how to justify embarrassing bible verses – part 1
If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives. (Deuteronomy 22:28-29)
This verse is one of the worst of many of the truly awful verses in the Bible. This law is a continuation of the man and woman becoming ‘one flesh’ when the penis magically connects in the vagina. Interestingly enough, if a man rapes a betrothed women, he is to be put to death. The unbetrothed virgin is fair game though and can be bought with a hefty fine to cover any embarrassment or inconvenience to the family.
This verse, for anyone outside of the Christian religion, is just yet another piece of nonsense from a very old book written by a random group of men who believed in invisible deities and treated women like property. However, for Christians, this verse needs to be explained. It needs to make sense and be consistent with the existence of a benevolent, eternal being.
Here is one Christian’s desperate attempt to make sense of this verse and explain that the god God was doing the rape victim a favour with an infinitely benevolent and eternally just law. This explanation is so painfully desperate and so desperately painful, I don’t think I can muster a response. It’s annoyingly long too …
First, we look at the spiritual condition of the Israelites under the Mosaic Law: God has not yet revealed to them His Will in Its entirety yet, so He just set down some ground rules. The Israelites were not entirely obedient, and He knew that if He set down the extensive rules that Jesus did in the New Testament (His entire Will), they would complain and might have even been more disobedient. At the same time, the Israelites had their personal culture.
So what happens when a virgin woman gets sexually abused? First and foremost, she has been wronged terribly (“for she has been violated” Deuteronomy 22:29) but she has also lost her virginity. Considering the culture and attitude of the Jews at the time, an unmarried woman who lost her virginity was not desirable for marriage, and their first thought would have been that she had had consensual premarital sex. Arranged marriages were the norm in those times (although there were a few cases where the partners married for love), and families judged people for marriage based on such things like virginity.
Now what was life like for unmarried women? Also taking into account Israel’s culture at the time, women did not work for money, as they mostly worked for their family, and if they did get work they would not be paid well. So when her parents died, the unmarried woman who was considered undesirable by her culture would have nowhere to go and no support. The only thing she could possibly get was to become a prostitute, but then she would be further isolated from her society.
A man had sex with her against her will, and now God knows he has to pay. An arranged marriage would force the man to provide for the woman (note how the verse says nothing about the man having to consummate their marriage – his wife could ignore him for the rest of their married lives and he would not be allowed to divorce her, as stated in the verse, for he had to pay for what he did by supporting her for the rest of her days, and he could not marry any other woman); he also has to give her and her family fifty shekels of silver. But, was she really forced to marry him?
The answer is no, because in that culture, her father was the one who gave blessing for a man to marry his daughter. And what father would give his daughter over to a rapist? There is no account in the Bible of any woman actually being forced into marriage with her abuser – Jacob didn’t allow his daughter Dinah to marry Shechem and God did not tell him to do so.
A Jewish family in that time would be looking at the situation like this: unless another man fell in love with their daughter and would marry her without her virginity, which was rare, their daughter would have no support when her parents died. If they forced her rapist to support her through marriage (which was what marriage really was at the time – not for love, but for the economic benefits of a couple/family), then the support issue would be solved. But since most fathers (and all GOOD fathers) would not agree to marriage between their daughter and the man who violated her against her will, the man would still have to pay up fifty shekels of silver, which in today’s currency is about a couple of hundred dollars. That was a lot in those days, and I’m sure their daughter would have some significant support from it.
All of this keeping in mind that that was in the Mosaic Law and that rule for when a woman gets raped does not apply to today. The rule was only in place to fit the culture of the time. God was putting His Will into the context of the Israelites’ culture until He revealed to them the full extent of His Will. Today, arranged marriages are most certainly not the norm, and men won’t normally refuse to marry a woman they love because she isn’t a virgin. Also, the payment for a man’s crime against his rape victim today is time in prison. And since the Bible referred to rape as the man violating the woman, it is certainly considered a sin that demands retribution – it is simply that the payment for that sin was different in that time.
Conclusion: rape is a sin, the distressed rape victim has comfort available to them in Jesus Christ and should be comforted by all those around her, and the rapist should be punished for his crime.
The verse from Deuteronomy is a great verse.
God proclaims that men are responsible for the consequences of their lust.
That is infinitely better than today’s feminism which gives men unlimited and free access to the female vagina.
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To anyone reading this and wandering why this comment stands, SOM is either a troll or bored Christian in prison with too much demented time on his hands.
Hi SOM, so where in Argentina did you live?
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He subscribed to my blog this week. I’ll make sure to order extra brandy to prepare myself for what’s to come.
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Yes, he just started following mine today. I’m insulted I didn’t merit attention before then!
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Wisp,
I love the feminist movement especially when watching it from behind.
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Did you not see she said she went to school in Glasgow? That’s the only place in the world where the word Glass is a verb.
I’d be very careful if I were you.
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Pink,
A feminist spreading her legs is an invitation, not a threat.
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I had no idea your religionism went hand in hand with vulgarity. What an unusual take.
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Pink,
It is feminism that is vulgar and turns women into “Daddy’s Little Helper.”
Christianity teaches respect for women.
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Do you mean to say your language was respectful?
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Pink,
I mean to say that feminism is an absence affront to women and that Christianity teaches women how to be respectable ladies.
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Doesn’t quite answer my questions.
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Pink,
If you weren’t a feminist who had her brain destroyed, you’d realize that I did in fact answer your question.
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Hey, Glasgow, is this what we’re all going to have to deal with here? Because I’m going to be ready to start using glass as a verb too should that be the case.
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Pink,
Why don’t you start using your brain as verb?
Oh. I forgot.
You’re a feminist. That means your vagina is your only verb.
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If you tell me the name of the nearest big city in your vicinity, I can probably refer you to professionals who could assist you greatly.
In the past 30 years there have been great strides with CBT and medication.
I promise you, that works much better than whatever it is you’re doing now.
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Pink,
Only fascists, Communists and feminists demonize the opposition as being mentally ill.
That means that fascists, Communists and feminists are bigots.
Quit being a fascist feminist bigot and become a Christian.
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Not technically true. Catholics locked up girls who got pregnant out of wedlock.
Your case is significantly more serious, so I reiterate my offer of assistance.
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Pink,
The Chinese lock up women sluts and so do the Arabs, Africans and countless others.
So what else is new?
What’s new is that feminism has turned the ordinary woman into a wanton slut and made wanton woman sluthood a human right.
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SoM, I see you’re becomming a bit bolder. eh, your bigotry is showing. I shudder at the thought that any woman would be with you in ‘the biblical way’ but I know just how brainwashed religious women can be. Your kind of thinking is a blight on all the philosophy of humanity. That you have learned only bigotry and hatred is a remnant, a throwback, to the time we lived in trees. It is my sincere hope that one day we will have medical treatments to make people like you well, because much of what you have to say is sick.
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I think he’s an atheist and that’s why he reads so many atheist blogs and enjoys chatting with us all. That was possibly his best comment yet. I don’t think anyone has unlimited and free access to my vagina tyvm. But does that mean I have free access to everyone’s penis?
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Yes, because feminism is all about men’s sexual needs…..
I didn’t realize, until now, that you could set an eyeroll to ’11’. Thanks SOM for widening my range of responses to stupid shite I see on the interwebs.
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Drunk, bitter man in Texas, what do you expect?
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“FREE?!! Apparently, SOM, your experience with women is extremely limited – one way or another, we always pay!
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Violet, I’ve been waiting for this day. I have more things for you to consider, but I’m busy ATM, I’ll make another reply later tonight or tomorrow. 🙂
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Hi Brandon, if you’re going to tell me that ‘rape’ has been incorrectly translated, and that ‘grab’ or ‘overpower’ doesn’t imply force, then I should let you know that I had this discussion with someone very like you last year. I expect you read the same books.
But in any case, it would just add to the variety of interesting and terrible excuses Christians resort to.
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Covering bases just in case it is the same nonsense you are yet to be told! I like this
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Thankfully today’s secular world is so much better. For one, if you are sexually exploited, you get way more than 50 shekels, especially if you go all Miley Cyrus and come in like a wrecking ball.
Of course, rape is now a crime against the state, so you’re pretty much at their mercy. If you’re lucky you’ll be on the right side of the political spectrum because if you’re raped by a Woody Allen or a Roman Polanski, that’s not going to be viewed as rape-rape, in which case you’re pretty much on your own. Provided you do manage to pick a politically correct perp, you now have a 1% chance of receiving anything resembling justice. If he’s of another race, black, poor, or generally a nuisance for the community, your odds will be more favorable. If he’s a sports figure, a politician, or a Kennedy, well, you might just want to ask for those 50 shekels.
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You’re right, there’s still a long way to go. But thankfully no-one mentions marriage any more, and our written laws don’t compound the trauma.
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Violet, anybody who would say our written laws don’t compound the trauma, has never been to court with a rape victim.
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@insanitybytes22
it would have been heartening to see this written in a non ironic way, since it one of the only things I’ve seen you say that has a factual basis.
Did you ever think about why the system is so hard on women? And no, its not because of lack of jesus, it is because the system was designed for, and still privileges one gender over the other. Patriarchy is what we are up against, and until it is formally laid low, change for the better will be glacially slow.
Thank goodness for the secular world as religion for the most part, also designed by men, is also part of that system. So let’s not look to it for any help in advancing the cause of women; It is like trying to slow down a nuclear reaction by removing the control rods.
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Was this Tisha?
Clearly a case of trying to throw down as much bullshit as possible in the hope the reader will simply loose interest and never get to the unsatisfactory end. It worked, i gave up in paragraph 3
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If I remember correctly it was Ada, she seems really nice. Tisha was cheering her on for showing atheists how not to cherry pick and to look at everything in context. However, if you think this is bad, you should see the whole reply. I’m posting it in chunks so that I can scrape up the will to trawl through it. You’re right, it’s a great new Christian tactic! 🙂
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@VW
The gish gallop is nothing new. 🙂
You’d think our deluded friends would come up with something original once and awhile, but the tried and true seems to working well, at least for them.
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Oh, nice term! This technique, while similar, has the added of allure of boring your opponent to death. The gish gallop gallows?
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@VW
Oh, nice turn of phrase. I’m sure if you use it enough it will stick. It has a good acronym – the dreaded “GGG”. 🙂
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@JZ
Off day John?
The amount of bullcookery going on in the other thread makes the droppings in this thread look like shiny baubles of clarity.
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Coffee hadn’t worked its wonders 😉
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I found it quite convincing in a funny sort of way ie if you believe in nonsense then you would believe that nonsensical justiication of rape can be paid for especially as it reinforces that really helpful patriarchal viewpoint that women are just property/possessions/consumables/sluts (qv SoM).
The concept that raping a woman who is betrothed and is to be killed just reinforces that drivel doesn’t it? Because he has offended another man by taking his property. Fits nicely with your post on how and why to be a good and loving submissive Christian wife really.
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You’re right, the two verses together are the perfect illustration that these rules, and therefore the whole Bible, were not written by any kind of benevolent being but just a bunch of men trying to control another ancient society where women were property. Victoria and Ruth alerted me to this, previously I had just assumed women in that society were second-class citizens
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Women have always been regarded as property, hence changing their names and their title on marriage when they are passed from one property owner to another. Wearing rings to denote they are owned.
I drafted a tedious comment about the different spectrums of relationships within a patriarchal society but decided it was too complex. Maybe for a blog post, maybe not 😀
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Oh, that’ll be good. I look forward to reading it! Maybe over at Insanity’s place?
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Nah, if I get enough time today I’ll write a post on Clouds, and refer back to this one. People have two reactions to my feminist posts, the men don’t understand and argue, and others just don’t get it so don’t comment 😀
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Haha, sounds entertaining! I
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Oh? Rape can be paid for … but pick up one stick on the Sabaath and see how your Saturday night turns out. Go on, I dare you.
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Here in Gib it’s the same punishment as rape, they hit you where it hurts – in your pocket with a hefty fine. Not only can you not work on Shabbat, but you can’t have any gentile working for you either. One of the firms my partner was working for had some work done in their offices over the weekend and they were reported to the rabbi or the schul or whatever and they had to pay up. Given that it was an office in a secure block I could never figure out how someone knew they were having work done. They’d obviously upset someone to get reported like that.
I’ve spent all weekend working so I’ve sinned against Judaism and Christianity, no idea what the Muslim position is, but I’m sure I’ll have sinned there too. See you in hell.
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Hell has the best parties… trust me!
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silenceofmind obviously silenced his mind a long time ago. Mouthy, derogatory, mud slinging “Christians” are all talk when it comes to good Christian values as defined by pin pricks of light able to spew from dangerously poisoned minds. Rather than engage in pointless banter with obvious “holier than thou” robots – lets cut to the chase and ask silenceofmind where he stands on raping children. I wonder if his tiny mind is able to follow the bouncing ball back to his sacred places of worship where young females are raped by the church with impunity. Are they leg spreading feminists? How about sodomized boys? Is that OK silenceofmind? Holy shit!
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Yeah, it’s difficult to tell what SOM’s angle is – he’s clearly playing for the reaction but I don’t know where his genuine opinion lies. It’s best just to annoy him by not rising to the nonsense and asking him about his time in Argentina. 😀
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Ah come on, he is funny. And it does entertain for a few minutes to have a brain dead conversation with him. I’m still laughing at Pink being a feminist with a vagina. I mean just????? It’s quite clever to come up with something like that.
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Oooh, please don’t call him ‘clever’ – he’ll be preening and trying extra hard. 😳
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He’s asleep right now, I take it he’s American? He’ll probably miss this exchange. Now, how to get him to follow my blogs and rack up my comments 200% ? 😀
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I lied. He’s woken up, and see, he is clever. He’s followed my blog too! Trouble is I don’t write anything controversial on roughseas apart from Spanish/Gib politics. Maybe he likes monkeys? Now, if he’s really clever he’ll make his way over to Clouds. I was going to spoonfeed it to him, but best to wait and see I think. What do you reckon?
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Girls, girls!
Why can’t you just let men be men?!
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And the answer to that is Boys boys!
Why can’t you just let women be women?
Now, I have some domestic duties to do, as befits my role and also some work, so I’m pleased you’ve woken up but you will have to chat with violet or someone else as I’m not around any more. Have a lovely day.
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SOM, I’ve just done some checking. You’re in Texas, which means you were sending all this nonsense somewhere between 1am and 3am. Do you drink much? Is that a habit you picked up in the all-boys school in Argentina? You should really just go to bed early with an educational book.
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I thought I was the only one noticing that☺
I decided to completely ignore SoM, because the only thing he’s got is silence, but he can’t abide by it because he lacks the other component…
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People like SOM are incapable of articulating genuine opinions.To do so would require independent thinking, rationalization and reasonable points to back up their position.His “angle” not so much difficult to read as it is tiresome bullying. Poking people like this with a stick is mildly amusing if you’ve got nothing else to do – for the most part I find it a waste of time. SOM will never formulate thoughts conducive to actual discussion – reasonable analysis eludes the cult of God.Without exception – ask irritants like this to justify crimes or atrocities by the church and they run for the hills with their tail between their legs. I find that far more satisfying plus they leave me alone because I won’t engage in mindless banter. 🙂 (PS – not once has a “good Christian” attempted to acknowledge, let alone respond to questions about crimes in the name of God – try it, I promise satisfying silence from religious wind bags)
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In mentioning the story of Shechem, the apologist forgets to tell us all the males in the city were massacred in their sleep by two bloodthirsty sons and thereafter looted the city, well this is after making all the males get circumcised! I want to learn apologetics. How does one excuse such madness?
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This is the first time that the sickness of apologetics has sparkled quite so vividly for me. There’s nothing to say about these stories that can be woven into any kind of excuse for the god God being real. The best they can do is, or should do, is write them off as traditional Jewish stories that have nothing to do with Jesus. But the stories they kept of Jesus don’t allow them to do that. Suddenly the appeal of continuity going back to a creation story loses it’s appeal – I’m sure lots of theologians are kicking their predecessors. 😀
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I don’t know how an apologist can twist this passages in his/her head to come up with a justification. It is beyond me.
It would be easy for them to do just that. Many christians live like their is no OT except when they need the creation story. The OT in many of its passages is a disgusting book!
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Whoever wrote this reply to you shows an astonishing lack of knowledge of the story itself OR purposely twists it so that it sounds “better”[as if such a thing were possible].
God did not need to specifically tell Jacob to hand his daughter over for marriage to Shechem because he had already done so in the law. Rightly outraged, her brothers come to her defense in a wholly unjust manner.
In the end Jacob scolds her brothers, giving thought only to his establishment, wealth, and possibly his health, and giving no thought to Dinah at all.
