Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Hypothetically speaking, must all Christians be heroes?

Well, what I meant is that, in the same way that we have "evil" pharisees, we have could hypothetically have "evil" Christians.

You mean like Joel Olsteen?

Or Benny Hinn, or Bob Larson, or Jim Jones, or Arminus; take your pick.

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I guess if we have a card called "Christian Suing Another" a "Suing Christian" could technically be an Evil Character.

Can of worms: Open

We have evil Christians in the game, and they are evil characters.  Ananias and Sapphira were Christians, but fell away.  Same with Simon the Sorceror and Demas.  It seems that the designers of the game agree with scripture, as I read it, that one ceases to be among the "saved" once they start down a dark path of sin and refuse to repent.  (In Simon's case I feel he did fully repent, but that's beside the point).

Well, technically, anyone who leaves would have been never elect to begin with.

At least I've chosen a side.

FWIW, the dividing line between good characters and evil characters seems driven more by whether those people move the lost towards salvation, and not necessarily whether they are classified within a specific group.  Various Sadducees and Pharisees, for example, are good or evil, as well as certain Israelite/Judean kings.

Jesus called Peter "satan" so maybe Peter should be an evil character...JK!

Solomon is an interesting character.  I think you may actually need 3 Solomons!  Young King Solomon started off great, and yes, he pretty quickly went bad, with all his foreign wives, idol worship, and incredible wealth.  But if you are of the persuasion that I am, that he wrote Ecclesiastes and most of Proverbs right before he died, it seems to me that Solomon has turned toward righteousness again.  I think it was because he looked back on everything he had accomplished and saw that it was all "vanity", but in Proverbs especially I get the sense that it is a father trying to tell his son not to make the same mistakes that he did, and he probably was concerned about what kind of king his spoiled brat Reheboam would be.  But maybe I'm romanticizing it too much.  It sure would help if the New Testament gave some indication to Solomon's final resting place.  Note though that in Hebrews 11 you have Samson mentioned among the heroes of faith, and he sure did some unsavory things too!  God's mercy is astounding, and I am living proof

Just my two cents.

Um, who exactly are you suggesting wrote Ecclesiastes and Proverbs "post-exile", and how could anything said in that book apply to such a person? 

Ecclesiastes 1:1 - "The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem."  What son of David was king in Jerusalem after the exile? 
Ecclesiastes 2:9-10 - "So I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jersualem.  Also my wisdom remained with me.  Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.  I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure..."

As for Proverbs, 1:1 - "The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel:"  Chapter 30 is the words of Agur, and chapter 31 the words of King Lemuel (that his mother taught him).

Add to all of this passages like 1 Kings 4:32 "He spoke three thousand proverbs, and his songs were one thousand and five." (etc, etc)

I promise I am not trying to start an argument, and I believe the words to be inspired by God whomever the authors were. But if we are to believe they are inspired, aren't we also obligated to believe who they say wrote them?

This is the first I had ever heard of these words being written "post-exile" (assuming you are referring to the exile hundreds of years after Solomon, where God's people were deported to Babylon for 70 years).

Don't listen to Chancellor Colin. He's a sith.

Wouldn't a sith believe in absolutes?

Believe the words to be inspired by God whomever the authors were.

You're entitled to your opinion there. The differences between Jesus' geneologies, the story of the annointing at Bethany, and many other inconsistancies in the gospels alone would leave your argument for infallibility on pretty shaky ground.

This is the first I had ever heard of these words being written "post-exile" (assuming you are referring to the exile hundreds of years after Solomon, where God's people were deported to Babylon for 70 years).

After the return from exile, the prophetic voice went silent. Apocolyptic and wisdom liturature were the replacements.

aren't we also obligated to believe who they say wrote them?

Was Ezra there for Genesis? Just because the wisdom liturature was compiled post-exilic doesn't mean that they weren't taken from original quotes from Solomon. It also follows that the Zerubabel temple priests would put "He spoke three thousand proverbs, and his songs were one thousand and five" in their history books that they wrote around the same time.

Also, how would you explain something like Job? If Job supposedly lived before Abraham, how could post-exilic writers give an infallible account?

I always laugh at the lunacy of a jedi saying the absolute statement "only the Sith deal in absolutes."

Collin, first of all, there are more than one definition on the infallibility of the gospel.  Second, the wote you pulled did not mention infallibility  it mentioned inspiration which is a totally different thing.

thirdly, who is to say the proverbs and Psalms were not written pre-exile but compliled by post-exile editors?

and about Job, well, i do not believe in a litteral job so im on your side there, but your argument makes suppositions that others would not.  They would say that Job was written in the time period it records, and then compiled or edited in the post exillic period.

I understand where you are going here, but you are making leaps of logic based on assumptions that you need to explain or at least point to your proof or reasons for doing so.

Yes, wisdom literature has a much different textual feel to it and it is written in a much different way that betrays its mesopotamian influences, but most people dont have the benefit of extensive textual criticism under their belt.

plus, the case is not as cut and dry as you assume.

Well, I don't think it's a faulty appeal to authority to say that the majority of Biblical scholars support everything I just said, is it?
I mean, I don't exactly have the time or resources to pull out all of the Sumerian/Babylonian syncrontisms (though I did just write an interesting paper on it).