[quote]pushharder wrote:
Yes, long, long, long before:
- Sex of that type started causing harmful genetic mutations.
[/quote]
Where are you drawing this from? Obviously not a sacred religious text. Did you literally just make it up?
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:
They claim morality is absolute and noncontextual, only to rationalize cases like you describe as exceptions to the rule. [/quote]
You apparently flunked your Old Testament courses too.
[/quote]
Do you believe the children of Adam and Eve had sex with one another?[/quote]
Yes, long, long, long before:
-
It was forbidden by God.
-
Sex of that type started causing harmful genetic mutations.
Now why did you ask such an irrelevant question in response to my chiding of your eager endorsement of VE’s ignorant post?
[/quote]
I asked because it bears on the question of moral consistency in the bible.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Vires Eternus wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Vires Eternus wrote:
On another occasion men from the tribe of Benjamin raped a prophet’s wife to death with relative impunity. When the prophet solicited the help of the other tribes of Israel to exact justice, (By chopping up his dead wife’s corpse and sending the pieces abroad to the chieftains of the other tribes no less) G-d eventually intervenes on behalf of the Benjaminites, out of compassion for the fact that the birth rate of females within their tribe had been statistically VERY low, and they in trying to observe G-d’s express commandment to marry within their tribe, had been largely ‘doing without’.
[/quote]
By the way my friend, you hopelessly mutilated this story. I don’t know what monastery you studied in but if I were your dad I’d ask, even sue, to get my tuition back. You should be ashamed of yourself as well for not working hard enough and reading your Playboy (for the articles) instead of studying your Bible.
The man was not a prophet.
The cut up woman was not his wife.
God actually intervened on behalf of the Israelites not the Benjamites, exacting justice.
You screwed up the account about the wives that were LATER given to the Benjamites too.
Face it, bud, you aint qualified enough to come in here and shoot from the hip. You’re making yourself look bad. Clean up your act.[/quote]
OK arguably I had to cut shit down considerably, and yes since going the way i’ve chosen, it’s been a long old time since I’ve reviewed this tale. But the gist is true, and you avoid the obvious issue, as my dad a church elder and a hell of a man does as well. You can’t explain G-d’s apparent inconsistencies, so you try to make excuses for him drawn from the immediate or wider context of scripture. [/quote]
Wow, that was an absolute massacre of the story! If you knew anything about the story what is significant about it, is the foreshadowing of the apostles in particular Judas and how he turned toward evil and how he was replaced.[/quote]
Where is that explained? In the adjacent scriptures? Or did bible scholars, after the fact, make the determination that it was a ‘foreshadow’ of future events?
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:
They claim morality is absolute and noncontextual, only to rationalize cases like you describe as exceptions to the rule. [/quote]
You apparently flunked your Old Testament courses too.
[/quote]
Do you believe the children of Adam and Eve had sex with one another?[/quote]
Yes, long, long, long before:
-
It was forbidden by God.
-
Sex of that type started causing harmful genetic mutations.
Now why did you ask such an irrelevant question in response to my chiding of your eager endorsement of VE’s ignorant post?
[/quote]
For the record the post wasn’t ignorant as much as rushed. I didn’t have time to go back and review and also post supporting scripture, because I was immorally robbing the time I did use from my employer as it was. Questions about G-d’s apparent lack of consistency and tolerance of actions he had previously condemned are not new and have been far more eloquently laid out by much better men than I.
Push, you just like to play whack-a-mole and kabosh any reasonable argument, then level condescending and scathing remarks, and GTFOs to shake the weakilings. I’m not intimidated by those tactics any more than FL. Nice try though Alpha Wolf.
[quote]Vires Eternus wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Vires Eternus wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Vires Eternus wrote:
On another occasion men from the tribe of Benjamin raped a prophet’s wife to death with relative impunity. When the prophet solicited the help of the other tribes of Israel to exact justice, (By chopping up his dead wife’s corpse and sending the pieces abroad to the chieftains of the other tribes no less) G-d eventually intervenes on behalf of the Benjaminites, out of compassion for the fact that the birth rate of females within their tribe had been statistically VERY low, and they in trying to observe G-d’s express commandment to marry within their tribe, had been largely ‘doing without’.