Here are the verses in their entirety if you want to read them:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+34&version=NIV
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Ruth, excuse me, since when was the “law” applicable to gentiles?
As absurd as it may sound, the brothers did more “justice” to poor Dinah than what Jacob tried to achieve. “Unjust”? Was the attitude of schechemites showing any remorse? Did they agree to the “pact” out of anything else but good business prospects with Jacob’s tribe?
An innocent young woman is being raped and the families agree on a good deal? Marry the one who left her soul mutilated for the rest of her days?
Unjust?
I may not become popular with this, but I would have joined Simeon and Levi, for sure!
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Right, no, I agree with you. Jacob would have gladly treated her like property.
In my statement about her brothers dealing with them “unjustly” I was referring to them convincing the entire “tribe” to circumcise themselves through deceit.
I’m completely with you on joining in with the brothers to seek retribution on Dinah’s behalf.
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Oh, not only to circumcise themselves, but to come in when they were still in pain from the “procedure” and slaughter all the men and take their wives, children, and livestock as plunder.
As for Shechem…I can’t say I disagree with you.
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Oh, and I was also pointing out the miscarriage of justice in the law itself.
I mean, come on…God only gave part of his will because the Isrealites weren’t ready for the whole of it?!? What kind of lame bullshit is that?
What reasonable person wouldn’t take one human sacrifice over slaughtering animals for thousands of years? And how is love God, love your neighbor harder than all the 613 laws of the mitzvot?
I’m sorry I didn’t make myself clear. The whole thing reeks. Had God made a just law for women who had been raped to begin with: i.e. don’t be doing that, and if you do we’ll stone you to death would have been a lot more just and succinct, don’t you think?
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Amen to that!
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Ok, Violet, here it goes. Up front I want you to know I take this issue very seriously. My thinking on this is a matter of historical inquiry.
So, how does the bible treat rape? Let’s look at the first example. Your quoted apologist, Mak, and Ruth already briefly mentioned it. The story is found in Genesis 34. Jacob (who was later renamed Israel) has a daughter name Dinah. A man named Shechem “seized her and lay with her by force.” Then, Shechem wanted to marry her, so he asks his father to put in the request. Ultimately, Shechem’s family wants to cut a sort of land/marriage deal with Jacob’s family.
This is where the story gets interesting. The sons of Jacob request that Shechem’s entire family be circumcised, so they agree! The sons of Jacob were angry that Shechem had raped Dinah, so while Shechem’s male family members were in pain from circumcision, the sons of Jacob took swords and slaughtered all of these men to avenge Dinah. If nothing else, this story points to the fact that ancient people took rape seriously and found it repugnant.
Now, here’s the most important story to understand Deuteronomy 22:28-29. This is a very telling story found in 2 Samuel 13. King David’s first son is Absalom. He also has a daughter (by a different wife/concubine) named Tamar. Absalom is very lustful for Tamar, so he devises a plan to get her his room alone. Absalom asked Tamar if she would lie with him and she refused. Then, Absalom “being stronger than she” raped her. After raping her Absalom hated her and threw her out of his house locking the door.
This is the telling part. What does Tamar say at the prospect of being thrown out? Keep in mind she is a princess, not just a commoner. Tamar says, “No, my brother; for this wrong in sending me away is greater than the other that you did to me.” What?! That doesn’t make sense to us modern people. It should be that rape is worse than sending her off without marriage. But, Tamar thought the opposite was true, that sending her off without marriage was worse than rape. So, Tamar gives us the ancient’s moral calculus for devising the law in Deuteronomy.
There is only one justification for the law in Deuteronomy 22:28-29. If the woman raped felt this was the appropriate justice for the crime. Keep in mind that it was still a crime, the justice is the part that looks different from ancient to modern times. Now, as for the reason ancient women felt this was appropriate justice, I am uncertain. But, the reason is less important than the fact that they did.
Oh, and BTW Absalom met the same fate as Shechem, death by vengeful brothers.
– Brandon
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Hi Brandon,
You say:
“This is the telling part. What does Tamar say at the prospect of being thrown out? Keep in mind she is a princess, not just a commoner. Tamar says, “No, my brother; for this wrong in sending me away is greater than the other that you did to me.” What?! That doesn’t make sense to us modern people. It should be that rape is worse than sending her off without marriage. But, Tamar thought the opposite was true, that sending her off without marriage was worse than rape. So, Tamar gives us the ancient’s moral calculus for devising the law in Deuteronomy.
There is only one justification for the law in Deuteronomy 22:28-29. If the woman raped felt this was the appropriate justice for the crime”.
Forgive me for being blunt but I’m calling bs on this. You say that as if the woman had any say in the matter at all. Tamar, as well as any other woman, knew she was mere chattal, princess or not. As princess she would have likely been bartered in a business deal were she a virgin. Knowing she had lost that she would be of no value in that way. In fact and Jew worth his salt wouldn’t have her. You also fail to point out that she was Amnon’s sister. She may not have desired to be Amnon’s wife so much as not to be a “desolate woman”. No Jew would marry her unless she were a widow because now she was, whether he wanted or not, her husband. Absalom had him offed to take care of that.
The law was not made with the woman in mind-nor do I believe any woman was consulted, except to the extent that she was “unmarryable” without her virginity. If you can provide me with a reference other than Tamar’s appeal as a proof otherwise, I’ll gladly consider it.
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*any Jew worth his salt.
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Ruth, you are correct I got the name wrong, sorry about that, but it does not change the outcome of the argument. You seem to be saying that ancient marriage traditions are the underlying issue. You could be correct, but do you have any evidence to support this?
I have given you evidence that ancient women, even princesses, felt that the justice for being raped was marriage. I’m not saying I know exactly why, it’s possible that marriage traditions or cultural values (shame/honor system) were the underlying problem. Then, you’ve shifted from saying the law is immoral to saying that the marriage tradition or cultural value is immoral. Ok. So what? How do you indict Moses or God? Do you want to say that they should have given a law to change everything about marriage traditions and cultural values in one sweeping move? How do you make your new case?
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I’m saying that the justice system was entirely man-made. No, I’m not indicting Yahweh as I don’t believe that Yahweh was involved in creating this system.
Marriages during that time were arranged and business contracts, thus the dowry paid the the virgin’s family.
If you are proposing that God commanded these things in an already operating culture, why was it already an operating culture? Why would God not have been there from the beginning setting the tone for the culture itself?
I’m saying that, yes, marital laws were immoral. Had God not intended it to be that way he would have given a commandment about it earlier, prior to the culture being established, no?
During that ancient period in Judaism, as well, even if a woman was widowed without a child, she would have needed a kinsman redeemer. Each of her deceased husband’s brothers and cousins would have needed to reject her as a wife before she could accept a marriage proposal from someone else.
You make it sound as if a man marrying his rape victim was punishment. It was not. It was keeping the woman from becoming desolate. Yes, I find that very immoral.
Are you unfamiliar with the significance of a woman’s virginity in the OT?
The only evidence you gave was Tamar’s admonition that it was even more egregious for Amnon to leave her desolate than the act of rape was. She was being victimized twice. She wouldn’t be able to marry, yet he didn’t want her after he had defiled her and caused her shame.
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Ruth,
You said: “Why would God not have been there from the beginning setting the tone for the culture itself?”
I can only answer out of my own theological ideas. I think that God gave humanity a conscience and freedom and we started these immoral traditions from the beginning of civilization. Now, when God wants to eradicate wickedness we get things like a worldwide flood (BTW I think the story of Noah is mythological but it is theologically informative). So, instead God has forbearance on our wickedness and affects the world in a slower process. It would take the work of Christ before Christian values were translated into political movements and we get widespread adoption of egalitarianism and outlaw of slavery.
You said: “You make it sound as if a man marrying his rape victim was punishment.”
No not at all! Please don’t put words in my mouth. I never said anything about punishment. If anything, these men were punished by death. It may be that every single ancient case of rape ended in an execution. We don’t know. I’m talking about justice.
You said: “The only evidence you gave was Tamar’s admonition that it was even more egregarious for Amnon to leave her desolate than the act of rape was.”
Yes, and I am suggesting that we take her thinking seriously. Like I said, the only justification for this law is if women believed it was appropriate justice.
You said: “Are you unfamiliar with the significance of a woman’s virginity in the OT?”
Vaguely. Please educate me, but I’d like citations if possible.
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Brandon,
You said:
“Yes, and I am suggesting that we take her thinking seriously. Like I said, the only justification for this law is if women believed it was appropriate justice.”
I’m suggesting that the justification for her thinking was the law and marital traditions; not because she particularly thought it was justice.
You also said:
“So, instead God has forbearance on our wickedness and affects the world in a slower process.”
Please clarify: It sounds as if you are saying that God created a people, knew they would wreck things, but didn’t provide them any direction in the beginning on what wrecking things would look like; then worked backward into the debacle.
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Ruth,
You said: “I’m suggesting that the justification for her thinking was the law and marital traditions; not because she particularly thought it was justice.”
I looked up in the Hebrew lexicon (http://biblehub.com/text/2_samuel/13-16.htm) and the word Tamar uses is ha-ra-ah which means evil or bad and seems to carry a moral sense rather than a lawful sense. I see evidence supporting Tamar thought it was justice in a moral sense rather than a lawful sense.
As far as marital traditions, maybe you are correct. I don’t know. Even if it was culture or tradition that would not detract from this being thought to be the just outcome. It would merely shift the blame to the culture and tradition.
You said: “Please clarify: It sounds as if you are saying that God created a people, knew they would wreck things, but didn’t provide them any direction in the beginning. . .”
That’s not what I am saying. God did give us something at the beginning. God gave us a conscience and freedom. Had our ancestors listened to their conscience, we might not be talking about this. But, God’s love is so great that he would forbear our mistakes and fix the world without reigning down instant justice which would amount to our extinction. I never said that God knew this would happen. There’s an idea floating out there called “open theism” that says that God does not know the future because the future does not exist. God is omniscient, but since the future does not exist, God does not know it. In this way creating free creatures is actually quite risky. God was willing to take that risk because he valued us. And, he still does.
-B
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Just a few short verses before Deuteronomy 22:28-29:
13 “If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her 14 and accuses her of misconduct and brings a bad name upon her, saying, ‘I took this woman, and when I came near her, I did not find in her evidence of virginity,’ 15 then the father of the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of her virginity to the elders of the city in the gate. 16 And the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man to marry, and he hates her; 17 and behold, he has accused her of misconduct, saying, “I did not find in your daughter evidence of virginity.” And yet this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread the cloak before the elders of the city. 18 Then the elders of that city shall take the man and whip[a] him, 19 and they shall fine him a hundred shekels[b] of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought a bad name upon a virgin[c] of Israel. And she shall be his wife. He may not divorce her all his days.
Because women were treated as property and had not much standing in the community her virginity was important. Though, I’m given to understand that a woman freely giving up her virginity came with no punishment, it certainly came with shame. Hence, she either became a prostitute or she lived with her parents/relatives for the remainder of her days.
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Also, if you can get your hands on a copy, David Instone-Brewer’s Divorce & Remarriage in the Bible is an excellent resource.
I know that may sound a bit strange but, as a historian, he goes into great detail about the traditions, laws, and culture surrounding Jewish marriage contracts.
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Gah! I mean to add a link:
http://www.divorce-remarriage.com/
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Fascinating, thanks for pointing it out. Was that a Lego Moses in the bottom corner of the site? 🙂
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Ha! I’m not sure if it’s Lego Moses or Claymation Moses. 🙂
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Brandon,
You also state: “…(BTW I think the story of Noah is mythological but it is theologically informative).”
Do you think that Yahweh gave the laws in Deuteronomy to the Israelites? Or do you think they made that up too?
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Yes, Ruth, I think it was divinely inspired.
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http://www.womeninthebible.net/Tamar-Daughter-of-David.htm
As for my proof text, it’s in the very same chapter. Here it is in it’s entirety:
2 Samuel 13 (New International Version)
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2 Samuel 13
New International Version (NIV)
Amnon and Tamar
13 In the course of time, Amnon son of David fell in love with Tamar, the beautiful sister of Absalom son of David.
2 Amnon became so obsessed with his sister Tamar that he made himself ill. She was a virgin, and it seemed impossible for him to do anything to her.
3 Now Amnon had an adviser named Jonadab son of Shimeah, David’s brother. Jonadab was a very shrewd man. 4 He asked Amnon, “Why do you, the king’s son, look so haggard morning after morning? Won’t you tell me?”
Amnon said to him, “I’m in love with Tamar, my brother Absalom’s sister.”
5 “Go to bed and pretend to be ill,” Jonadab said. “When your father comes to see you, say to him, ‘I would like my sister Tamar to come and give me something to eat. Let her prepare the food in my sight so I may watch her and then eat it from her hand.’”
6 So Amnon lay down and pretended to be ill. When the king came to see him, Amnon said to him, “I would like my sister Tamar to come and make some special bread in my sight, so I may eat from her hand.”
7 David sent word to Tamar at the palace: “Go to the house of your brother Amnon and prepare some food for him.” 8 So Tamar went to the house of her brother Amnon, who was lying down. She took some dough, kneaded it, made the bread in his sight and baked it. 9 Then she took the pan and served him the bread, but he refused to eat.
“Send everyone out of here,” Amnon said. So everyone left him. 10 Then Amnon said to Tamar, “Bring the food here into my bedroom so I may eat from your hand.” And Tamar took the bread she had prepared and brought it to her brother Amnon in his bedroom. 11 But when she took it to him to eat, he grabbed her and said, “Come to bed with me, my sister.”
12 “No, my brother!” she said to him. “Don’t force me! Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don’t do this wicked thing. 13 What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you.” 14 But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her.
15 Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. Amnon said to her, “Get up and get out!”
16 “No!” she said to him. “Sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me.”
Before he rapes her she pleads with him to marry her instead. “Where will I get rid of my disgrace?”
He sent everyone away so no one could hear her screams. If no one could hear her screams he could say she consented. You see, no one would take a woman’s word for it; not even a princess.
That’s some kind of justice.
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*Absalom should be Amnon, sorry I got the name wrong.
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Brandon, I see you’ve had a long conversation with Ruth about the specifics of these stories and the culture generally. Personally, I’m dismayed that anyone could read them (I’ve just read them again in my copy of the Bible) and see anything other than an ancient society that generally treats women as property, and a few protective brothers doing what protective brothers can naturally do. The fact remains that the male law-makers in those times thought it made sense for a woman to marry her rapist. The fact remains that Jesus is reported to have said “until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law”. Please. Admit the Bible is not the work of a benevolent, omniscient being but a collection of mythical and factual intertwined stories carried down through the oral and written tradition of one small group of religious fanatics, not so different from any other group of religious fanatics in any other part of the world. Just better story-tellers with a fortuitous jumping board. Honestly, I’m appalled you think your twist on the stories could suggest any sense of appreciable morality in the OT – the Christian stance in this respect is frankly desperate.
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Violet, I’m sympathetic to the moral outrage this law invokes, I was right there with you! First off, I made no argument for divine inspiration. I only gave a moral analysis of the law. I would like you to take the specific argument seriously. We know that the ancients hated rape, that’s evident from the bloodshed that followed these cases. Now, I’m asking you to give Tamar some credit here. If we really listen to Tamar, we will take seriously the idea that women believed marriage was appropriate justice at this time in history. And, the fact that she was a princess makes it all the more urgent that we take it seriously.
You can say the culture and traditions were immoral, and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with you. I’m happy to indict culture and traditions, but having historical perspective makes it more difficult to say this law was immoral even though it would be immoral in modern times.
-B
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“I’m asking you to give Tamar some credit here”
This just shows how disconnected from reality you are (no offence). You’re asking me to give the man who wrote the semi/wholly fictional story some credit. A man’s idea of how the rape victim would have responded. Even with your cultural card, you’ve got to remember who holds the men in all of these stories.
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*who holds the pen
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Violet,
I agree that the author was probably a man and that we don’t know if it is historical or not. But, how do you know this doesn’t reflect women’s beliefs? Are you really saying that a man would make this up for some sinister purpose like making seem as if women believed marriage was appropriate justice when it really wasn’t? If you are saying that because the author was likely male, this is flat out sexism. If you are saying that it was sinister, I don’t see any evidence for this whatsoever. Give me an argument to suggest that it’s sinister propaganda. Until then, I think we are left thinking that this probably did represent ancient women’s beliefs.
-B
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Oh my goodness! It was a man just like the man who wrote the story of Tamar who made up the law that women should marry rapists . Are you so blind?
