Reclaiming The Bible For A Non Religious World

philologos

ShooterSF: That discussion has been had in depth on the Atheist / Existence of God Debates megathread on the Christianity forum in a never ending discussion between PDN and Zombrex. There's not one mention of rape in that passage, in fact there is a Biblical precedent against rape both in 1 Samuel 13:1-39, and Genesis 39:1-31. You should get the jist of the argument by looking through the last 10 or so pages.

Where I stand on that one is that it is a civil law for the Torah bound State of Israel which no longer exists. Christians aren't ruling a State nor was Christianity intended to, therefore we submit to our own authorities as in Romans 13, over imposing our own as the Hebrews did over Israel.

I'm in favour of keeping that one all in one place. There's nothing pathetic about it though, PDN has done an excellent job at responding to critics on the other thread.

ShooterSF

philologos wrote: »

ShooterSF: That discussion has been had in depth on the Atheist / Existence of God Debates megathread on the Christianity forum in a never ending discussion between PDN and Zombrex. There's not one mention of rape in that passage, in fact there is a Biblical precedent against rape both in 1 Samuel 13:1-39, and Genesis 39:1-31. You should get the jist of the argument by looking through the last 10 or so pages.

Where I stand on that one is that it is a civil law for the Torah bound State of Israel which no longer exists. Christians aren't ruling a State nor was Christianity intended to, therefore we submit to our own authorities as in Romans 13, over imposing our own as the Hebrews did over Israel.

I'm in favour of keeping that one all in one place. There's nothing pathetic about it though, PDN has done an excellent job at responding to critics on the other thread.

Erm in no case did I mention the word rape. I mentioned taking a woman as your wife as spoils of war. Now how intercourse occurs after such an event I'll leave to one's imagination.

Also before I get to the meat of the topic both Zombrex and PDN are highly articulate posters, something I could only dream of being and if I ever want to debate the meaning of scripture with you I'll head over there. For now take it that I accept all your points on passages true meanings.

The word pathetic was also used in reference to the clarity or lack thereof of a book of moral objective rules laid out by god to follow through my life.

Here you have ticked the boxes "context" "need to read other's explanation" and a whole new one "relative to a small group at a small time civil law not easily indistinguishable from god's all time moral objective law". That I have to read (assuming a basic 15 post a page) 150 posts on the subject just to get an idea of the true meaning of one passage I will spend a lifetime getting through the book learning the true objective laws and will be long dead before I finished and got to apply them. That is pathetic on god's part and lazy too.
I picked out 4 verses I think, a quick google tells me approx 31,000 verses.

Say I took this passage:

22:21 Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Be kind to strangers, widows, and fatherless children.
22:22 Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child.
22:23 If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry;
22:24 And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.

I'd have to do a tonne of research there too to make sure those seemingly good rules are actually god's moral objective law because there is exactly the same amount of text around it to tell me if it is or not (none) than the previous passage.

And I'm in the age of information! I can only imagine hoe people a 1000 years ago who lived shorter lives and had less access to the reams of explanations available were meant to understand god's laws and then implement them.

philologos

The passage explains that it is permissible to take such a woman as ones wife. It doesn't describe the mechanism by which that happens.

I don't see how you would have to do a tonne of research to understand the principle you quoted in Exodus given that God has shown us what happened in that case throughout the earlier chapters of that book. Familiarity with the Bible is essential for familiarity with God. In order to understand why God commands something. Also reading the Bible isn't primarily for ethical consideration, but for wider consideration of who God is and who we are in His sight. As a Christian, I regard the Bible as much more valuable than just a book of ethics, it's a book about God and about us too.

Sarky

So we just have to know which bits to ignore to see the truth, eh?

RichieC

Its pretty clear the bible is a book of its time and not the eternal word of a massless, timeless creator.

Back then the spoils of war, including the women folk was a given. So obviously the men of the day had it justified by god. Slavery and indentured servitude too.

You have to pretty much do backflips to change its meaning these days.

Americans justified their racsism using the bible. Some will still use it to justify their objections to interracial marriage.

Who knows, in 50 years it might be really unacceptable to be anti gay and the christians will be doing backflips to reinterprit the relevant passage regarding that.

Galvasean

RichieC wrote: »

Who knows, in 50 years it might be really unacceptable to be anti gay and the christians will be doing backflips to reinterprit the relevant passage regarding that.

They've already started. I've heard plenty of them say things along the lines of, "It's not a sin to be gay.... but the act of sodomy is."

Plautus

Galvasean wrote: »

They've already started. I've heard plenty of them say things along the lines of, "It's not a sin to be gay.... but the act of sodomy is."

They've been trying that on for size for more than 20 years: in the Catholic Church at least.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19861001_homosexual-persons_en.html

If you want a complete 180, I've heard gay Anglicans who believe that Leviticus condemns adultery and not homosexuality in the relevant passage. Wonders never cease.

Also, stuff like this alludes to some mental gymnastics now being performed to 're-interpret' Paul: http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5301

Face it. Christianity is pretty **** if you're gay.

ShooterSF

philologos wrote: »

The passage explains that it is permissible to take such a woman as ones wife. It doesn't describe the mechanism by which that happens.

Are you saying god had to spell out that if you met a nice girl in a country you invaded it was ok to marry her?

He went about it in rather ambiguous wording then.

I don't see how you would have to do a tonne of research to understand the principle you quoted in Exodus given that God has shown us what happened in that case throughout the earlier chapters of that book.

But mentions you were strangers in Egypt. Perhaps only the hebrew Israel that no longer exists is not allowed to vex a stranger where as I must?! Of course the fact that common sense (or my relative morality) tells me I shouldn't vex a neighbour or take a woman as spoils of war is rather coincidental!

Familiarity with the Bible is essential for familiarity with God. In order to understand why God commands something. Also reading the Bible isn't primarily for ethical consideration, but for wider consideration of who God is and who we are in His sight. As a Christian, I regard the Bible as much more valuable than just a book of ethics, it's a book about God and about us too.

Fair enough but it fails miserably if we treat it as a book of ethics and as it's the only source of god's laws it leaves us with great problems.The least your god could do if he asks I try my best to follow his laws is lay them out in a way that doesn't require me having to research the true meaning of passages. Clear and concise please.

On a side note I wonder how many passages are misinterpreted as evil (like my slavery one) by our societies moral relativism's standards and actually when properly understood match them (or don't contradict them) as opposed to how many are misinterpreted as good by the same standards but are actually evil (evil to our moral relativism, obviously not god's objective one). You would think it would be 50/50 yet any passage that I misunderstand seems to be the ones that seem evil to me. No one ever says a passage I think is actually good only applied to the Israelites and actually god wants us to do something I think would be bad...

krudler

philologos wrote: »

As for God's morality, I don't believe it did change. The same ethical principles exist in the Old as in the New, what is different is how they are judged. One is under the light of the law of Moses, the other is in light of the grace of Christ. The Bible clearly shows this in both the Old and New Testaments, simply looking at Jeremiah 31:31-34, and the book of Hebrews in the New Testament will tell you as to what impact Christ's coming into the world has on our relationship with God. Reading through the Bible as a whole is what is advisable. How can one criticise a book without aiming to be familiar with it? That's my objection to most atheists use of Scripture. Even though the penalties of the Old Testament are no longer in place due to the coming of Christ, the ethical commands of the Jewish law stand.

Moses who was talking directly to god, and christ, who is one and the same as god is he not? isnt god just contradicting himself then between two historical periods?