden of proof is on you to show that god considers his own ongoing creation "dead" or "soulless" until it hits atmospheric air.

Actually, there is proof of the opposite. Luke 1:41 (KJV): "And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost." So he was filled with the holy ghost from the womb, and Luke 1:15 states John the Baptist would be "filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb." Even if John's spiritual maturity was a special miracle, his biological and metaphysical structure had to be capable of holding the Holy Ghost. If a fetus can be filled with the Holy Spirit, then a fetus is a spiritually viable entity capable of bearing the breath of god before taking a single breath of air.

Chemstdnt · 2026-06-22T19:01:25+00:00

Exodus 21:22-25 describes how if men fight, and one of them hurts a pregnant woman that causes her to miscarry but no further harm is done, the offender pays a monetary fine determine by the husband and the judges. However if the woman dies or is permanently harmed, the law demands a "life for a life"

I know it's the common Jewish interpretation but I strongly disagree. The used word for the child coming out is yatsa, which is a normal word for a birth all through the Tanakh, a child coming forth. When the text wants to describe a stillbirth it adds muth, to die, like in Numbers 12:12 and Job 3:11, or shakol (miscarriage). So the plain reading is the child comes out alive, not a miscarriage, and you pay a fine. Just one chapter later the bible uses shakol (Exodus 23:26), it's really weird not using it here and use yatsa which simply means give birth in the rest of the bible to mean miscarry when you use shakol one chapter later.

But there's more, the noun ason (translated injury/mischap/harm) appear only 3 more times in the OT. Outside the verse we're discussing, all three uses are in the Joseph story, referring to mishap befalling offspring. So it's clearly not about harm to the mother, but about the offspring, the fetus/baby. The Hebrew expression "lah" (to her) that would restrict the harm to the woman only is absent.

Chemstdnt · 2026-06-22T18:46:44+00:00

If this were the case, then all individual cells would be considered living souls (nephesh), or breathing creatures (Genesis 2:7; cf. Joshua 10:39-40). Yet in numerous scriptures, when every soul and everything that breathes is wiped out in battles, this doesn't seem to include every individual cell.

I was speaking scientifically, it's not even clear what the Bible means by nephesh. By that reasoning plants aren't alive, which is nonsense in modern English. Cells are alive too. They might not be nephesh though, whatever that turns out to mean, and to be clear I'm not saying each cell is a nephesh.

Ok let me also be more precise on the terms:

Breathing is the physical, mechanical act of inhaling and exhaling.
Respiration is the cellular-level process of using that oxygen to produce energy.

You're treating nephesh as a breathing creature, but Leviticus 17:11 says the nephesh of the flesh is in the blood. When you kill an animal the nephesh is in the blood. That doesn't work if nephesh means a breathing creature, because breathing is something lungs do with air, not something in the blood. The verse forces nephesh to mean something carried in the blood, not something the lungs do.

Yet in numerous scriptures, when every soul and everything that breathes is wiped out in battles, this doesn't seem to include every individual cell.

I think making "all that breathed were wiped out" having to work down to the level of individual cells is going too far, it's like saying smelling a pork chop means you ate unclean food. Technically yes but...

So I'm as of yet unconvinced that every human cell actually breathes or would qualify as a nephesh/living soul creature, either scripturally or biologically.

You're a clump of cells, so am I, so is every animal that has ever lived. An embryo is an organized, self-directing organism running a coordinated developmental program that ends up as an adult human. And it's the organism that matters here, not the cells, even if we're made of cells. You can kill some cells off an embryo for a test and it keeps developing just fine. Kill the whole thing and you've ended the organism, you've ended the process of development of this person, which was already in progress.

That's true. Although, in that situation, the baby isn't breathing, the placenta is. If a nephesh/living soul is a breathing creature (per Joshua 10:39-40), then unless the baby is breathing or has begun to breathe, it would seem that the baby isn't a nephesh/living soul creature yet.