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Violet, I do understand what you’re saying. But, my reply is that the only thing that’s relevant is that this law reflects what women would consider to be appropriate justice. I’m asking you to further develop your argument. For example:
Suppose you think it’s fictional, what’s your evidence that it is fictional? And, does being fictional make it somehow not reflect ancient women’s belief? What’s your reasoning? Is there something inherent to being fiction that makes it not represent societal belief?
Suppose you think it was written by a male author, does this make it not reflect ancient women’s belief? What’s your reasoning? Is there something inherent in male authorship that makes it impossible to accurately reflect women’s beliefs?
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Yes, when it comes to rape, even men in today’s society, with the plethora of information that’s about, would find it hard to understand. But listen, these men wrote a law that a raped woman should marry her rapist. Do you think this law reflects the wishes of women in those times? Or do you think they would have preferred a law that forbade rape and absolved their perceived impurity?
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I do think Tamar’s thoughts do reflect women at the time of the law, but I don’t have an airtight argument for it. You could argue that Tamar was just one woman and that maybe she didn’t reflect women’s beliefs or that Tamar didn’t reflect women’s belief as far back as the law. It’s difficult to have sufficient reason to run these arguments.
I don’t know how to answer your second question. All I have is the evidence from Tamar, I don’t know of any evidence suggesting women wanted the marital traditions or cultural situation to radically change (i.e., transform into a modern democracy with gender equality). Maybe they did want change or maybe a subset of them wanted change. Now, if we put a modern woman in that situation, of course it would make sense to hate the traditions and culture and want a drastic change. It’s just difficult to speculate into such the past that far, it is an exceedingly strange place.
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Yes. All this clearly proves that morality is timeless and a benevolent creator was guiding the Jews for centuries before he took an interest in the rest of the world. 😉
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LOL, we do have our work cut out for us!
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Wisp,
One of my most powerful techniques I used as a teacher was to train up a few of the bright students and then turn them loose on the rest of the class.
God is the master teacher.
He picked a small tribe of ancient heathens and began training them to be human beings.
All your blather about rape and sexual abuse is you blaming God for the evil that men do.
God meets man at man’s level.
It is not God’s fault that humanity debased itself so profoundly that slavery and abuse of women became institutionalized.
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Te parece que puede ser asi, boludo?
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How can you possibly say this? In a society in which the men make the law, any law reflects the opinion of men.
David’s reign over the United Kingdom is considered to have been c.1002–970 BC. Deuteronomy was written in the seventh century B.C., during the reign of Josiah. How is it NOT fiction?
There are Islamic women – in this, the 21st century – from whom you would have to pry their burqa with a crowbar, because they BELIEVE they must wear it – when a woman grows up in a society that believes that 1+1=3, how long before the woman begins insisting that this is true? The Stockholme Syndrome works in places other than Sweden.
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Arch, I’m saying this sincerely as someone interested in what can possibly be argued, I cannot see any reason or evidence to support your arguments. If you think there is something there, can you develop it further?
For example, what evidence or reason do you have to think that the law only represented male opinion? Does being authored by a male mean that it cannot possibly reflect both genders? Could Moses have not understood something about women’s issues within that framework of the culture and traditions? Could Moses have consulted with his wife or other influential women? It’s conceivable that there were influential women in the Israelite community given the example of Deborah.
Regarding the documentary hypothesis, I have not seen one iota of evidence to support such massive sweeps of redaction. I suspect that no evidence exists and that this idea was conjured up in the minds of scholars long ago. Nice try, but evidence please.
-B
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Let’s confine ourselves, Brandon, to dealing with one topic at a time. You seem to have some reservations about the Graf-Wellhausen Documentary Hypothesis, but doubt about the author of the Torah being Moses, really has quite a long history.
Prior to the 17th century CE, the Vatican had prohibited the printing of any copy of the Bible, in a language other than Latin, upon penalty of death. Upon the lifting that ban, in the 1600’s, that made the Bible available to everyone in a language they could understand, John Selden, scholar of England’s ancient laws and scholar of Jewish law (1584-1658), mused:
And he was right, the patchwork quilt, which was the Bible, began to unravel shortly thereafter. This is a brief history of that unraveling, and Naive, if you can’t find some names within this narrative, that you can further research, don’t blame me for failing to provide you with evidence.
By the seventeenth century a number of scholars had wrestled with the problems of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Carlstadt, a leader of the Reformation movement in Germany, wrote a pamphlet in 1520 arguing that Moses did not write the Pentateuch, for the style of writing in the verses reporting Moses’ death (Deut. 32:5-12) was that of the preceding verses. In 1574, A. Du Maes, a Roman Catholic scholar, suggested that the Pentateuch was composed by Ezra, who used old manuscripts as a basis. Thomas Hobbes, the English philosopher, concluded in 1651 that Moses wrote only parts of Deuteronomy (Leviathan III:33). In Tractatus theologico-politicus (1677), Baruch Spinoza, the Jewish philosopher, recognized as one of the founders of modern biblical criticism, reached a conclusion much like that of Du Maes, that Ezra compiled Genesis to II Kings from documents of varying dates. Shortly afterward, Richard Simon, a Roman Catholic priest, often called “the father of biblical criticism,” gathered together the substance of critical analyses up to his time and raised the problem of literary history, thus opening the door to the application of techniques used in the study of non-sacred literature to the Bible.
In the eighteenth century Jean Astruc, a celebrated physician, published a treatise on Genesis in which he postulated that Moses used two major sources in writing the book of Genesis. The source in which the name “Elohim” is used for God, Astruc called “A,” and that which used “Yahweh” was labeled “B.” Ten fragmentary sources were also recognized and given alphabetical designations. Additional criteria for defining sources were worked out by J. G. Eichorn, sometimes called “the father of Old Testament criticism” or, on the basis of his five volume “Introduction” to the Old Testament, “the father of the modern science of introductory studies.”
Others built upon these foundations. In 1806-7 W. M. L. DeWette, a German scholar, published a two volume introductory study of the Old Testament in which he suggested that the book found in the temple in 621 B.C., during the reign of King Josiah of Judah (II Kings 22-23), was the book of Deuteronomy. In the work of Julius Wellhausen, who built upon the research of K. H. Graf and Wilhelm Vatke, the most significant analysis of the Pentateuch was made. The thesis known as the Graf-Wellhausen theory, or as the Documentary Hypothesis, still provides the basis upon which more recent hypotheses are founded.
The Graf-Wellhausen analysis identified four major literary sources in the Pentateuch, each with its own characteristic style and vocabulary. These were labeled: J, E, D and P. The J source used the name “Yahweh” (“Jahveh” in German) for God, called the mountain of God “Sinai,” and the pre-Israelite inhabitants of Palestine “Canaanites,” and was written in a vivid, concrete, colorful style. God is portrayed anthropomorphically, creating after the fashion of a potter, walking in the garden, wrestling with Jacob. J related how promises made to the patriarchs were fulfilled, how God miraculously intervened to save the righteous, or to deliver Israel, and acted in history to bring into being the nation. E used “Elohim” to designate God until the name “Yahweh” was revealed in Exod. 3:15, used “Horeb” as the name of the holy mountain, “Amorite” for the pre-Hebrew inhabitants of the land, and was written in language generally considered to be less colorful and vivid than J’s. E’s material begins in Gen. 15 with Abraham, and displays a marked tendency to avoid the strong anthropomorphic descriptions of deity found in J. Wellhausen considered J to be earlier than E because it appeared to contain the more primitive elements.
The Deuteronomic source, D, is confined largely to the book of Deuteronomy in the Pentateuch, contains very little narrative, and is made up, for the most part, of Moses’ farewell speeches to his people. A hortatory and emphatic effect is produced by the repetition of certain phrases: “be careful to do” (5:1, 6:3, 6:25, 8:1), “a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” (5:15, 7:19, 11:2), “that your days may be prolonged” (5:16, 6:2, 25:15). Graf had demonstrated that knowledge of both J and E were presupposed in D, and having accepted DeWette’s date of 621 B.C. for D, argued that J and E must be earlier. J was dated about 850 B.C. and E about 750 B.C.
The Priestly tradition, P, reveals interest and concern in whatever pertains to worship. Not only does P employ a distinctive Hebrew vocabulary but, influenced by a desire to categorize and systematize material, develops a precise, and at times a somewhat labored or pedantic, style. Love of detail, use of repetition, listing of tribes and genealogical tables, does not prevent the P material from presenting a vivid and dramatic account of Aaron’s action when an Israelite attempted to marry a Midianite woman (Num. 25:6-9) or from developing a rather euphonious and rhythmical statement of creation (Gen. 1). The Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis noted that P contained laws and attitudes not discernible in J, E, or D and reflected late development. P was dated around the time of Ezra, or about 450 B.C.
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Arch, thanks for that reply. Let me take a step back and specify my thinking on the documentary hypothesis. Human conception of deity has always been varied, and it makes perfect sense to combine certain conceptions into a coherent picture and form something like the Pentateuch. My main criticism is the issue of authorship and timelines.
Could a single author, perhaps a historical Moses, have written down the whole Pentateuch? Yes. Could multiple authors have written it starting in the monarchical period? Yes. So, how are we to decide the number of authors and the timeline involved?
This is where I see things going awry. Evangelicals who conceive of chronologies that fit a maximalist picture (i.e., Moses adding the latter books to an older tradition and including some ancient myths at the beginning) are accused of being biased. The academic trend is to accept arguments from silence*** in archeology and say that the Pentateuch was recorded late and had numerous authors are large sweeping redactions. Are they not biased? Of course they are! Everyone is biased, and I understand that there’s a concern with this. That’s why I would rather sit back and let the evidence speak the loudest.
So, what is the evidence that has convinced academics to favor their conception of authorship and timeline? I feel like you are someone who has studied this and may have a few paragraphs to help sort things out.
***I don’t reject arguments of silence, they can be valid. But, in order to be valid one must know with a high degree of certainty that the evidence should be where one looked. (i.e., not digging up Tells and saying that nomadic people who might have used tents and not left a trace were never in the area). I don’t think there have been any valid uses of this in the academic trend.
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The documentary hypothesis is the most widely accepted of all theories of Pentateuchal analysis. It’s not my obligation to educate you, there are a myriad of reasons to believe it to be valid, only a few of which are the many anachronisms that would have been unheard of during the time ascribed to the fictional Moses.
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What’s the most secure, unsolvable anachronism? Or the top three?
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If you believe I’m going to list them all, then grade them just to give you the top three, again, you flatter yourself, since it is only your intention to find a some wiggle room. So I’ll throw three out, at random, off the top of my head, and you can just wiggle away:
1. Chaldeans, in Abraham’s time
2. Philistines, in Abraham’s time
3. Domesticated camels in Abraham’s time
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Just a quick google glance suggests 1 and 2 are invalid arguments from silence, and I’ve read about camels which is definitely invalid argument from silence. Do you have something from exodus/conquest?
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And his wiggling begins!!!
Chaldeans – no argument from silence, their entry into Mesopotamia is well-documented – this, from Wiki, which is only a summary of evidence available:
“Tribes of Semitic migrants who arrived in the region from The Levant during the 10th century BC became known as the Chaldeans or the Chaldees. The Hebrew Bible uses the term כשדים (Kaśdim) and this is translated as Chaldaeans in the Septuagint.
“The short-lived 11th dynasty of the Kings of Babylon (6th century BC) is conventionally known to historians as the Chaldean Dynasty, although only the first four rulers of this dynasty were positively known to be Chaldeans, and the last ruler, Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar, were known to be from Assyria. The region in which the Chaldeans settled was in the south eastern portion of Babylonia, lying chiefly on the right bank of the Euphrates. Though the name later came to be commonly used to refer to the whole of southern Mesopotamia for a time, Chaldea proper was in fact only the vast plain in the far south east formed by the deposits of the Euphrates and the Tigris, extending to about four hundred miles along the course of these rivers, and about a hundred miles in average width”
The Philistines are well-documented also, as remnants of the “Sea Peoples,” who even ruled a portion of Egypt for a few centuries.
Here’s an idea – do your homework before yelling, “Argument from silence! Argument from silence!” In your effort to make me do your homework for you.
Oh, The New American Bible, tells us that domesticated camels didn’t come into use until the end of the second millennium BCE, “‘Thus the mention of camels at the time of the patriarchs is an anachronism.”
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Arch, I’m going to press your source. What is the evidence? An inscription that says, “This is the first time a people called the Chaldeans existed on this land”? Or is it just the first time they are mentioned offhandedly in an inscription? Think about that. The first time I ever talked to you was this year, but I’m pretty sure you existed before this year even though I didn’t know about it. So. . . evidence please.
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F. Leo Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization. (1964); revised edition, 1976.
Now, let’s see your evidence that the Chaldeans existed in Mesopotamia at the time ascribed for Abraham —
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I’m assuming your not just hiding behind Finkelstein and you’ve given a wide range of scholarship your consideration in asking you this.
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And I’m hoping you’re not hiding behind Yahweh, when there are a plethora of other gods out there who just as plausibly created the Universe —
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To use your cookie-cutter, text-book discussion response that obviously informed you that you can increase empathy by responding with a compliment – what an interesting perspective you present!
You may well be right! I can totally imagine a scenario in which Moses, in the process of writing the laws, gazed tenderly into his wife’s eyes and asked, “Zippy, honey-pie – what if a girl gets raped, what do you think ought to happen?”
And you just KNOW she said that the rapist had to marry the poor girl, so that she can be reminded every single day of here life what a wrong had been done to he – I mean, you just can’t allow those memories to fade, with time – nosir! Gotta keep ’em FRESH and RAW!
Absolutely, Naive, I have every reason to believe that Moses consulted with the Bronze Age equivalent of N.O.W.!
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Arch, maybe, just maybe, I am sincerely trying to be a nice person because it’s important to my ethical commitments. And, I respect the fact that you have taken time to research so many of these subjects and you are well-acquainted with reasoning. So, I’m being serious about wanting to find good arguments and promoting a mutually beneficial dialogue. This is not a game for me.
Regarding your response, my criticism is that you are crafting a modern caricature out of an ancient situation. In all seriousness before I learned about Tamar, I was perfectly happy to say this law was immoral and was not divinely inspired. But, it makes sense that if the women believed this was appropriate justice for the crime. In fact, that’s the only possible justification that passes. So, I invite you to take the questions I asked earlier seriously.
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And I told you that there are women – at this moment, in the 21st century – who would fight tooth and nail for the right to wear a hot, heavy, sweaty, smelly burqa – because they’ve been TOLD that that is the right thing to do – told by men, and by other women upon whom the Stockholm Syndrome has had even more time to take effect. Do you honestly believe, that after only 250 years of slavery in America, that there were any African-American slaves who DID NOT believe themselves to be inferior to Whites, because for 250 years, they had been programmed to believe it as fact? What if, during those 250 years, they had been consulted as to laws to be passed regarding what to do with Black runaway slaves? I suspect they would have recommended punishments as harsh or even harsher, than their White masters.
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Ok, let’s analyze these two. Stockholm syndrome is when the victim has empathy for the perpetrator. Does this represent Tamar in any way? No, there is no indication of empathy, only an indication that she wanted the perpetrator to do the right thing. And, let’s look at enslaved blacks believing they were inferior to whites. Does this represent Tamar in any way? Again, there is no indication of feeling inferior, only an indication that she wanted to perpetrator to do the right thing. Now, do you have any other arguments? Specially, relevant arguments from evidence?
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“Stockholm syndrome is when the victim has empathy for the perpetrator.”
Is that really all you know about the Stockholm Syndrome? Did a quicky Google search, didn’t you?
Following are several stages in the progression of Stockholm Syndrome:1
* The victim dissociates from his or her pain, helplessness or terror by subconsciously beginning to see the situation / world from the abuser’s perspective. The victim begins to agree with the abuser and certain aspects of his or her own personality, opinions, and views will fade into the background.
* By doing this, the victim begins to learn how to appease and please the abuser, which may keep him or her from being hurt or worse. Similarly this tactic can be used to manipulate the abuser into being less dangerous, at least for a little while.
* After a while the victim begins to realize that his or her abuser portrays the same human characteristics as anyone else. At this point he or she will begin to see the abuser as less of a threat. Some abusers may even share personal information in an effort to bond with the victim and to promote pity rather than anger.
* This bonding, in turn, leads to conflicting feelings (e.g., rage and pity) and illogical concern for the abuser. The victim may even ignore his or her own needs.
* Once the traumatic event has ended, however, the victim must again learn not to dissociate from his or her emotions and not focus on the abuser. This can be a very difficult transition.
