Monthly Archives: January 2020

Why the Golden Rule is a bad rule

Jesus says you should do to others as you would have them do to you.1 This is known as the Golden Rule. Sounds like a pretty good rule, right? As long as you don’t think about what it’s actually saying. But it’s really a very bad rule. Let’s look at an example to see why.

A man would like to have sex with a certain woman. But that woman is not willing to have sex with him. What should the man do? Well, what would he want that unwilling woman to do to him? He would want her to have sex with him. So according to the Golden Rule, he should go ahead and have sex with her.

That’s right, actually following this nice-sounding rule would lead to rape. What went wrong?

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Did Daniel normally eat choice food, meat, and wine?

The first chapter of the book of Daniel establishes that Daniel is not willing to ever eat choice food or drink wine. Daniel makes a big deal out of this. He has religious reasons for his dietary restrictions, as well as health reasons. He insists on eating nothing but vegetables and drinking nothing but water, even if doing so risks incurring the wrath of the king.

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The Story of Adam and Eve
The Garden of Eden

In the beginning, there was nothing but a perfect God. Everything that existed was perfect. So God decided to create the world, which he knew1 would turn out to be imperfect. Now everything is no longer perfect. Good job, God.

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The Garden of Eden
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Is it more beneficial to unbelievers to prophesy or to speak in tongues?

In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul discusses the relative merits of prophecy versus speaking in tongues. He says as far as the church is concerned, it’s better to prophesy, because no one can understand you when you speak in tongues.1 But what about when unbelievers are around? What’s the best thing to do then?

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