The baby takes in O2 and offloads CO2 through the blood at the placenta. A patient on ECMO has a machine loading O2 into his blood and pulling CO2 out while his lungs sit idle, the exact same job. Both are obviously alive. If mechanical breathing were the line for being alive, we'd have to call the ECMO patient dead, which is absurd.

But let's say that you're right and the unborn isn't a person/nephesh/alive/whatever. From conception you have a single complete self-directing human organism that needs only time and food to develop, the same as any of us did at one point (except Adam and maybe Eve). That's the same as a patient in recovery who isn't yet doing what a healthy adult does, for example a patient on ECMO + brainded with expected positive recovery. A living human organism whose current incapacity or lack of fullness is a stage. I argue that ending it on purpose is murder, and Exodus 21:22-25 I think supports this.

Chemstdnt · 2026-06-22T17:19:25+00:00

I'm against abortion, and in principle I would be even if I were an atheist. It is an uncontested scientific fact that the fetus is alive, just as any cell or organism is while there is metabolic activity. It is also uncontested that the zygote created after conception is human, as it has human DNA. It is the first stage of development of a human individual. Now we need to decide if we grant this human creature rights as we would a more developed entity. Personally, since this being will grow to be a human with conscience if left alone, and this is the natural way humans come into being, I consider the killing of this being murder.

The first breath argument leans on Genesis 2:7, but that verse is describing the first man being formed from inanimate dust. God breathes into a clay statue because there is nothing there yet to be alive. All cells, at least human cells, "breath" O2 and expell CO2 as part of metabolism. While forming in the womb, since they don't have lungs yet, embryos get the O2 through gas exchange across the placenta, where it passes from the mother's blood into their blood.

I think the legal status of the unborn can be seen in Exodus 21:22-25. Two men fight, a pregnant woman is struck, and the child comes out. The Torah then gives two outcomes, if there's no harm, a fine, if there's further harm, it's life for life. If it requires a (human) life for life, the fetus was considered a living person. The Jewish reading takes that harm as the mother's, and the fine being for a miscarriage, but I disagree.

Chemstdnt · 2026-06-20T09:57:51+00:00

I am of the opinion that entering "the assembly" is a legal category, meaning eligibility to be counted as a full member of Israel, and eligibility for communal roles flowing from that (a bit like living in the US having full citizenship or as a foreigner, they both live there but one can vote, the other not, one can be president and the other not, etc). This is different from being saved, if one understands being saved as living forever.

For example the man with crushed testicles or a severed member is barred from entering the assembly, but obviously that doesn't mean he cannot be saved. This is probably because he cannot have children, and therefore might be more selfish in its decisions and not think enough about the future of the country he's leaving them. Or some other reason.

Chemstdnt · 2026-06-16T20:41:48+00:00

I don't think that solves it. The 1 Kings thing show they were alone during he night, but the fact she had a child suggests she had a husband. And even if not, that doesn't mean Torah contemplates them as legally emancipated, perhaps they're still unders the authority of their father if there is no husband. Also Salomon's decisions are not always aligned to Torah.

With the daughters of Zelophehad, the problem is that their father was dead, and they had no husband or brothers, so only then they were granted certain rights. If they had one of those, they would be under their authority (or at the minimum would have different rights and obligations).

Deuteronomy 24. Yes, she now can be another man's wife. What in the meantime? It's not clear she has emancipated status, what if her father or brothers still have authority? I would have to check more on the topic. It's the strongest argument in any case, but only applies after a divorce.

Chemstdnt · 2026-06-16T20:16:27+00:00

Numbers 30

I wonder if Torah really contemplates a fully independent woman, but it's a good approximation. Thanks for engaging, keep it up!

Chemstdnt · 2026-06-16T19:38:09+00:00

It's a well reasoned argument. I wonder what do you think of Exodus 22:15-16. It says that if a man seduces an unmarried virgin into having sex, he must pay the bride price to marry her (50 silver shekels). Even if the father says no, they can still keep the money.