“she wanted the perpetrator to do the right thing” – where did the information come from Brandon, as to what was the “right” thing to do? The same people who told Blacks they were inferior, the same people who make women in Islamic countries believe they MUST wear a burqa – their captors. Were they free to come and go at will? Were they free to accept or reject the information that caused them to reach the conclusion they did? Of course not, they were captives.
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Arch, I agree with you that Stockholm syndrome can be given a more complete psychological description than what I gave. But, I see no evidence of this in Israelite women and especially Tamar. She was not repeatedly abused by Amnon. Amnon raped her one time, and at the prospect of being thrown out and not taken for marriage, she said this was more evil than rape. So, she is saying that the right thing for Amnon to do is to ask King David to have her hand in marriage. There’s no implication of empathy or wanting to please the perpetrator or chronic abuse or other features of Stockholm in Tamar. Again, I see no evidence to think that there was a superior-inferior element to this situation. It was a matter of morality. She believed the right thing to do was to marry her at that point.
I think you’ve already the discussion on this thread that basically concluded that the underlying problem was probably the cultural traditions and values. The reason that Deuteronomy 22:28-29 is no longer a just law is because the cultural traditions and values have so radically changed.
Do you not find this agreeable?
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“But, I see no evidence of this in Israelite women and especially Tamar.”
You really don’t get it, do you? You think I’m talking about Amnon? I’m talking about the girl’s parents and behind those, the culture, that makes a young rape victim believe that her rapist’s refusal to marry her, was a greater crime than the rape.
That complete and total, unquestioning acceptance of that which an authority-figure says is true, is one of the symptoms of the Stockholm Syndrome.
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Arch, you can indict the culture and I wouldn’t disagree, but you have not indicted the law. It seems that within their culture this was a desirable law at least according to Tamar who didn’t even bring up the law. She said marriage was the better outcome in a moral sense, not citing the law. So, again, do you have moral criticism for the law or do you only have a criticism for the culture?
Also, I don’t think Stockholm syndrome is an appropriate fit for the cultural situation. You diminish the true sufferers of Stockholm syndrome by carelessly applying it to an entire ancient culture.
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“It seems that within their culture this was a desirable law” – desirable to whom, the men who wrote it for the culture established by men, for the benefit of men, or to the women brainwashed into accepting that law as absolute, unquestionable mandate delivered by the inspiration of an invisible creature who created the universe?
“at least according to Tamar who didn’t even bring up the law.” – if someone robbed you, do you really think it’s likely that you are going to stand there and lecture the robber on the law?
“do you have moral criticism for the law or do you only have a criticism for the culture?” – again, like my example of the burqa, I criticize the law, as well as the culture that brainwashes women into thinking it’s a super neat idea.
“I don’t think Stockholm syndrome is an appropriate fit for the cultural situation. You diminish the true sufferers of Stockholm syndrome by carelessly applying it to an entire ancient culture.”
1. Don’t really care what you think, and,
2. I disagree.
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“Until then, I think we are left thinking that this probably did represent ancient women’s beliefs.”
Brandon, I think the point is: Men wrote the [unjust] law. Women had no say in the law. In order not to suffer being not being “marriage worthy”, not have children, and living out her days for all intents and purposes married with NO benefits, then perhaps she would prefer the alternative of being married to her assailant. As I pointed out to you before, she pleaded with him to “make an honest woman of her” before he took her virginity. He took it. She didn’t give it. The only recourse, according to law, she had was to get him to marry her.
So to validate your proposal. Yes, women did believe that it was better for them to marry their rapist, that was the only form of justice they felt they had. That does not, however, equate to any amount of real justice.
You see, a man could not divorce her for all her days. In other words he had to provide for her and give her children. Bearing children was paramount to her survival. That is who would be taking care of her in her old age. A woman who could not bear children to her husband could be set aside and he could take another wife, and another, until he got babies.
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Well, Ruth, in all fairness we don’t know women’s attitude towards the law, maybe they thought it was perfectly just given their traditions and culture. I sympathize with moral criticism of patriarchy and the tolerance of slavery, and I don’t have a knockdown drag out argument to justify God’s tolerating such cultures. It’s exceedingly difficult to understand, I mean 3000 years ago must have been stranger than we can imagine. But, I do believe that God has patiently given humanity forbearance so that we can repent and freely make better policies.
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I do think that understanding that culture is difficult, but an understanding of it is somewhat essential to the conversation if one is going to offer an apologetic for it.
I’m not certain how perfectly just they thought the law to be, but it isn’t exactly like they could traipse right down to their local police department and file a report.
I also know, as strange as it may sound, how much shame and guilt many rape victims still feel. Though I don’t know any who would choose to be married to their aggressor[although marital rape happens]. Many times rape still goes unreported for this very reason.
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Ruth, it’s tragic that woman can still feel shame and guilt after the crime. I agree with you that the ancient idea of justice for rape attested by Tamar is very much backwards to modern people, even being what is least likely to be justice. I wish I could go back in time and interview some men and women to figure some of these things out.
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@ANT
That is because trying to rationally justify the horrible things your boogy-man/magic book does/says and still hold the belief he’s somehow a moral being isn’t possible without a metric-frack-tonne of cognitive dissonance.
“….dealing with reality as opposed to mystical monkey-muffins…”
This I’m committing to memory for future use…mystical monkey-muffins.
“MMM” 😀
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I do! As humorist Will Rogers once remarked, upon seeing a giraffe for the first time, “There just ain’t no such animal!”
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Help my curiosity Brandon, and prove you aren’t quite as naive as you appear to be – who wrote this story, a man, or a woman? Were these Tamar’s words, or words put in her mouth by a male author, wishing to make a point? After all the story was a couple of hundred years old by the time it was set down to lambskin —
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@naivethinker
Violet, I’m sympathetic to the moral outrage this law invokes
Really? Then stop behaving like a dick!
If your god is omnipotent he would have been able to transcend every apparent stricture and made damn sure such vile practices – rape, slavery etc – were not even part of human history. Period.
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Oh you’re back! I’m so happy!! Don’t speak to Brandon like that, he’s my blogging buddy.
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You may edit my comment, by all means.
Here are a list of suitable alternatives.
1. Child.
2. Village Idiot
3. Yahweh’s toe-rag
4. Prat
5. Silly Person.
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Why would I edit it? You’re the silly toe-rag being rude to people because you don’t agree with them.
*Violet beams a happy smile that Ark is back*
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Of course I I never agree with them. I think it has become hilarious trying to hold a rational discussion with people to whom evidence is meaningless, commonsense and common decency have no place in their worldview and who have no need of anything besides blind faith.
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Now who was it told me that it was quite weird that atb was all over ark and said how wonderful he was? Careful with the adultation. His stone head will get ever bigger.
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What’s adultation? Making him think he’s more of an adult than he really is? I said absolutely nothing nice about him.
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OK, that’s fair enough, but you did say you were pleased to see him back. But there again, you might say the same of SoM if he disappeared for a week or so and then returned 😉
Incidentally SoM hasn’t managed to find Clouds yet so he’s not as clever as I gave him credit for after all.
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Where were you? Power cuts or writing books?
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Lines down. Only sorted out yesterday. Rampant creeper invaded the phone box in the neighbor’s garden. Add a dash of rain and Fzzzzt!
And yes, spent the week proof reading my soon t be published next book, so the non – work time was quite productive.
I actually enjoyed the break.
.
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Surprised you came back. I found after a week away it all looked odd, and I was delighted to have time back.
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Reblogged this on justiceforkevinandjenveybaylis.
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Having read through the conversation with Arch and NT one is left in little doubt that we are dealing with a (self) indoctrinated apologist of the first order.
Rational discussion with such a person is out of the question as their foundation is built upon the (erroneous) belief that the bible is divinely inspired.
This intransigent apologist style of debate can be seen from the likes of Craig, Habermas, Licona, and
( to a lessor extent) Ken Ham.
It is also evident on WordPress with the likes of Debilis and Unklee.
An example of this style of debate would be a discussion on the historicity of Jesus: the usual argument put forward by apologists is that, the consensus of scholars consider Jesus was an historical figure thus; he was.
To demonstrate the divinity, the Minimal Facts Argument is then thrown into the pot.
However, when the scholarly consensus argument is used in reference to Moses and the Exodus, for example, which states that they are merely fiction, this view is almost always refuted on the grounds of absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
What is most often notable about apologists of this ilk is they almost never offer any evidence to back their assertions and cannot seem to grasp the concept that the most of the bible is merely a story and what they believe is based solely on faith and hearsay.
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I’m glad someone is reading it all. The comments are so long that my eyes glaze over. I know it can be frustrating from our point of view discussing these things with Christians, but it’s useful and I’m sure it plants seeds of doubt in their heads. You simply can’t expect a Christian to throw their hands up in the air and go “You’re right, that makes no sense. God doesn’t exist!”. The seal on the supernatural in their brains is really tight – everything can be explained, everything will be explained, and in the absence of that – God moves in mysterious ways. The supernatural trump card (trademark Violet), if you remember. There’s no point in getting angry about it, it is what it is. Brandon is pleasant, open and keen to discuss. There’s nothing wrong with that, and his indoctrinated thinking is perfectly natural. So stop being nasty about him. Although this comment was a bit more measured than your insults yesterday – so well done! 😀
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Well, you know me…always looking for approval….Yawn…
The point is, he knows all the arguments for and against, as do the likes of Ruth, Matt, Victoria and to a lessor extent, you.
He is not here to engage in meaningful discussion in an attempt to truly understand the nature of his ”faith”, he has already made this choice.
What he is doing is a form of proselytizing, a sort of proclamation, if you will, and no amount of facts or evidence presented by the likes of Arch will change this.
If he decides to revert to atheism it won’t be because of what he’s told by the current crop of atheists he is engaging.
He is a form of Troll, there is no doubt.
Read the patronizing way he engages with Ruth. It is disgusting.
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Exactly, Ark. Well, I might stop short of calling him a troll, but he is rather patronizing. I do think the reason he posts is because he thinks he is a doing a bit of proselytizing. At first I thought he might be keen to see things from a different perspective but after watching his rebuttals I think he’s pretty firm in what he believes re: Yahweh. I’m pretty sure I read over on Matt’s blog that he doesn’t doubt at all. At any rate, I gave up on it when what he began offering up sounded a bit more like rape apologia than I cared to engage with. It’s all over the discussion he’s had with Arch.
Amnon only raped Tamar once. And she wanted the guy to marry her, so it must not have been that bad. Gag!
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It is the same godawful tripe one reads on almost every apologist’s site, and sadly, those foolish enough to engage ( guilty as charged m’lud ) allow them to get away with the ‘priori’ that God is real.
Notice how every argument is presented from this standpoint and then reinforced with such lines as; “Why do atheists hate God”.
The obvious implication that they are always on the side of right and we are obliged to provide evidence to refute their non-evidence – which they reject out of hand in any case.
Because the religious currently have the high ground in terms of numbers the saying, where does the Big Gorilla sit?
But how valid is their worldview/argument in a country like Saudi Arabia?
Remember, you were never a proper Christian, now were you?
How could you have been?
And so the deconvertee is obliged to come out fighting, having to justify everything they went through and why they walked away, and then to be accused in the most condescending fashion of not really having proper faith or being led astray by the Devil, with the tacit implication that God cannot be wrong and you are still at fault.
Well, at least they pray for you,Ruth, right?
Sadly, people like this are nothing but arrogant ( and woefully ignorant) little tits (Note to Violet and Rough seas: no sexism implied).
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I agree with you Ruth. But then do you not find it useful to know that that’s how some Christians actually feel about it? Most would refuse to get into a conversation about it, or would dodge getting down to the nitty gritty. At least he’s honest enough to take it where it kind of needs to go in order to muster up any semblance of an excuse for the barbaric idiocy in the Bible.
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Personally, I don’t find value in it, but that’s only because I already know this is how many Christians view these things. It isn’t unlike what my own beliefs were.
I do see the value in non-Christians[who have never been exposed to this mentality] to know how and what these people think. Some may write it off as dribble, but there are many, many [millions] of people who believe this dribble.
It’s amazing to me now that I ever thought this way nor endorsed this way of thinking.
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It’s that endearing quality I have for bring out the worst in others —
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I had to just end it with him. I couldn’t bear any more of the “see, Tamar thought this was a great idea!”. He truly cannot see how ridiculous that is.
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To the brainwashed, the behavior of another person, similarly brainwashed, is normal.
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The term, “sycophant” springs to mind —
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Yeeeees…that fits quite nicely!
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Toss him a Kibble, then scratch him behind the ear – he likes that —
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Oh, and loathed as you may be to admit it, some of us are learning things from him.
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You mean from Arch, surely?
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Don’t call her Shirley!
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I am almost positive we could share the same sense of humour. Now all you have to do is get one.
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I found mine under the same rock where, I took for granted, you found yours —
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Ug?
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I don’t learn anything from christians. The only thing I learn is that they are even more narrow-minded and stupid than I originally thought. Um, will that comment get me a rap on the knuckles for calling
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That’s exactly why he couldn’t envision Tamara questioning the law, because the law came straight from his god’s mouth to her ear.
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For a similar reason, missing mince pies and an empty sherry glass, and pressies, of course, are evidence enough of Santa Claus.
That we had central heating ( no chimney) a dog * that barked at anything) and decent home security is irrelevant . Neither the fact that the occasional present came with a price tag and a Woolworth sticker is also of no consequence,
Neither the millions of other homes He had to visit in the space of one evening.
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I’ve never been moved by the Santa Claus analogy before. But you’re right, it’s the same desperation to believe we had as children, in the face of clear evidence to the contrary.
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If you read his comments to me and Violet on the matter it is not that she wouldn’t question a law that came from god’s mouth to her ear. He [rather oddly] seems to think the law was based on what women thought was just. 😯
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I think you’re either missing my point, Ruth, or we’re both saying the same thing, and calling it something different. If the women thought it was just, it was because they had been conditioned to believe that if it came from the mouth of their perfect god, it could ONLY be just, therefore any objections they may have had to it, MUST, by their very opposition, be unjust.
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Yes, you and I agree. I was pointing out that thethinker seems to suggest that woman had some say in the making of the law. 😯
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Well, be both know he’ll say whatever it takes to get his point across, or at least undermine that of his opposition, which is his REAL goal. But even so – let’s say women had full voting rights -in what direction is a brainwashed women going to vote? In the direction of her brainwasher, of course. This is why it was so important for NT to attempt to invalidate the effect of the Stockholm Syndrome.
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His argumentation, in my mind, is fairly ridiculous. But, as Violet pointed out, I think it’s good for non-believers who have never been exposed to this kind of thinking to see it for themselves. Especially since there’s a pretty good chunk of the population who think this way.
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He’s a bit more surreptitiously subtle about it than the average chunk. He was the fair-haired boy here for a bit, but I’m thinking even “she who must be obeyed” has begun to see the light —
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Your take is a bit different than mine(in fact yours is more generous). But the conclusions are the same.
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I just don’t see the point in being rude to people or questioning their motives to the point where they might cease to engage. Then we lose one of the only Christians who is willing to seriously join in the discussion, and posts become “I say this” and everyone going “yeah, totally”, which seems kind of pointless. I know he’s a dead end and it’s frustrating though, and I also feel an edge of the disingenuous which previously I wouldn’t have uttered, but nothing I say could now would make the him any less likely to continue engaging after the walloping he’s got from you three. 🙂
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It wasn’t my intent to wallop, nor be rude. I did question his motives. If my motives come into question I would prefer to know that (but that’s just me). I probably could have handled it in a better way, such as coming right out and asking him about it instead of speculating.
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Oh I don’t think for one moment you were rude, I’m talking about Ark ‘n Arch. I didn’t mean it as a criticism, just an explanation.
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We can solve that problem VW, by leaving him for you to deal with from now on. This isn’t the only blog he’s on.
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Take that back. I am criticising Ark for using silly insulting words like ‘dickhead’. About as sophisticated as a stone.
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Pingback: how to justify embarrassing bible verses – part 2 | violetwisp
There are many explanations and interpretations of these passages. (There are some other zingers in Deuteronomy) But of course any explanation will just be read as trying to make excuses for God right?
Atheists will dwell forever on this passage and a few other choice ones never really getting an overall sense of who the Christian God is.
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“But of course any explanation will just be read as trying to make excuses for God right?”
Not really, because the god God is imaginary. Any explanation will be weak and embarrassing, as far as I’ve experienced.
It’s interesting being told we’ll never get an overall sense of who the Christian god is, when most of us did. I remember writing stuff like this off as “God knows best” or “I just don’t understand this” because that’s the most sensible thing a believer can do. Trying to justify atrocities is when it all crumbles …
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“Not really, because the god God is imaginary. Any explanation will be weak and embarrassing, as far as I’ve experienced.”
