I tend to belive the context of this chapter is important. First, that God was speaking pretty specifically to Sodom and Gomorrha, pertaining his extreme disapproval of THEIR behaviors,, which made him disgusted with EVERYTHING they offered him while continuing to do evil...

10 Hear the word of the LORD, You rulers of Sodom; Give ear to the instruction of our God, You people of Gomorrah.
11 “What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me?” Says the LORD. “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams And the fat of fed cattle; And I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats.
12 “When you come to appear before Me, Who requires of you this trampling of My courts?
13 “Bring your worthless offerings no longer, Incense is an abomination to Me. New moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies— I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly

So then you're saying that Jesus isn't God.

exactly, thanks msharmony :)

If Jesus was God, then who was the one saying "This is my son in whom i'm well pleased"

Again Jesus said "The father and I are one" yes. We are ALL one, we are ALL a part of God.

Well, that was my view way back in the beginning of the Bible.

A parent or "God" who tells his childern that he will forgive them their sins if they offer him blood sacrifices is just asking for trouble. That is an extremely "unwise" thing to do in the first place.

That was my argument way back in the very beginning of the Bible as the whole story begins to unfold.

Then in Isaiah we see my predictions coming into full bloom showing the absolute worthlessness of this kind of "parenting".

There is no wisdom to be had in this type of mentoring.

So ultimately the whole collection of stories just comes around full circle to verify my original observation that the biblical God is an unwise parent from the word go.

Well, to be perfectly honest with you I don't believe that there was ever a voice from Heaven saying "This is my son in whom I'm well pleased"

I think if "God" would speak to large crowds in that way there would have been no need to even send Jesus. All God would need to do is speak to us directly from the sky and tell us what he expects from us, thus avoiding all confusion.

He could have done that world-wide to all of his childern in every possible language and then we'd have the same eye-witness acounts of the same event from every culture on Earth.

As to your second statement: "Again Jesus said "The father and I are one" yes. We are ALL one, we are ALL a part of God."

In other words, we can all say "The father and I are one" with equal legitimacy.

I agree. But that's ultiamtely pantheism and in that sense Buddha and the Father were also one, etc.

Thus Jesus hold no special place. At least certainly no more special than men like Buddha.

Reason people sacraficed things in a way to be forgiven, because that's giving something up in life that we need. It's a display for our love for God. A relationship with God isn't a give/take. It's a give/give. God gives us blessings and in return we give God something. And since everything on earth is God's, our actions and sacraficing things we need is the only gift we can offer God.

Matthew 3:17

And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

According to the Federalist Papers, this is exactly wrong. John Jay especially contradicts what you say in his papers(he was the first Chief Justice). You have much to learn, grasshopper.

The reason that people made blood sacrifices to God is because the authors of the Bible had God directing them to do this.

All I'm saying is that I don't see any wisdom in a God who directs people to behave like this. Thus I don't believe that the authors of the Bible were very wise.

THUS, I don't believe that their writings reprsent the directives of any all-wise God.

In short, I believe that the Bible is nothing more than quite unwise fabrications of men.

Ok you have your right to your opinion and belief. But in the times of when people made these sacrafices they didn't have the "bible" as we know it today. They had the original scrolls of which the bible is made up of.

I know that this is in the Bible.

I don't believe that any such thing ever happened.

This is the difference between you and I.

You just accept on blind faith that everything that is written in the Bible must be true.

I question everything. It makes no sense to me that a God who can freely speak to a crowd and say "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased", can't take a moment to stop by and say hello to me personally in a similar way.

It's just absurd.

Matthew was just attempting to convince his readers that some Almigthy God has verified his story. And you fall for it hook line and sinker.

I don't.

You're exactly right. Not only did they not have the Bible, but for the most part they seldom had any writings at all. In fact, most of what they believed was nothing more than oral mythology.

Even the so-called "original scrolls" were nothing more than a hand-me-down version of oral traditions.

The thing we call "The Bible" today is nothing more than an extremely biased collection of stories purposefully collected together in an attempt to construct a specific story.

All the "Bible" truly represents are the written opinions of a very few individual actually. There were many more opinions that were simply never preserved.

Ever hear the saying, "History is written by the victors"?