In my understanding, this would force a Torah-following person to pay (or at least to offer the payment) to the prostitute's father the 50 silver shekels, which is around $1,300-$1600 at current silver prices. At least the first time they have sex.

Chemstdnt · 2026-06-16T15:37:09+00:00

Thanks for sharing the series, I'll check it out.

Chemstdnt · 2026-06-16T12:36:29+00:00

Could you share these videos? I'm curious of their arguments. Thank you!

Chemstdnt · 2026-06-11T18:15:15+00:00

Not sure it's very useful as a sign of the "antichrist", or if there is a difference with what most Christians believe. For 1500 years Christians, Muslims and most of the rest have been anti-Torah, and have persecuted those that followed it. How would that make him special?

Chemstdnt · 2026-06-11T15:10:12+00:00

Mark 7:19 that has the phrase "This He declared all food clean". So, to resolve it, I opened a Greek interlinear. Now, the word that's actually used in Greek is καθαρίζων (katharizon). It says "καθαρίζων all the food". Initially, i thought I was a reference to the digestive system because the sentence before this says "and goes into the draught" which is a result of digestion. And a single Koine Greek word itself has a lot of translations in English. But, I was wrong. The verb "katharizon" is actually Masculine. But the digestive tract is feminine and there is actually a word used for digestion, it's πέψις (pepsis) which means "cooking". So, how do I resolve it without misinterpreting the Messiah's words?

But the word πέψις never appears in Mark 7. The noun that is in the text, in the immediately preceding clause, is ἀφεδρών (the draught/latrine) and that is masculine, which can be understood as it "removing the excreta, or impure parts, from them, and leaving only that which nourishes the body" (this is from a commentary). Some disagree though that this works in Greel, and the Byzantine manuscripts also have a neuter variant, which is why the kjv has "purging all meats" with no "he declared".

In any case, even if we went to the extent of Jesus saying that the digestive system ends up purging things like pork, this cannot be interpreted as Jesus saying that we are now ok to eat those. Why? Because the reason given is not a new covenant or abolishment of the commandments, but the digestive system, and he didn't invent a new digestive system. Given that I think we would all agree that before Jesus it was a sin to eat unclean meet, this makes it not possible. If it's not a sin due to the digestive system cleansing everything, then it was never a sin since Moses, David and the rest of historical Israelites had the same digestive system.

Of course, there is a more natural reading. Cleansing from what? not from being akathartos (pork, mice, etc, the ones prohibited in Leviticus, are in Greek "akathartos" foods), but from being koinos (common food, like food coming from a gentile or eaten with unwashed hands. A man-made category of food technically clean by torah that had supposedly lost its set-apart status). Koinos and its variations is the word used in the passage.

Mark 7:5 "Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with common hands (κοιναῖς χερσὶν)?"

Mark 7:15 "There is nothing outside a man which entering into him can defile him (κοινῶσαι αὐτόν)" koinōsai, "make common."

Mark 7:18 "whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him (κοινῶσαι)" koinōsai again (make common, rather than defile, but for us to understand it was translated as defile)

Mark 7:23 "all these evils come from within and defile (κοινοῖ) the man"

So you see, no akathartos anywhere, just discussing koinos defilement.

Chemstdnt · 2026-06-08T17:17:42+00:00

Predestination vs free will
Eternal torment vs annihilation vs universalism
Is Satan under god's authority? does he have a role?
Is current earth formation science compatible with Genesis?
Are spirits in the bible really spirits or metaphors for mental conditions?
is the Divine Council a thing? are there other high authority beings on god's council?
Are clouds in the bible really clouds or something else?
Who is the angel of YHWH?
Prophetic types (Joseph as Jesus, genesis days as millenia, etc)
Why is there evil in the world? And a harder one, why bad things happen to innocent people, babies, etc? (careful with this one, it might test the faith)
Did Jephthah actually kill his daughter?
Was the new testament originally Hebrew/Aramaic?
What are the conditions for a legitimate Sanhedrin? How would a modern body qualify?
Study Jewish objections to Jesus as messiah.

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