You assume God is imaginary and go from there. Why not start analysis with accepting certain unknowns? Wouldn’t that be more rational?
” It’s interesting being told we’ll never get an overall sense of who the Christian god is, when most of us did. I remember writing stuff like this off as “God knows best” or “I just don’t understand this” because that’s the most sensible thing a believer can do. Trying to justify atrocities is when it all crumbles …”
I am not sure what sort of background you have as a Christian. But it appears this is probably the most central passage of the bible according to anti-theists. Its hard to find an anti-theist blogger that hasn’t mentioned this passage.
Yet I am not aware of a single Christian society that ever actually passed this as law. Moreover I am unaware of how it plays any role in at least Catholic teaching. You are rejecting the tradition of the church and cherry picking verses out of scripture.
That’s not to say these verses are not problematic. They are. But every view of how we should live our life and what basis we have for doing that, has its problems. There is no easy answer to *fundamental* questions like what are we supposed to be doing here? and how do we know that is what we are supposed to be doing?
You can keep telling yourself the answer is not in the bible all you want. But at some point you may want to think constructively and think about what you are going to do and what basis do you have for it. It’s only at that point will you see that everything in life is not really laid out so neatly. Perhaps you will then stop being so hypercritical of the bible and see that perhaps it has some good things too. You might even think on the whole its good, despite some problematic language in Deuteronomy.
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“You assume God is imaginary and go from there” I mean from my point of view. I wouldn’t see any explanations as making excuses for something I don’t believe exists.
“Its hard to find an anti-theist blogger that hasn’t mentioned this passage.” It came up for me because a Christian trying to justify married gay people not being allowed church membership asked me if I thought the church should admit paedophiles. I said they should consult the Bible for rules on church membership, and SHE brought up the preceding verse where if a man rapes a virgin who is betrothed he is to be stoned to death. She thought it demonstrated the love of the god God. Would it not have been pertinent to point out that a betrothed virgin had to marry the rapist in the following verse? I’m not cherry picking, I’m responding and I’m responding appropriately.
“You might even think on the whole its good, despite some problematic language in Deuteronomy.”
You might like to see my next post for some problematic language in 2 Samuel.
Or what about this post for problematic language in Numbers:
Or this post concentrating on the New Testament:
If you finish with those and want more pointers, just let me know. 😉
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I would think without even counting Deuteronomy we would find at least 200 individual passages that would be problematic as read with our current modern sensibilities. The Christian Scripture is ancient and comprised of 73 books.
Whether that is allot or very few problematic passages is like debating whether a mile is a long distance or a short distance. I think its a remarkably small number given the volume and ancient origins of the texts.
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Makagutu
Nope.
No true anti-theist would have a blog and not write about this passage.
But you at least blog that God murdered people or committed genocide or a holocaust right?
Only after you blog about both of those things are you a true anti-theist. Until then your blog will be considered anti-scientific weak gruel.
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Are you suggesting he didn’t do the above and we could include deicide allowing for a moment that Jesus fellow lived?
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I’m not quite clear on what you are saying.
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I am sure I haven’t written this passage. Do I still qualify as anti-theist?
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@trueandreasonable
Christians and apologists will forever insist on cherry picking the nice bits out of their horrid book and hiding behind the well worn defenses of ‘interpretation’ and obfuscation to try and rationalize their endorsement of high octane delusion while arguing with rational people.
We get it, you need you sky-daddy love real bad, he completes you. Santa Claus for adults; awesome.
That’s fine.
Just keep the jebus-mumbo-jumbo under your hat and stop trying to deform the rational secular society around you that beneficently allows you to continue to believe in magic.
A genocidal, megalomaniacal, panoptically obsessed ruler of a spiritual North Korea that makes no sense given our current level of knowledge.
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Its funny that you mention North Korea. I think of North Korea when I see so many atheist’s blogs that do nothing but spam propaganda pictures like the one you linked.
It seems your blog doesn’t address the fundamental questions I asked in response to violetwisp. Despite “our current level of knowledge” you might succeed in living your entire life without ever thinking about them. If you did think and write about them, link the post because I would be interested in your views.
But if you just want to make childish insults like a playground bully that’s your right as well. Bullies never bothered me. Just don’t be surprised when people who have thought about these questions don’t take you seriously.
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@truthandreasonable
Good theories and ideas can withstand criticism and put forth meaningful rebuttals to inquiries about their validity. Religion to date, has not done that.
So answer the question – in the vast expanse of the Universe why does Jebus care about people masturbating on one insignificant rock in one really boring part of the galaxy?
When someone says they are not Christian I always wonder what they think we should do here. Here is the Arbourist’s answer:
Thanks for the alternative, but I think I will stick to Christianity.
But really I think people will be more charitable to each other if they recognize these basic questions do not have easy answers. If you don’t want to go for Christianity then what? And for whatever you decide then what rational basis do you have for thinking that is what its all about?
I really do enjoy reading what people have to say on this. I know many atheists have thought this through much better than what Arbourist wrote. But I think you will find lots and lots of problems with alternatives to Christianity. I have found Christianity is the least problematic. Not problem free, but the least problematic. I might add it also has its good points.
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Mmm..well embracing delusion is a warm and fuzzy experience, enjoy your stay.
Oh this is rich. First with the deep meta-philosophical questions meant to inspire wonder and mystery about the human condition; but when answered with the plain biological truth of the matter, the answers are somehow artless and unfulfilling. Reality’s square shaped pegs not fitting your round god shaped notions?
Not enough rainbow and unicorns for you? Would it be a cold and dark existence without your huggy-jeubus blanket?
Reality is beautiful and awe inspiring. One can (and should)marvel in the complexity and brilliance the physical world that surrounds us. It makes our brief stint of consciousness that much more precious and important, as it is the only time we posses.
What is not necessary is a vengeful sky-daddy pulling the strings, nor is there any evidence for her existence.
You’ll find a more detailed explanation from evolutionary biologists, but I doubt you would care about a more technical examination, so you got the stripped down version.
You mean of all the religions based on vacuous nonsense, christianity is the best?
This is like feeling special for preferring only the best of rotten meat in your sandwiches.
Congratulations?
It makes you only half as addled as believing in other unjustifiable beliefs? Or is there a ‘win’ somewhere in there that I’m missing?
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Arbourist
It has nothing to do with what I want to believe. It seems to me that there is uncertainty where you claim confidence.
You seem very confident that what we are supposed to be doing here is:
“The continued survival of your particular genome —> Thus, surviving till you can successfully pass your genes on to the next generation. No magic, no mysticism involved.”
Likewise you seem very confident in your answer that you know this is what we are supposed to be doing because:
“like all animals, once we have passed our genetic material onwards, in brute terms, we’re done.”
I don’t really care if my genome survives and I don’t think your reasoning on this is logical. Just because this happens in the world that does not mean that is what should happen in any normative sense.
You seem sure that there is no other type of moral laws we should be living under. That our lives are no different than other animals. But I would point out that not only theists believe there are moral laws we should abide by. You really offer nothing but bald assertions for your beliefs. You offer no actual reasons for believing they are true. I would be more inclined to say there is no purpose than to believe what you say is true.
But here is the thing. When you are dealing with limited information a rational person not only considers the probability of one state or the other being true but also the consequences of acting in accord with one possible reality versus the other. A military leader might be 60% sure that a building is an enemy military complex. But if there is a 40% chance its a school he might not want to act as if it were a military complex by bombing it.
Either there is something we should do in this life or there is not. Should we believe there is something we should do? Well if we believe there is, and we are wrong then no harm done, because there wasn’t anything we should have done anyway. But if we believe there is nothing we should do and we are wrong then you run the risk of living wrongly. Now maybe you don’t care if you live wrongly. But lots of people do care.
And its not because they want there to be right and wrong. It has nothing to do with desiring an objective morality. I really am not sure I want there to be an objective right or wrong. (I also have times when I don’t want there to be a God.) But its because people recognize that *if* there is a right and wrong they want to live rightly. If there is a God who judges us then they want to know they acted rationally in light of what we know to face of that judgment. Are we indulging biases that shut us out from things we could see about the world and therefore not act reasonably?
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What do you think VW, shouldn’t we give T&R here, “time to explore?”
T&R, it would appear you are employing what is known as Pascal’s Wager – would that be a safe assumption?
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Its not actually the wager. I am not making the same claim about God. But his *methodology* was at base what rational people should do. If you would like to explore my views I would love to hear your or other bloggers thoughts.
Here are some of my blogs that address this pragmatic way of thinking:
I have other blogs where I address metaethical issues as well if your interested Here is one of the more introductory ones:
Don’t be afraid to comment or ask questions.
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Whose methodology would that be? Which of the methodologies of the thousands of gods we have created, should we apply, and why that god’s over any other’s?
And who determines what “rational” people should do? And how does one define “rational“? Could there be more than one definition? If so, who decides which applies? See what I mean about the questions, T&R, the deeper you go, the more they’re raised.
See, your church gives you answers, but when I ask how something happened, the answer, “God did it!” can just as easily be replaced with a single-word answer – “magic” To which I can’t help but respond, “No, REALLY – how did it happen?”
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T&R, I cannot promise I will read your blogs – I’m exposed to so much crap on these various blogs, from apologetics, that I simply don’t have time to read it all. I’m not suggesting that your blogs are crap, but they would have to differ significantly from the majority of the others, not to be. What I will promise you is this: I will save the email notification that announced your comment, red flag it and everything, and as I have time, likely one a day or less, I will try to read them all – that’s the best that I can do. And though I will be polite when I do, rest assured, I will comment.
Meanwhile, answer me this – what is your impression of the Bible, Old and New? Do you believe it to be inerrant?
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“Whose methodology would that be? Which of the methodologies of the thousands of gods we have created, should we apply, and why that god’s over any other’s?”
I meant Pascal’s methodology.
“And who determines what “rational” people should do? And how does one define “rational“? Could there be more than one definition? If so, who decides which applies? See what I mean about the questions, T&R, the deeper you go, the more they’re raised.”
Yes I agree thats why at the outset I tried to explain what I mean by “true”:
and what I mean by “rational”:
I even gave a description of what I think it means to “believe” something:
The thing is I tend to use understandings that philosophers generally use. I don’t try to twist into some new definition that fits theology. If you read my blog I think you will learn how philosophers generally understand these terms or at least something close. I majored in philosophy (and political science double major) and that is really what my blog deals the most with. I love philosophy even more than history, but audible doesn’t have the in depth philosophy books I would like to read. Plus reading philosophy is a bit different than any other sort of reading.
You are right that what it means to be rational is somewhat controversial. But I think it is a worthy discussion.
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I don’t know what’s going on with your site, but I read one article you gave me, then tried clicking on another link and got a popup that said the site was not to be trusted, did I want to proceed anyway? With all the talk about a computer virus lately, I backed away – sorry.
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Archaeopteryx1
No problem on reading my blog. I of course think my blog is wonderful, but its not for everyone. Its heavy on philosophy. Most of the philosophers I refer to are not theists. No other apologist I know makes the arguments in the way I do. Mark Linnville comes close and agrees on one key point. But 2 atheists, Richard Joyce and Sharon Street, also agree with me on that point. Its just a general philosophical argument and not necessarily an apologetic one unless you make additional arguments.
The pragmatic approach to epistemology is not really an apologetic argument either. Its just general philosophy.
As far as inerrancy I would say I am a moderate Catholic. I am not going to spend hours arguing that rabbits chew the cud I don’t really care if the writer got that wrong. But I am also not so liberal that I think Christians can think Christ didn’t really rise from the dead. I will do a future blog that explains my position more. I consider myself a bottom up Christian not a top down Christian. I approach Christianity from extreme skepticism up. Not from the position that the bible and the Church are inerrant and therefore that is why I believe. The logical moves I make are up for debate in the comment section. I think the comment sections are usually at least as good as the blogs themselves.
I have to go but I like the other comment you made as well and will respond to it when I get a chance. Hopefully it will be this weekend but if not:
Happy Easter to all you Heathens and Christians alike.
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arch thanks for the headsup. Was it the “true and rational” blog post? I found what I think was some spam in the comments and deleted it. I wonder if you will get the same message now.
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It had to do with your website’s “certificate,” which points back to your website provider, and has nothing to do what anything you may or may not have done.
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thanks for the info. I contacted wordpress to see what the issue is. It’s a wordpress blog. It appears violetwisp’s blog is also wordpress and doesn’t have this issue.
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Yes, most of you people – Mak, Matt, NT, Neuro, Ark, Nate – all have WordPress blogs. Actually never cared for it myself.
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@T&R
Given the evidence at hand, yes I am. This goes with the stricture though, if better evidence or more accurate representation of reality comes along I will change my views.
Arb: “If the continuation of the species doesn’t rock your socks as a logical reason for existence I’m cool with that, It is just that facts don’t really care about your opinion.”
That’s right. That and that is why Pascal’s methodology is powerfull. It doesn’t assume that reality matches our opinion. It accounts for the possibility it doesn’t.
T&R:”Just because this happens in the world that does not mean that is what should happen in any normative sense.”.
Arb: “Just because we have hard evidence that this is the way the world works it doesn’t mean we should believe that this is the way the world works.”
You are misconstruing what I said.
Arb: “Err…I have not brought up morality here. And thus whatever angle you’re working toward that requires morality has nothing to do with what I’ve asserted.”
This might be were the misunderstanding comes in. I think the moral thing to do is the same as the thing we should do. So I think I raised issues of morality in my questions.
T&R: “You offer no actual reasons for believing they are true.”
Arb: “Evidence, as gathered through the natural sciences. Again, did you want studies or perhaps a primer in evolution, because that is what I’m talking about.”
Evolution and science generally does not provide answers to what we are supposed to be doing here. And that was my original question.
Arb: “Please, please tell me you are not going all Pascal’s wager on me. Why should you not believe the world is secretly being run by fairies, trolls and a deep cover Unicorn Agent named Sid? It certainly *might* be you should spend some time praying to Sid just to be on the safe side.”
I am not presenting Pascal’s wager but his method of considering unknowns is valid. There are those who say its invalid but they are generally making reference to problems that are introduced when we consider infinite outcomes etc. I am not doing that. Here is a pretty good article that discusses the differences between theoretical and practical rationality.
http://www.princeton.edu/~grosen/puc/phi203/Pascal.html
It seems that every time I suggest thinking in terms of practical rationality atheists say “Hey that’s Pascal’s wager talk!!! That’s wrong what if there are millions of gods to choose from??” While the many gods objection is relevant to Pascal’s wager, it’s not relevant to practical rationality in general.
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I am criticising Ark for using silly insulting words like ‘dickhead’. About as sophisticated as a stone
The blog host calls the tune. This is fair enough, but it must be obvious that what is really going on is little more than Point Scoring.
This is fair enough, and I take such nonsense with a pinch of salt, truly. Everyone is fair game when they cheer for Team Genocide
Sadly, the likes of Naivethinker and now this other ”interesting character” ‘truthandreasonable’ personify all that is gag-awful about these folk: They refuse to acknowledge the heinous nature and acts perpetuated by and in the name of their Eff awful deity, whose divinely inspired doctrine they will ram down their kids’ throats.
Why do you consider for one second these people are here to seek enlightenment?
With this level of indoctrination why do you think the gentle approach will have any effect whatsoever in making them reconsider their position?
I have found Christianity is the least problematic. Not problem free, but the least problematic. I might add it also has its good points.
This is pure ”unklee style” comment. Cherry picking at its best.
.
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RE: “Why do you consider for one second these people are here to seek enlightenment”
I first encountered NT on Matt’s blog – Matt, fortunately has no “kid gloves” policy – and upon backing him into a corner, he admitted he was not as knowledgeable as he would like to be, and implied that he would read the sources I offered him, to increase his knowledge. Then he shows up here, spouting the same horse hockey, making it obvious that despite what he says, he has no desire to learn anything, only to prevail in a war of words.
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Give the guy time to explore. It takes years for Christians to change their minds about things, and the supernatural blinkers are blocking their view all the while. It’s not just a case of “I say this” but “evidence shows this”. It’s more like: how did the god God make it look like that?
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He is a former Christian then atheist turned pseudo-fundie once more claiming some sort of intellectual and moral high-ground based on the belief that his god is the Real Deal and can do no wrong, thus he is in the Pound Seats.
His blind pair will beat your full house any day of the week and no matter how much you ‘Call’ he will never flip his cards.
None of them ever do….they can’t as too much rests on keeping them hidden.
Arch is correct. His waffle is trite.
The religious line is extremely flexible only as far as finding another way to shift the goalposts and interpret the text to ensure their faith is not compromised
Read Matt’s delightful systematic demolition of unklee.
