Istlota,
Thank you for taking the time to respond. What is your understanding of blessings and curses mentioned in the OP? What I'm respectfully asking is how do the blessings and curses of the bible apply to us today?
I assume by OP that you meant OT, but have the same problem I have. That problem being that sometimes my fingers do not type what my mind thinks.
Everything is a consequence of divine intent. And, by divine intent, I mean what the Merovingian called Causality. It is the Way of all things:
Bible based religions teach that men, because of free will, choose the path we live. This is the basis of belief that it is just for God to bless some and curse others. Et al, God blessses those who choose to obey him and God curses those who choose to disobey him.
But, there are some serious flaws in that logic.
If God is all-knowing, omnescient, then there is no getting around the fact that God knew, before he created Satan, that Satan would disobey. Which would mean God knew he was creating a being who would go on to cause pain and suffering to every man, woman, boy, and girl ever born. Yet, God created Satan anyway. Which means Satan is doing God's Will --- exactly what God intended him to do.
Similarly, if God is indeed omnescient, then he knew perfectly well, when he created Adam and Eve, that they would eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. It would be like me putting a two year old in a room full of candy, yet telling that child not to eat of that candy.
Which means, again, that if Adam and Eve sinned, they did so because they fulfilled God's Will --- that they did exactly what God intended them to do.
Causality --- it is the Way of all things.
Bible based religions, of course, reject this as heresy. Adherents of these religions lust for their God of hate and of vengence and of rage to curse the majority of mankind to an eternity of suffering in hell. They think justice requires that the bad guys be punished for their sins. And, of course, they consider themselves and those who believe as they do to be the good guys.
But ... there is that troubling place in the bible where Paul seems to say exactly what I am saying:
Romans 9:15-20
"For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?"
I have yet to hear an adherent to a bible based religion admit that Paul meant exactly what it sounds like he meant. No, they will argue, that cannot be true, for if it is, than how could a God of love curse the majority of men for doing exactly what God hardeneth their hearts to do?
Well, here is what is. And, admittedly, I say this knowing few will accept what I am saying as the gospel truth.
When you dream, SPEAKFREEDOMnet, your mind creates all sorts of dream characters --- some good guys and some bad guys. But, the bad guys can hardly be blamed, or sent to an eternal of hell, for being bad guys because, after all, they can only do what you --- the Dreamer --- intend for them to do.
The Real World works the same way. We, all men, only appear to be distinct individuals with Free Will. In truth, as Jesus tried to tell us in John 17:20-23, we are One even as Christ and the Father are One.
Or, as some poets have described it, we are all thoughts in the mind of God.
We are all dream characters in the mind of the Divine Dreamer. In the End of all Days, the Master will awake, and all will return to the One Mind.
Romans 14:11
"For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God."
Not just those who are blessed, SPEAKFREEDOMnet ...
Not excluding those who are cursed, my brother ....
But _every_ knee.