That's just the way things are. The Biblical mythology we see today is nothing more than the doctrine of the societies who won the most wars.

and you have your right to this. But i assume you believe all the history books written in life about everything, even down to how electric was invented. It's all the same, it's all what you want to believe. Like for the discovery of america for instance. It was supposedly Christopher Columbus...... but how do we know this for the exact trueth? We just blindly believe it cause some book told us so as you put it.

You do NOT reads them as you sees them, the proof is right up above. So I'm gonna go pounce around while you contemplate what your error may be.

And if you can't figure it out, I'll be here so that you may inform me of your umpteen unanswered objections, maybe I'll address them.

Well, you're wrong if you assume that. Have I not just said that history is written by the victors?

When it comes to the history of "science" I tend to believe that these histories tend to have more accuracy for two very important reasons.

First, it's the nature of scientists to record what they do in extreme detail and to write down their own thoughts so that no 'hearsay' is required.

Secondly, the history of scientific discoveries is no so important as the actual discoveries themselves. Does it truly matter that Albert Einstein discovered the laws of Relativity? You can perform experiments and observations to verify that these laws do, in fact, hold in the real universe. Whether they are attributed to some guy named "Albert Einstein", or some guy named "John Doe" is truly unimportant.

Same thing is true about things like who discovered America. If you believe that some Vikings discovered America before Columbus, is that going to radically change anything? I think not.

The Biblical cannon of mythological tales is quite different. There are many things that these stories demand that you must believe otherwise the creator of this universe will be extremely upset with you.

So now you are faced with a "Need" to either believe it, or reject it.

I personally reject it. I do not believe that it has anything to do with the creator of this universe. It's too gory and ignornant to be the word and wishes of an all-wise divine being IMHO.

Also, there aren't many conflicting or contesting stories in the history of science where we are torn between beliving who did what.

But in the case of creation myths, there are many others to choose from. So why focus on one that has me at odds with a violent hostile creator who demands that I become a bigot in the name of Jesus, when I can choose other creation myths that are far wiser and less hostile?

There is no hostility with God. And reason God demands we believe in him is just as simple as this. *i don't know your personal life so i'll make it a general thing*

Say you have two children, and one child at any chance denies you're his perant, doesn't do a dang thing you say, and just talks bad about you all the time.

Would you still continue on life like nothing happened, or would you punish this child in one way or other?

this interpretation puts man at the center of the story, Christians are to put God there,,,, God owes us nothing, he is not betrothed to us in any way,,, we often ask why he doesnt do this or that for US,, simple answer is because he is our Father, his responsibility ends with the necessities he provides,, he owes us no conversation or further explanation,,,,,,we are the children there to obey him, we are to read his word to understand the ifs and whys,, it is up to him whom and when he will speak to and I believe he speaks to many

Well, that's the mentality a person needs to have to be a Christian I suppose. Since I don't think like that I can't condone Chrsitianity.

The idea of punishing your child in the situation above only shows utter ignorance on your part. In fact, this kind of "punishement" mentality is precisely why I reject the notion of the Biblical God.

First off, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a child deying that you're his or her parent. Why should that bother you? Unless it just hurts you emotional because you are so WEAK and hung up on yourself. If a child of mine were to renounce me as their parent I would want to know why?

Also if my child is bad-mouthing me I would want to know why.

Consider this, suppose I had one of my children nailed to a pole, and my other children thought that was horrible and they disowned me for being such an ignorant jerk.

Do you still think I should then turn around and PUNISH those children? All I would be doing is PROVING that they are indeed right!

If I feel that I had good reasons for my actions then it's MY RESPONSIBLITY to bend over backwards to make sure that my children fully UNDERSTAND why things need to be the way they are.

For me to just say, "Because I say so! Now shut up and OBEY ME!", would be utterly ignorant.

I would personally disown any parent who displayed such a shallow ignorant attitude.

So, no, your continued comparisons of God with being a parent breaks down horribly. God would be an extremely poor parent and would indeed deserve to be rejected by his children and bad-mouthed until he wises up and EXPLAINS himself in a way that his childern can understand.

In short, I totally reject the Biblical God's so-called "Parenting Skills". I don't believe that the creator of this universe would be that utterly ignorant.

A God who solves all his problems using violent methods?

What's so wise about that?

This why I reject the Biblical mythology as having anything to do with any supposedly all-wise God.