Unk’s arguments are the same he has touted for yonks and they go nowhere. He just becomes a little more strident regarding certain issues in the face of someone like Matt who has the depth of knowledge to shred his ‘facts”.
Naivethinker is just like Unklee but only he’s still wearing short trousers. There is no evidence…and I mean none these folk can lay on the table to demonstrate the veracity of their position.
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I know. That’s why I’m urging him to use his supernatural trump card and leave it at that. We can think it unreasonable to believe that their god exists and moves in mysterious ways, but it makes more sense to their position than attempting to justify anything with logic or evidence.
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But herein lies the rub, because they believe they do have evidence: the bible. And this is all the authority they need.
And as characters like Debilis and PeW were wont to point out, Christians and Christianity are evidence in themselves.
You will never get someone like Brandon to merely use his supernatural trump card.
Jesus was ”real,” remember?
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“Debilis and PeW were wont to point out, Christians and Christianity are evidence in themselves.”
I can’t believe anyone would attempt to use that as an argument. Then Islam is correct and the evidence Muslims, or Buddhism is the correct and the evidence is Buddhists.
The Bible doesn’t make sense but I’m saying it doesn’t need to make sense to be a Christian. The god God knows best, and when it doesn’t make sense it’s because of their puny human minds, or sin or something. But attempting to justify it just digs them even bigger holes.
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I can’t believe anyone would attempt to use that as an argument.
Ah…but they do, and i wish I could be bothered to trawl through those blogs to find where it was mentioned. ( you could ask Brandon, if you like?)
‘Til then, we will have to treat it as hearsay, I guess!
( only fair..why would you believe anything I told you, right?)
I have read (unklee again, I think) mention that the OT is irrelevant to his faith and even the (current) bible in its entirety is not crucial to belief: Many christians believe these texts are not the original form thus they hold no sword of Damocles over their necks regarding inerrancy.
As long as they believe Jesus is god then anything else is by the by and open for interpretation.
You cannot gainsay an argument such as this and, one probably shouldn’t even try other than to prevent this crap from being dished up to kids.l
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But since Jesus clearly accepted the validity of the OT, wouldn’t his very divinity depend on whether or not the OT was inerrant?
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Ah….go and tell unklee and Brandon…Please! ( but don’t call anyone a dickhead as this is not allowed)
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Brandon on any other blog but this – “she who must be obeyed” has spoken. As for unklE, I haven’t encountered him except the once, on Mak’s site.
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He is over at Matt’s place..
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Meant to say:
“Rest assured, I will tackle Brandon on any other blog but this – ‘she who must be obeyed’ has spoken. As for unklE, I haven’t encountered him except the once, on Mak’s site.”
WordPress ate half of my first sentence.
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Still not sure what you’re obeying or what you think you’re avoiding. You’re free to discuss whatever you want with Brandon here. I only requested you don’t resort to personal attacks because you’re losing the argument. 😎
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“But since Jesus clearly accepted the validity of the OT, wouldn’t his very divinity depend on whether or not the OT was inerrant?”
The logical answer is No. The Old Testament could get some things wrong and Jesus could still be divine.
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I’m not clear as to how you can say that – if your Jesus was divine, wouldn’t he know the OT was BS? How honest would he be if he kept that to himself and let others believe it was all valid? Why should anyone worship a dishonest god?
On the other hand, if he didn’t know it was BS, than he wasn’t all-knowing, and thus not divine – you can’t have it both ways.
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(I don’t really want to read anything Unklee’s written, he’s incredibly boring. I find Brandon’s style of expression to be at least engaging. But I’ll try and look if I have time.)
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unklee is a bit stodgy and one can get lost in the mire of ”facts” ( sic) but this is why it is so beautiful to read the way Matt takes him to the cleaners., because he won’t allow the bloke any wriggle room whatsoever.
Now Matt is someone who has the ability to reduce a Christian’s argument to one of absurdity, to the point where I am on tenterhooks waiting for unklee to say ”We’ll have to agree to disagree” and bugger off and sulk.
With characters like Naivethinker, dickhead is much simpler. But I don’t call him that anymore because I am now much more mature and grown up, having been shown the error of my ways. 😉
Oh, happy good Fryday by the way.
Best to you and yours.
Having an easter egg hunt for your little one?
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I do wish you’d learn to speak English, it’s the new lengua franca, you know —
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Er..the trite waffle was not what you speak. I would not accuse you of espousing about a leavened batter or dough cooked between two plates, patterned to give a characteristic size, shape and surface impression.
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Say what?
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In response to….
do wish you’d learn to speak English, it’s the new lengua franca, you know –
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Pingback: the absolute morality judgement board | violetwisp
@trueandreasonable
” If there is a God who judges us then they want to know they acted rationally in light of what we know to face of that judgment. ”
Let me tell you about acting rationally in light of God’s judgment. For the sake of this argument, lets’ assume the God of the Bible is the One True God and the Bible is His Inerrant Word. In that case it rapidly becomes clear that God regularly engages/d in evil actions, like condoning genocide and slavery, compelling women to marry their rapists or face the death penalty, declaring women to be inferior to men, and so forth. And then unless you love him, believe some impossible story about somebody coming back from the dead, and do everything he says, he’s going to punish your finite crimes with infinite suffering. If there is an absolute morality, the God of the Bible is evil.
As a member of a social species, I have empathy and a sense of fairness that have evolved in order to allow us to live in community. Rationally applying my empathy and sense of fairness leads me to reject God and the Bible and do my best to be honest and compassionate. I believe strongly enough in these values that I don’t care if I’m going to be judged by an evil being and punished for not living up to his evil standards. I will proudly take my martyrdom in the afterlife, knowing that I lived according to the highest moral law I could find.
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I don’t think that is what the bible teaches.
“As a member of a social species, I have empathy and a sense of fairness that have evolved in order to allow us to live in community.”
Ok if there is no God then I would say your sense of fairness (moral sense) evolved. But there is a problem. If your moral sense evolved there would be no reason to believe it tracks the truth. It would simply track what helps you survive and reproduce.
I explain this to some extent on my blog. But if you don’t want to trust me because I am a christian, you should consider reading Richard Joyce and Sharon Street. Both are atheists who make essentially the same argument.
Click to access Street-A-Darwinian-Dilemma-for-Realist-Theories-of-Value.pdf
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/staff/richard_joyce/
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RE: “tracks the truth” – you make it sound like there is only one. The only absolute truths I know of are ones such as “E equals MC squared.”
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Arch
That is correct. My comment does not assume there are multiple truths. That is because I understand a something to be true if it accords with reality. I also do not think we are dealing with multiple realities. I think you would agree with that.
But you might not agree that morality is a feature of reality. And of course there is a good amount of reasonable disagreement there.
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“…no reason to believe it tracks the truth…”
You’re dodging the issue now. We were talking about the morality (if you can call it that) advocated and practiced by your Christian God. My evolved moral sense says it’s heinous.
If you want to argue for an absolute standard of morality, knock yourself out – I’m agnostic on that particular issue. But have fun explaining to me how your God and your Bible are the source of said absolute morality.
Sure, there are some good things in your book, but there are just as many heinous things. If the Bible is the true and inerrant word of the creator of the universe, then it should all still apply morally. Go take off your mixed-fibres underwear and get yourself some slaves.
Otherwise, if the Bible is written by humans and subject to our fallibility but you still want to be a Bible-believing Christian, you have to have some standard for picking out which parts are divinely inspired and morally enlightening, and which parts were human error. How will you decide? What rubric should you use? And if you come up with a rubric for deciding which parts of the Bible you should follow and which you should discard, is not that rubric morally superior to the book it’s being applied to? Why not just use the rubric directly for your moral decision-making, and discard the error-filled book of horrors?
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“You’re dodging the issue now. We were talking about the morality (if you can call it that) advocated and practiced by your Christian God. My evolved moral sense says it’s heinous.”
I’m not sure what I am dodging. Are you thinking I should give you a bunch of Scripture that shows God in a good light and you should give a bunch that you think shows God in a bad light?
Its interesting that you say your moral sense evolved. Do you think your moral sense evolved the same way a hyena’s or a lion’s moral sense would have evolved? Or do you think some thing special happened in evolution for you?
Of course as a Christian I do think something special happened when it comes to our moral sense versus whatever moral senses animals might have. But I am not sure how you would be able to think that.
“If you want to argue for an absolute standard of morality, knock yourself out – I’m agnostic on that particular issue.”
Do you think you act according to your beliefs? If so, how do you act? Do you act as though some things are really wrong regardless of what we think or not. Do you think the holocaust, and Stalin’s great terror, was wrong regardless of what the Nazis or Stalinist thought?
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You’re not addressing me, but I’m going to jump in anyway (shrugs – it’s what I do!).
RE: “Do you think your moral sense evolved the same way a hyena’s or a lion’s moral sense would have evolved?”
When was the last time you saw a lion stalk another lion for food? Or a hyena stalk a hyena? They’ve developed a code, “We don’t eat each other!” So, yes, I think it evolved in very much the same way – ours became more complex, as our brains evolved, but yeah, same principle.
RE: “Do you think the holocaust, and Stalin’s great terror, was wrong regardless of what the Nazis or Stalinist thought?” I think both acted from fear, so both the thought and the accompanying action, was wrong.
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You think Hitler was really afraid of the Jews? You think Stalin really was afraid that there were military threats that he was eliminating?
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Stalin? Absolutely!
Hitler wasn’t afraid of the Jews, per se, but he instilled fear of them into the German people, in order to gain their support of his tyranny – they had the fear, HE had the solution! Germany was in a state of economic collapse, due to the expenses and debts incurred from the first World War, an effort by Kaiser Wilhelm to continue the reign of the Holy Roman Empire, Hitler convinced the Germans that the Jews, not the German military and bad political leadership, were to blame for Germany’s economic condition.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I DO have a life, and intend to resume living it —
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I asked “Do you think your moral sense evolved the same way a hyena’s or a lion’s moral sense would have evolved?”
You answered:
“When was the last time you saw a lion stalk another lion for food? Or a hyena stalk a hyena? They’ve developed a code, “We don’t eat each other!” So, yes, I think it evolved in very much the same way – ours became more complex, as our brains evolved, but yeah, same principle.”
So yeah, I suppose that the video sort of ended this conversation.
As far as the holocaust: At first you said:
“I think both acted from fear, so both the thought and the accompanying action, was wrong”
In this you are saying the actions were wrong because they done out of fear.
But then you admit Hitler likely didn’t act out of fear. So was Hitler’s action in the holocaust no longer wrong?
As far as Stalin I think you are likely wrong at least regarding some of his killing. He was doing much the same thing Hitler was doing.
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RE: “But then you admit Hitler likely didn’t act out of fear.” – well, I can’t really say that either, the man was 5’5,” about the height of any given one of the Three Stooges, so who can say that fear didn’t motivate his need to control, which drove him to seek power?
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You seem to be sticking to this idea that any action caused by fear must be evil. It seems odd to me but ok.
My Grandmother used to lock her doors at night because she was afraid someone would break and and rob her. Was her action of locking her doors evil?
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See, right there is why you lost your right to wear the title, “Reasonable,” as part of your username – you have forgone reason altogether. at no point did I ever say that all fears result in evil, though I’ll admit, I’m a little suspicious of your Grandmother.
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Arch said:
“I think both [Hitler and Stalin] acted from fear, so both the thought and the accompanying action, was wrong.”
In an earlier comment I explicitly mentioned that in saying this you seem to be implying that actions taken out of fear are wrong. I also questioned whether Hitler really acted out of fear.
In your subsequent response you didn’t deny that you were making that implication. Instead you tried to continue to justify that Hitler’s actions would have possibly been taken out of fear. It’s an odd approach if you don’t think that acting out of fear somehow implies it was wrong.
I then give you a clear example of why it is wrong to assume that just because something is done out of fear we shouldn’t infer “so both the thought and the accompanying action, was wrong.” And now you seem to want to distance yourself from this earlier statement.
That’s fine and good. Your original claim that “I think both [Hitler and Stalin] acted from fear, so both the thought and the accompanying action, was wrong.” was bad and you should distance yourself from it. I am glad you are. But you shouldn’t claim I am illogical because of the way you argued this issue.
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T& – you don’t respond for days, then come back and expect me to remember everything we said, well, I’m sorry, but you’re just not important enough for me to do that – neither do I intend going back and revisiting all of my comments, to show you how wrong you are, so if you want to feel you’re right, if it will really make you feel better about yourself to do so, knock yourself out – but if you wanted to actually be RIGHT, then you should have stayed and finished while everything was fresh.
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Arch come on.
You forgot what you said.
Then you say I am unreasonable for suggesting you believe what you said.
Now you are chastising me for accurately remembering what you said and showing that my
conclusion was not unreasonable.
Jeez sorry.
We all have allot of stuff going on. And I realize blogging is not the center of our lives. That’s why I can’t always comment right away. So yeah its fine to if you want a take back. But whats with the attacks on me?
Although I have to give it to you. Your comment about suspecting my grandmother was the best of this thread.
Cheers
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I’m not taking ANYthing back, I’m simply saying that my time is too valuable to waste it by going back and refreshing myself as to everything either of us said, it isn’t worth it.
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That’s fine everyone’s time is valuable.
I’m just saying you shouldn’t take it out on me, that you can’t keep straight what you say from one day to the next.
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“one day to the next“? How many actual days was it, exactly?
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One day 2 days a week a month? Do you change your views so often that its hard to keep track?
I honestly don’t know what you are getting at.
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I’m sorry your comprehension level is so wanting, I’m saying that if you want to hold a conversation with someone, you stay and finish it, not disappear for days, while thinking of something to say, then pop back in and expect them to recall the conversation verbatim. I have no time nor intention of going back over this post to refresh my memory, and equally have no intention of continuing from here without doing so, as you will claim I have changed my stance, if I get one jot or tittle different from my original statement. Stay current, or drop out.
I’m sorry if you couldn’t continue because you had to spend the weekend worshipping a dead man (if he ever existed), but that was your option. Ya snooze, etc. —
I tried to drop it down a notch, I hope that was easier to understand If not, I could get out the crayons —
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Yeah I guess you gave up defending anything of substance that you said in this thread. That’s fine.
I don’t have time to sit at the computer and wait for every response. Like you, I have a life. A few days is not a long time IMO. I do not even think a few weeks is a long time. But whatever we think differently.
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You noticed that too?
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Oh yes, do carry on wiggling. You claimed not only that absolute morality exists, but also that your relgion, your God, and your Bible, are the best way of knowing the moral absolutes. You still need to explain how a being who does evil as unspeakable and vast as the evil done by your god, can be the source of absolute moral truth. You need to either argue that everything done or commanded by the God Yahweh has been unequivocally good and the goodness of His actions will stand all tests of time, or that it’s possible for a being that has done great evil, to still be the source of ultimate moral truth. Take your pick.
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“You still need to explain how a being who does evil as unspeakable and vast as the evil done by your god, can be the source of absolute moral truth.”
I do not agree that God has done vast and unspeakable evil.
I have given many of my views on the problem of evil on a different blog. If you can to read them if you want.
http://measureoffaith.wordpress.com/2014/01/15/pick-your-poison-either-god-is-imperfect-or-true-morality-is-uncomfortably-immoral/
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Drowning children in the Flood. Raining fire and brimstone on them in Sodom and Gomorrah. The genocide of the AMalekites, and eleventy other tribes… not evil? Creating beings endowed with curiosity, and then telling them, whatever you do, don’t eat from that one tree (and lying about the consequences)… not evil? Making laws that force women to marry their rapist.. not evil? Declaring women inferior to men, queers an abomination, and exhorting slaves to meekly obey their masters?… not evil?
Funny that you’re the one arguing for moral absolutes, while also arguing, among other things, that sometimes genocide is not evil. OOOOOkay then.
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Here are my views on much of what you mention.
The whole marrying a rapist bit from Deuteronomy has been addressed here. I admit I still have some misgivings about it but there are other larger problems with trying to adapt atheism with any sort of morality.
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Well, having now gone and read your post, I now think the God that exists in your mind is even more horrible than the one I conceptualized. He can destroy us because as his creation we are his property? Ew ew ew ew squick. Human beings are not property. Ever. Of anyone. If there are moral absolutes, that should be one of them. And if there are moral absolutes, they should apply to God as well as humans.
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Either we are his creation or we are not.
If you assume what happened in the bible is true then we are in fact his creation.
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Well I don’t believe he exists, let alone that the Biblical creation account is true.
But even if he is our creator, I don’t think having created us gives him full ownership of us, because I don’t think sentient beings can be owned.
