I very much doubt that we do have radically different points of view. Your reactions are too disconnected from reason for that to be the case. I don't think you understand at all what we're saying. There is a disconnect somewhere. You have some sort of idea about what we're saying that is very far off base.
This is muddied by the fact that I don't recall seeing you give any direct answers to his questions concerning what you're now referring to as a moral equivalence (perhaps I've missed them) and I know for a fact that you've never addressed the scripture that I've presented multiple times that directly contradicts your position.
So maybe I'm trying too hard to give you the benefit of the doubt. My experience is that when people refuse to respond directly, start responding with single sentence quips instead of arguments and move toward trying to deflect or dismiss and away from substantive engagement and understanding, that they've simply run of out substantive things to say but can't bring themselves to modify their position.
What's really bad for you is that I've not exhausted half of the biblical material I could bring to bear on this issue. Just to give you the slightest taste of where this could go....
If God doesn't manipulate evil people and if doing so is somehow evil, just exactly what is going on in the following passage....
Exodus 10:1 Now the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh; for
I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants, that I may show these signs of Mine before him,
or in this passage...
Exodus 4:21 And the Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in your hand. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. 22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Israel is My son, My firstborn. 23 So I say to you, let My son go that he may serve Me. But if you refuse to let him go, indeed I will kill your son, your firstborn.” ’ ”
24 And it came to pass on the way, at the encampment, that the Lord met him and sought to kill him. 25 Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at Moses’ feet, and said, “Surely you are a husband of blood to me!” 26 So He let him go. Then she said, “You are a husband of blood!”—because of the circumcision.
Then there's the entire book of Jonah, not to mention the entire book of Job. Oh! And one of my favorite books of the entire bible is Ester! Now there's an example of a Godly woman who was an absolute master manipulator!
I'm not even close to exaggerating, Gary. I could go on and on and on seemingly forever. There are people in the book of Hebrews Faith "Hall of Faith" that got on that list explicitly because of the courageous lies they told! Every few seconds, as I write this, I think of additional places I could go to establish my position and I can't even get you to directly deal with the only one that I've actually used up to this point (1 Kings 22:22-23). I've literally got dozens, including multiple whole books of the bible!
Clete