I think you’re getting into a really creepy moral relativism frame, where things are not OK for humans to do, but OK for God to do, and I think moral absolutes, if they exist, should apply absolutely.
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“But even if he is our creator, I don’t think having created us gives him full ownership of us, because I don’t think sentient beings can be owned.”
Well most people disagree with you. Most people agree that farmers own their farm animals.
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A common defense given for animal cruelty is, I own it, I can do whatever I want with it. Not acceptable for people. Not acceptable for God. He makes the rules, he better follow them.
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“I think you’re getting into a really creepy moral relativism frame, where things are not OK for humans to do, but OK for God to do, and I think moral absolutes, if they exist, should apply absolutely.”
I am applying the same rules we apply to our creation to God who created us. I think you are trying to do some special pleading for sentient beings or something. But your views are fringe.
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Why would anyone in their right mind do that?
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Aren’t you paying attention? Some people want to assume God exists as indicated in the Bible so that they can accuse him of wrongdoing.
Are they not in their right mind?
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More likely, you’re the one who’s not paying attention. I haven’t encountered anyone like that. I know some who are saying that IF a god existed, and performed the acts attributed to him in a Bible you likely claim is inerrant, then he would be guilty of wrongdoing. Could you have meant those?
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You think there is a big difference between saying “If god exists….”
And “assume God exists…”?
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Of course, don’t you?
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Arch I have to go. I am sorry I won’t be able to instantly respond to anything more you have to say.
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That’s fine, as long as you don’t expect to come back in a few days or a week and pick up the conversation where we left off.
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me: unless you love him, believe some impossible story about somebody coming back from the dead, and do everything he says, he’s going to punish your finite crimes with infinite suffering.
trueandreasonable: I don’t believe that’s what the Bible teacher
Good point. According to some interpretations, you don’t necessarily have to follow all the commandments, you just have to believe the impossible story and repent before you die.
If you’re disagreeing with the rest of my statement, you are the first Christian to tell me any of the following: you don’t have to love God; don’t have to believe in the Resurrection; won’t be punished eternally if you don’t.
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You left out some of your earlier post. And you are getting closer. I think we need to live a life of christian love often referred to as charity as well as believe in him. But its an interesting question what “believe in him” means. I don’t think just believing he existed is what we are getting at. Nor even believe he died for humans, as the demons would know that as well.
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Oh, so now there are demons? That does it! Time for a name change. You shall be known now and forevermore as “Trueand.” You have just forfeited your right to a surname.
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Closer to what?!
Now you seem to be arguing that even believing isn’t enough? How about the part where I’m going to be punished infinitely for my finite crime of unbelief, regardless of how much love for others I practice? Do you honestly think that’s just?
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I am not sure what is driving your unbelief nor do I pretend to know what God knows and think I can judge you.
If you live your life according to God’s Command to love each other as he has loved us, then I am not sure you do not believe in him. If you act that way it seems you believe in his message. In any case consider the story of the sheep and the goats.
Why else do you think its important to love others? Do you think its just a hunch you have and you would just as soon follow it as not follow it?
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Yeah, Intransigent, take T&’s advice and “live your life according to God’s Command to love each other as he has loved us” – get off your lazy arse and get out there and drown a bunch of people, rain fire and brimstone down on some others, smite a few outright, then get others to butcher a few thousand more! T&’s god can’t do ALL the work! What do you think he is, all-powerful or something? Sheesh!
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I do my best to be kind and do good, because I have empathy for my fellow human being, and because I am in solidarity with my fellow human being. Do I know for sure why I have these feelings? No, but that doesn’t necessitate God, any more than any other thing not currently totally explained by science necessitates God.
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Whether it necessitates God is a bigger issue.
What you said does suggest you are living your life based on feelings for which you can provide no reasonable explanation as to why they are reliable. You might as well base your life on beliefs derived from tasseology.
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I have historical evidence that certain behaviours promote human flourishing both of the actor and the acted-upon, and other behaviours lead to suffering, and my experience is that my feelings correlate highly with the likely outcomes of my actions. Basically, I’m doing the best I can with what information I have.
You, on the other hand, are suggesting that one should get one’s moral foundation from a book that condones genocide, slavery, and the inferiority of women. I don’t even know what tasseology is, but I think it’s probably a better source of moral information than the Bible, given what the Bible contains.
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“I have historical evidence that certain behaviours promote human flourishing both of the actor and the acted-upon, and other behaviours lead to suffering, and my experience is that my feelings correlate highly with the likely outcomes of my actions. Basically, I’m doing the best I can with what information I have.”
“Flourish” is a somewhat vague term. If you mean certain actions leads to certain species dying off or surviving I would agree. If surviving in a physically healthy way is what you mean by flourishing then yes I agree we can use science and history to establish that. . But whether that is all there is to morality is far from clear.
As for my beliefs I gave you a link to my views. I think you misconstrue Christianity.
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I was raised Christian, Mennonite Brethren to be specific. I accepted Jesus Christ into my heart as my personal lord and saviour and everything. While I’m no Bible scholar, I have read the Bible and plenty of Biblical scholarship. I am not misconstruing anything that I am aware of.
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You seem very committed to your views on the bible and that the Christian God is terrible. I don’t mean to imply that you are deliberately misconstruing religion. But I think you misconstrue it.
I don’t think we should look at God who created us as if he was just another person. You clearly do. I don’t think we have the infinite wisdom God has such that we can determine he acted wrongly in an infinite scheme. You clearly do.
Thus I think your conclusions are wrong.
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Are you arguing that God’s ends (unknowable to us finite mortals) justify his means (genocide)? Niiiice.
And I think by “misconstrue”, you mean “disagree with the interpretation that makes religion palatable to me”. Ok player.
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No I mean what I said.
By “misconstrue” i mean taking what was said and suggesting it means something else.
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I should add, this stuff is fresh in my mind because of an excellent article by Greta Christina: http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2014/04/17/religious-fundamentalism-leads-to-screwed-up-moral-relativism/
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Interesting article but Petersen is right.
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Pingback: calling all historians | violetwisp
Deuteronomy 22:22 states:
“If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.”
I wonder if Jesus reaction in John 8:1-11 is informative on this issue. http://biblehub.com/context/john/8-1.htm
Should we only see John 8:1-11 as applying to that one rule on Deuteronomy or does it have a wider relevance?
There are various other passages where Jesus seems to go beyond legalistic readings and try to bring people back to his golden rule. I think the Good Samaritan, where his disciples pick and eat grain on the Sabbath, where he heals on the Sabbath, the beatitudes etc. are all along this line.
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Interesting. So when he said he didn’t come to alter even the least stroke of ink (or whatever) in the law, he was just wilfully contradicting himself. Sounds like every chancer charlatan under the sun! But, to be charitable, all those people who wrote down what he said decades after he was supposed to have lived couldn’t be expected to remember it all word for word. 😉
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[this is from Ark, he put in the wrong place]
.where his disciples pick and eat grain on the Sabbath,
If memory serves this is one of the ( many, many) passages in the bible that the Jesus Seminar deduced was crap…made up, in other words, as the appearance of the Pharisees just in time to catch JC and his mates ”caught in the act ”is considered just too improbable, that it must have been a simple literary device to make a theological point. ( Oh yea, don’t stampeth about in the wheat fields you inconsiderate buggers! )
Just thought I’d bring that up…carry on.
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Well from a historical perspective John 8:1-11 is on much shakier ground than the bit about eating grains.
I am not sure why the Jesus seminar people think this is so improbable. In one version the pharisees did see them but it doesn’t necessarily mean they stumbled upon them. They may have been told by someone else. But the Jesus seminar folks are not the most logical bunch in the world anyway.
Violet what you ask is a much deeper issue that I am not sure I can answer properly. But it seems to me that covenant of God with the Jews is still intact. If the Jews want to they can live by that covenant but its unlikely they will be able to keep up their end of the deal. The new covenant is a different deal. The new covenant is available to all and does not require strict adherence to the old laws in Deuteronomy. And the laws of the 10 commandments including the keeping holy the Sabbath should be understood in light of Jesus’s teachings.
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Oh I love this answer! Hope I remember to make a post from it. 😀
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Which part? The hopefully not the last part where I admit I am not sure I am answering it properly.
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No, I’ve just never thought much about the two covenants. I guess it doesn’t strike you as odd much ….
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.where his disciples pick and eat grain on the Sabbath,
If memory serves this is one of the ( many, many) passages in the bible that the Jesus Seminar deduced was crap…made up, in other words, as the appearance of the Pharisees just in time to catch JC and his mates ”caught in the act ”is considered just too improbable, that it must have been a simple literary device to make a theological point. ( Oh yea, don’t stampeth about in the wheat fields you inconsiderate buggers! )
Just thought I’d bring that up…carry on.
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I’ve popped that up under the comment you meant it for. Thanks Violet. 😎
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RE: “I also do not think we are dealing with multiple realities.” – we may as well be, since we are dealing with multiple, subjective versions of reality – I’d say about one per each of us.
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Arch
Are familar with the general different metaethical views? I ask because I wonder if you see your self fitting in one particular view.
I give an outline of some of them on my blog here:
Getting a handle on this terminology (if you don’t already) is very helpful in moving these discussions forward.
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I just hurriedly picked up a few things from a website I KNOW not to be biased, and from whatg I scanned, the entire proposition of “metaethics” has only begun to gain attention in the last couple of decades. It’s basic premises seem to be:
Since I believe the answers to the latter two questions to be entirely subjective, I maintain they can only be answered for the individual, by the individual. You have a peanut allergy, so you would believe peanuts are bad, but don’t try to get me to accept your belief for anyone else but you.
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I think the website you quote gives a pretty good explanation.
From what you say it sounds like you are subjectivist.
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The Intransigent One said:
QFT!
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We can use Church to help with these issues.
I am wouldn’t say the church is superior to the bible but they work together to help Christians understand their faith.
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He’s right, it’s known as cult reinforcement – indispensable to ANY good brainwashing program —
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Don’t you get stares, T&, running around in public, wearing blinders? There are over 600 laws in the Torah alone, upon what percentage of those would you honestly say you live your life? How moral is not wearing garments of mixed fibers? Eating shellfish? Why do we even bother –?
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My religion doesn’t teach that I need to follow those 600 laws.
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So they’ve turned cherry-picking into a religion now? I suppose it was inevitable —
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That the church never interpreted scripture the way you do doesn’t mean they are cherry picking.
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Surely you jest, True& – which church do you mean? Each of the 40,000 different Christian denominations has cherry-picked THEIR version of what their Bible means. You have to cherry-pick just to decide which version of the alleged resurrection to believe! This is exactly why you forfeited the right to use “Reasonable” in your username!
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No I am not jesting. Catholic Church or Orthodox Church, neither interprets scripture such that we need to follow the 600 rules of Deuteronomy.
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And this is because Christianity is based largely upon Pauline Doctrine and the bits the church added for its own convenience.
Jesus came to fulfill the Law. Moses Law, because the end was nigh.
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You are straying off the topic. The church doesn’t teach that we need to follow the 613 rules of Deuteronomy.
Yes you can interpret things different if you want, and say we are doing it wrong. But then you are not being critical of what Christians believe. You are being critical of what you think Christians should believe based on your different interpretation.
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1. Jesus was a Jew who supposedly came for the children of Israel.
Everything the Christians believe is based upon Pauline Doctrine.
Why do you dispute this? It isn’t a personal point of view it is fact.
Jesus did not build a church, did not set out to build one either. He was here to ‘save’ the Jews as he firmly believed the end of the world was nigh.
When this became plainly obvious it was not going to happen the founders of the Christian religion were obliged to do a double take and set their sights just a tad further into history.
It appears that they have made a serious cock up of judgement.
As for my interpretation….lets rather deal with the interpretation of the 34,00 plus Christian denominations that each have a slightly different bent on Christianity.
Maybe being an outsider looking in is considerably easy to see the untenable situation you are in than trying to figure it out from within the ranks?
Remember, I read the bible too…and it’s pretty much the ”same” as the one you read.
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Yes I know you read the bible which consists of several ancient texts. When you read them you have your own way to interpret them. But your way is not the way the church interprets them and it never has been.
“Jesus did not build a church, did not set out to build one either”
Again most Christians would disagree with this.
“And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” Mathew 16:18
Now there is a dispute between Catholics Orthodox and Protestants as to whether Jesus meant he was building the church on peter the apostle or on his confession or both. But they all agree Christ meant to build a church.
Now you won’t find any scripture saying Jesus came to write a bible. Because he did not write a bible. The church he created wrote the new testament and it interprets both the old and new testament.
I can’t speak for all the thousands of churches that is true. But your interpretation that we should follow is 613 rules of Deuteronomy and your interpretation that Christ did not intend to build a church contradict what the vast majority of Christians believe.
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See comment below
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“Jesus did not build a church, did not set out to build one either”
Again most Christians would disagree with this.
“And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” Mathew 16:18
It matters not whether disagree. The facts are what they are, and this biblical quote is meaningless. The church only got off the ground after Roman and was the initial product of Pauli doctrine.
Research the actual history…not what you have been spoon fed.
Check the proper etymology of words such as Hades and research a bit more about Peter.
The church he created wrote the new testament and it interprets both the old and new testament.
Interprets is the key word here.
But your interpretation that we should follow is 613 rules of Deuteronomy and your interpretation that Christ did not intend to build a church contradict what the vast majority of Christians believe.
I didn’t actually say anything about Deuteronomy.
Besides, I consider the Pentateuch fiction as does almost every relevant scholar, scientist and archaeologist .There never was an encounter on a mountain etc etc…
The vast majority of Christians suffer from collective cultural and theological indoctrination. They are not historians and generally are not interested in the historicity. Faith is all that is required. Faith initially in the words of the church who were the only ones allowed to own and/or read a bible and the only ones (self) authorized to interpret the text.
It’s probably futile to dig up the relevant verses or quote scholars who can outline this more thoroughly than I can. You probably know them already, I suspect?
I reiterate,Jesus quite clearly believed the end of the world was nigh. There is no inference of anything long-term in his message which was based on an eschatological perspective.
Even early followers believed this to be true.
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Yes i got you confused with Arch.
I have no reason to think you know more about the early church than I do. You claim it was all “Pauline” Its unclear what *you* mean by that. But the fact is the Gospel of Mathew was very important for the early Church. Just because the earliest written parts of the new testament were Paul’s letters that does not necessarily mean the other views expressed in other parts of the bible were not also important.
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Let’s begin with the character Jesus.
Jesus was eschatological. He believed the end of the world was imminent.
What else is there to discuss on this point?
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Sorry, I meant write is there anything else to discuss on this point?
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If you think there is nothing to discuss why bring it up?
As a Christian I will go with what is recorded in the bible as to what Christ thought. Not only what is in Mark but in other places.
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Are you afraid to answer the question? Was Jesus eschatological in his perspective?
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He spoke of the end of times and was concerned for our well being in the afterlife. But he spent more time talking of how we should live now.
Whether you want to say that makes him “eschatological in his perspective” or not is a subjective judgment.
It is like asking if a mile is a long way or a short way.
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It is not subjective as well you know. The meaning of the word is perfectly clear.
Would you really like me quote the relevant verse?
His early followers gathered at each others homes and prepared for the end. There was no ”church” as there was no need.
When this didn’t happen the church had to come up with something to explain the ”balls up”. They simply did what they have always done: interpreted it to suit themselves.
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I didn’t say the meaning of the word wasn’t clear.
Jesus said many things about the end of times. There wasn’t just one verse. But as I indicated above you are probably going to reference a verse from Mark. Did I predict right? If so you don’t need to quote it I am of course familiar with it.
Saying there was no early church contradicts the evidence we have. Yes they gathered in peoples homes. People still might gather in peoples homes. That doesn’t mean there is no church.
The last paragraph is your interpretation. I agree there is some evidence to support that view. It’s not the only reasonable view but ok that’s your view.
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The term christian church implies doctrine and dogma .
Of this there was little if any until Roman intervention.
But you seem to missing the major point.while ironically proving it.
Interpretation.
Jesus was here to save the children of Israel – Jews. His message was eschatological and only after this proved to be false did Paul begin to preach a different message..including the rule that circumcision was unnecessary.
Also ironic as the church with it later obsession with sex saw to it that this law changed and were responsible for genital mutilation for quite a long time.
Anyway. The point is…again…irrespective of what christians have been led to believe or wish to believe or refer to ignore, Jesus did not establish any church and Christian doctrine is based largely on Paul of Tarsus.
Why? Because it is written, that’s why.
If you can’t accept this it is not my problem, I am not Christian and have no vested interest.
And after that
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“Anyway. The point is…again…irrespective of what christians have been led to believe or wish to believe or refer to ignore, Jesus did not establish any church and Christian doctrine is based largely on Paul of Tarsus.
Why? Because it is written, that’s why.
If you can’t accept this it is not my problem, I am not Christian and have no vested interest.”
You assume Paul’s epistles are different than what Christ wanted us to learn. Where is this written?
It is written Christ intended to build his church. I quoted it to you. If you can’t accept that its not my problem.
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It is written Christ intended to build his church. I quoted it to you. If you can’t accept that its not my problem.
Maybe you ought to look at the etymology as I suggested right at the beginning. Then consider it in context re: Jesus’ emphatic statement that he believed the world was soon to end.
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Thanks for the research suggestion. But really I’m pretty busy. If you have a point you want to make, then type it, and I will read it.
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I guess we are all bust to a degree. That’s life. I have been making the point all evening. You seem unwilling to even consider it, which is unfortunate, but understandable; a typical trait of those who have been culturally indoctrinated.
You have to take a deep breath, dispose of previous bias and simply look at what’s written. Not what you desire or have the need to interpret.
Just re-read the comments and try to see things historically rather than theologically.
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Yeah, like THAT’s gonna happen!
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I considered the points you raised. The fact that I don’t find them convincing doesn’t mean I haven’t considered them.
I think you are biased. You are the one who wants to give scripture interpretations that no church agrees with. But yes you claim that your interpretation is the only correct one. I’m not sure what to say at that point other than say ok until you are willing to at least consider there might be another way to look at it, there is nothing to discuss.
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I understand perfectly. How could you possibly consider otherwise? For if you did it would throw your entire belief system into turmoil and make it largely redundant.
Religion is ALL about interpretation, be it yours or any other faith. And faith is the crucial word here, because irrespective of the evidence faith is all that is actually required.
In fact, for more years than not, it was punishable by death for anyone outside of the church to own or read a bible or to interpret the doctrine in any other way than that as presented by the church.
But there are other major considerations which you are not factoring into your argument: or more accurately the argument indoctrinated into believers by the church.
The gospels are riddled with inaccuracies; interpolations, dubious redaction, ridiculous claims, and contradictions galore so why take exception to this particular one?
If Jesus plainly stated what he did regarding what would pass before the end times who are you to metaphorically put words into his mouth? If indeed he actually spoke these words at all?
I have read the bible. Certain parts on numerous occasions.
I understand from the words attributed to have come from his mouth to mean that he was here to save the children of Israel and that the end of times were at hand.
Not because I look for a meaning to suit my belief. No. I understand them the way they are.
Because this is what he said.
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“In fact, for more years than not, it was punishable by death for anyone outside of the church to own or read a bible or to interpret the doctrine in any other way than that as presented by the church.”
To pinpoint it, 1000 years, an entire millennium, from 600 CE, when the edict was (first issued, that no Bible would be allowed – upon penalty of death – to be printed in any language other than Latin (in lands where few were literate, and even fewer were literate in Latin) – literally hundreds were burned at the stake for attempting to bring legible versions of the Bible to the common man, by the Church that represents the god who loved mankind – to 1600 CE, when the edict was finally lifted.
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Thank you…
Speaks volumes does it not?
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VOLUMES? You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet, Ma Man!
Source: “in His own image“.
THAT speaks volumes!
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See new thread.
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Is there a point to this rant? We know your position. Its not new.
If the gospels are consistent its plagiarism, if there are inconsistencies its that they are not accurate.
You take one part of the scripture and ignore the rest.
You are upset that scripture clearly indicates Christ intended to start a church and your interpretations contradict those of the church.
Ok we get it.
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Rant? what a silly thing to say?
You take one part of the scripture and ignore the rest.
No, I have never ignored any part of scripture; cherry picking is the domain of the inculcated. I am not a believer so I read it all.
You have yet to offer even a reasonable refutation as to why Pauline Christianity won the day and Jesus was an eschatologicalist preaching solely for the Jews.
Are you not aware of the history of Christianity?
How it likely formed, who were the main players, the branches that were supposedly around during the first few years?
Good grief man, don’t you study at all, or have you merely swallowed the Christian dogma without exercising at least a modicum of independent thought?
There were two main groups at the beginning, The Nazarene Christians and the Pauline Christians.
Simply take half an hour and do some research. It is not difficult.
I have no reason to lie. This stuff is fairly well documented. .
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I am likely more familiar with Christian history than you are.
There is no question the early church had to answer certain questions. But there is no reason to think scripture misrepresents what and how these where answered. Lots of people enjoy writing controversial books that sell allot better than the bland more tradition views. But that doesn’t mean they are more true than the traditional views.
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I am likely more familiar with Christian history than you are.
A tad arrogant , wouldn’t you say?
Do you access to certain historical documents I might not or are you merely basing this on the fact that you believe an anti theist could not possible know more than a theist?
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No its just that I have listened to more lectures and books on church history than the vast majority of people.
I don’t have any secret access to historical documents.
Your view that Jesus and his ministry primarily focused on the end of times coming very soon is one held by Bart Ehrman. He attempts to make that case in many of his books and lectures. He has some good evidence to support it as well. On the whole I don’t find his case as strong as he does though.
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Books, lectures?
Great. By apologists such as Licona Habermas and Craig or the full spectrum that would include Hitchins, Ehrman, Krauss etc.
Have you included work by de GrasseTyson, Sagan,etc?
How about Humphreys?
Or Maurice Casey, NT Wright, Sanders, Wolpe?
Better still, Finkelstein, Devers, Herzog.
So tell me, of the scholars, scientists, archaeologists and outright rank apologists who are you likely to side with in your supposed search for truth?
Those that follow where evidence leads or those that will make the evidence fit a suitable world view?
Would you side with William Lane Craig or Israel Finkelstein?
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I basically listen to anything that is provided by audible.com on the topic of christian history.
As for the earliest period:
Bart Ehrman is likely the person who I listened to the most. But other scholars would include Elain Pagels and Timothy Luke Johnson to name a few others. Sadly I don’t remember the name of every scholar I have read or listened too. I just get books/lectures that are available on the topic I am interested in. It’s not based on what their views are.
Bottom line is if they put their book/lectures in audible format I have probably listened to it. If any of the authors you think I should listen to have something in audible I will give a it a listen. I read allot for my work. I am also very busy with kids work and a blog that I have been neglecting. So I generally listen to things in the car. But if there is something that you think is somehow terrific that I must read and its not in audible I might give it a look- especially if it short and too the point.
I have nothing against William Lane Craig, but his reasons for to be Christian are different from mine. There are allot of good reasons to be a Christian.
Hitchens is often talked about by both sides but I am not sure what the fuss is about. He seemed like the O’reilly for the left or something. Did he actually present any new argument or did he just rehearse and rehash the same old arguments? If so what was it?
The scholars I have listened to who cover later Christian history are more varied.
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So your reading material generally leans toward apologetics, I presume?
Then you haven’t listen to Finkelstein or Devers?
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I think its pretty clear Ehrman has deconverted from Christianity and seems sometimes fairly bitter about Christianity. Do you think he is an apologist? Is Pagels an apologist? I don’t think of them as apologists. But you might. Timothy Luke Johnson is a Catholic but I wouldn’t call him an apologist either.
I have not listened to Finkelstein or Devers. My focus has mainly been on the new testament texts.
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Ehrman has never seemed bitter to me; merely enlightened. His trashing of almost everything you believe in is based upon sound historical knowledge, and years of hard work and serious study unencumbered by Christian polemic, as are people like Licona, Strobel, and Habermas.
I will grant you he might be excused a small of amount of showboating to sell his books, but his stuff ( what I’ve listened to) is generally spot on.
Once you have read one christian apologist one has pretty much read them all.
There is nothing new they can tell you.
Ehrman deconverted from Christianity for more or less the same reasons as everyone else: he was fed up of being lied to by ignoramuses who were unable to provide cogent answers to the most basic questions pertaining to the christian religion and the biblical texts.
If you haven’t listened to scholars of the Old Testament then how the hell do you derive a foundation for your belief?
Devers and Finkelstein are archaeologists.
Devers is a former Christian.
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I say:
“Bart Ehrman is likely the person who I listened to the most.”
You respond by saying:
“So your reading material generally leans toward apologetics, I presume?”
I said I do not think Ehrman is an apologist.
You go on to praise Ehrman. Ok so we you do not have an issue with my sources of information.
I don’t think Ehrman is without biases. I think he is somewhat angry at the church he was involved with before he deconverted and that tends to warp some of his views. But he is a good source of information and I listened to many of his books and lectures. I am not anti-Ehrman nor do I think everything he says is gospel. His blog is a bit over the top requiring people to pay to participate but whatever.
Anyway I have drafted a blog regarding Ehrman’s views on miracles. After I go over it I will post it. Perhaps you would like to comment.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sathya_Sai_Baba
http://www.saibabaofshirdi.net/miracles_of_sai_baba.htm
http://www.saibabaofindia.com/miracles.htm
As you do believe in miracles you will no doubt believe this yes?
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Why would you think that?
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So you don’t believe in miracles?
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I didn’t say that.
Believing miracles can happen is different than believing every claimed miracle. Don’t you agree?
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Nope, I do not believe in miracles as per the Christian definition, and there has never been evidence to suggest otherwise.
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I didn’t ask if you believed in miracles.
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In that case no evidence has been put forward to demonstrate miracles merely claims.
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?
I don’t think you are making sense. What you say does not follow from what I said at all.
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This stemmed from your comment re: Posting Ehrman’s views on Miracles.
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BTW: I posted a blog on Ehrman’s views on miracles:
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“Yes i got you confused with Arch.” – don’t flatter him like that, it goes straight to his head!
All pseudo-Matthew did, was take pseudo-Mark’s bare-bones story and greatly embellish it.
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Ok I suppose you think the author of Luke did the same thing as the author of Mathew right?
Its just amazing how closely the embellishments match up isn’t it?
🙂
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Actually, I think that pseudo-Luke embellished further still – it’s the old fishing conundrum, the first liar telling a fish story doesn’t stand a chance.
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And yes it is amazing how well Luke and Mathews embellishments of Mark match up isn’t it?
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What part of, “the first liar telling a fish story doesn’t stand a chance” were you not quite able to comprehend? I could break it down for you, maybe draw it in crayon –?
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I understood your post. I don’t think you understood mine. At least your comments give no indication that you did.
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@truthandreasonable.
Matthew contains around 600 verses found in Mark. This is nearly Mark’s entire gospel.
This looks like as good a case as any for citing copying or worse…plagiarism.
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I see if the accounts are the same its plagiarism. If they are different its proof that they are lying. There is no way you will admit the accounts are accurate is there?
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It is not a case of admitting anything. They are testament to what they are. I didn’t write them!
I have never claimed innerancy or that they are divinely inspired or they are written by eyewitnesses.
Those from your faith claim this; all of which is palpable and utter nonsense.
But you react as if you were unaware of these facts? That you did not know the writer of Matthew had blatantly used Mark’s Gospel to base his own ( erroneous) work upon. That Mark;s gospel has suffered interpolation.
Surely you have taken the time to research and understand these facts?
I mean, you cannot, as a logically thinking adult honestly afford any credence to the dead arising from their graves to go walkabout in Jerusalem, surely?
Only a completely indoctrinated person or absolute moron would consider this actually occurred?
Please tell me you are neither of these and you regard this as mere fictional nonsense?
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RE: “as a logically thinking adult” – are you REALLY making such an unfounded accusation? SHAME on you!
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“T & R is an attorney at law, I believe? There must surely be a logical process he follows during the day to day practicing of law?
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If true, then not a good one, I would suspect – but then, that would be an oxymoron, wouldn’t it?
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Maybe I’m getting confused T & R with someone else? Some of these conversations with Christians eventually begin to ”fry” the brain.
I hope T&R will confirm?
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You think its impossible that miracles can happen. Ok. Its sort of a different topic but ok. You can believe that.
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Not Ark here ((though I do sometimes think of him as “Arch Junior“), but I would like to respond to that. The “Synoptic Gospels” are called that, simply because, as the term suggests they sound alike. They sound alike because pseudo-Matthew and pseudo-Luke wrote theirs well after pseudo-Mark’s, and copied extensively from him, embellishing along the way.
What I would like to draw your attention to, is pseudo-John’s, who tells us in no equivocal terms, that the entire, pseudo-Mark/pseudo-Matthew/pseudo-Luke “fishers of men story” never happened. John, (the real John), as you undoubtedly know, was one of the “sons of Zebedee,” who walked off the job at the invitation of Jesus, leaving poor old Zebedee scrambling for a temp service who could send him a couple of extra fishermen.
But “John” tells us that he and his brother James, as well as Peter and his brother Andrew, were followers of John the B, and saw Jesus walking on the other side of the Jordan River, waded across (didn’t part for him, sorry)), spent the night with him (gotta wonder what happened there!), then came back for the others, who from that point, followed JC.
Now YOU can tell
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I wasn’t finished, but WordPress decided I was – I HATE WordPress!
To continue:
Now YOU can tell US that one or more of them are lying, or you can tell us which of the four you can believe, and which you cannot. No wiggleroom!
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“Not Ark here ((though I do sometimes think of him as “Arch Junior“), but I would like to respond to that. The “Synoptic Gospels” are called that, simply because, as the term suggests they sound alike. They sound alike because pseudo-Matthew and pseudo-Luke wrote theirs well after pseudo-Mark’s, and copied extensively from him, embellishing along the way.”
It seems plausible that Mathew and Luke had access to Mark, that’s true but you only seem to know bits and pieces.
It also seems you are saying John contradicts some other gospel. But you are not quoting the alleged contradiction. Its ok I am not the sort of christian that gets all tied up in knots if one Gospel account has some minor discrepancy with another. I don’t think its big deal. But if you want to argue that I should care or you still want to give an actual quote suit yourself.
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True&? – are you honestly trying to get us to believe that a good little church-mouse like yourself is unfamiliar with the passage in pseudo-Matthew, where JC collects four of his apostles, Peter, Andrew, James and John, at the Sea of Galilee, offering to make them “fishers of men“? Or the passage from pseudo-John, where he meets the same four for the first time at the river Jordan?
Or could it possibly be that you are insisting I hunt up and copy those quotations, in order to attempt to frustrate me, a strategy I’ve seen you employ before?
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I’m saying exactly what I said. Do whatever you like its your time. I’m not the type to get all concerned about minor discrepancies.
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Yes, I’ve noticed that evidence doesn’t seem to play a great part in your belief system. I, too, stand by what I’ve said: “Nothing you could show T&, short of the rotting corpse of Jesus Josephson, would make any difference. The man’s head is firmly planted where the sun don’t shine.“
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Evidence does play an important part in my belief system. But I recognize that there might be evidence for X even though X is false.
Accepting that there is some evidence against your own view shows that you are a reasonable person and actually listen to opposing arguments. When someone says there is no evidence for widely held beliefs – such as Christianity – well then its pretty clear they are letting their bias blind them.
As for your comment there is no need to get angry. And in fact if you would not get so emotionally wrapped up in this you might have an easier time understanding opposing views.
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The degree to which a belief is held has nothing to do with its validity, as evidenced that for millennia, it was a widely-held belief that the earth was flat. I’ve yet to see demonstrated any part of that “X” which was true.
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I tend to think beliefs are either true or false. Arguments are valid or invalid. But I agree with your general point. For example it is a widely held belief by many atheists that the church wanted people to believe the earth was flat in the middle ages, even though pretty much all who wrote at the time thought the earth was round.
See the myth of the flat earth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth
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This dialogue appears to becoming a point-scoring contest and as you seem to be having difficulty accepting historical fact it might be best if I bow out of this thread. However, I have a post up that I would be interested in your view. If you feel like popping over and leaving a comment I would appreciate it.
http://attaleuntold.wordpress.com/2014/05/03/why-are-you-a-christian/
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I gave my answer in your blog.
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@ Arch. Re: Wycliff
Yes, poor old Hus and Wycliff.
I have read this before but it is still worthwhile posting at every opportunity for I reckon only a small percentage of people would know this story and especially not many Christians.
Good one, Arch.
http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/cg0_invent.htm
This is an excellent site I stumbled across and contains tons of fascinating info.
Bound to be some stuff you can ”nick” and show someone like T & R .
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RE: “I have read this before” – quite possibly because I posted it on Nate’s site, some time ago. Nothing you could show T&, short of the rotting corpse of Jesus Josephson, would make any difference. The man’s head is firmly planted where the sun don’t shine.
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The website reads like a long rant in which the author sees fit to blame every evil that ever occurred on Christianity.
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I rest my case.
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