[/quote]
By the way my friend, you hopelessly mutilated this story. I don’t know what monastery you studied in but if I were your dad I’d ask, even sue, to get my tuition back. You should be ashamed of yourself as well for not working hard enough and reading your Playboy (for the articles) instead of studying your Bible.
The man was not a prophet.
The cut up woman was not his wife.
God actually intervened on behalf of the Israelites not the Benjamites, exacting justice.
You screwed up the account about the wives that were LATER given to the Benjamites too.
Face it, bud, you aint qualified enough to come in here and shoot from the hip. You’re making yourself look bad. Clean up your act.[/quote]
OK arguably I had to cut shit down considerably, and yes since going the way i’ve chosen, it’s been a long old time since I’ve reviewed this tale. But the gist is true, and you avoid the obvious issue, as my dad a church elder and a hell of a man does as well. You can’t explain G-d’s apparent inconsistencies, so you try to make excuses for him drawn from the immediate or wider context of scripture. [/quote]
Wow, that was an absolute massacre of the story! If you knew anything about the story what is significant about it, is the foreshadowing of the apostles in particular Judas and how he turned toward evil and how he was replaced.[/quote]
Where is that explained? In the adjacent scriptures? Or did bible scholars, after the fact, make the determination that it was a ‘foreshadow’ of future events?[/quote]
Not just bible scholars, but I think bible authors were guilty of this. Matthew comes to mind, in particular. He wrote a lot about how events predicted in the old testament were fulfilled, but many of the predictions were pretty vague, or in some cases were blatantly misrepresented. I remember studying Isaiah’s foretelling of the birth of Immanuel, and being confused because Matthew claimed it was a prophecy of Christ’s birth. In reality, the child was born during Isaiah’s time, as a sign to Ahaz that god would protect Judah from Syria and Israel. And there was another child that was predicted, and was also born: Maher Shalal Hash Baz. See Isaiah 7-9.
Maybe the author of Matthew (which itself is disputed by biblical scholars) felt justified in misquoting old testament scriptures, in the name of affirming faith in Jesus, but it’s pretty blatant in this case.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:
They claim morality is absolute and noncontextual, only to rationalize cases like you describe as exceptions to the rule. [/quote]
You apparently flunked your Old Testament courses too.
[/quote]
Do you believe the children of Adam and Eve had sex with one another?[/quote]
Yes, long, long, long before:
-
It was forbidden by God.
-
Sex of that type started causing harmful genetic mutations.
Now why did you ask such an irrelevant question in response to my chiding of your eager endorsement of VE’s ignorant post?
[/quote]
I asked because it bears on the question of moral consistency in the bible.[/quote]
I see. Well, item number 1 confirms the moral consistency of the Bible in this regard.
By the way, speaking of the Bible and what a society of men would look like that forgets to honor its Creator and possesses no moral code:
Genesis 6[b]
1 When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.
4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days - and also afterward when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
5 The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the LORD said, "I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground for I regret that I have made them. 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
9 This is the account of Noah and his family.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them.[/b]
FL, the above actually gives you some biblical perspective on your hypothetical.[/quote]
Thanks, I understand the biblical perspective that men are corrupt without god, but the scenario was from the perspective of a universe in which there was no god.
On consistency, it seems inconsistent to me that god would sanction incest at one point, and then forbid it at another point.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Vires Eternus wrote:
…Questions about G-d’s apparent lack of consistency and tolerance of actions he had previously condemned are not new and have been far more eloquently laid out by much better men than I.
[/quote]
I understand where you’re coming from and the questions you could raise in that regard could very well be subject matter for another thread.
“Unreasonable argument” would be more accurate.
And don’t take my remarks too personally but you needed to be taken down a peg or two when you sloshed the hog swill of blatant falsehoods all over the thread.
[/quote]
And for the record, even as close as a year ago I would have been standing on the same side as you fist pumping the comeupance of some douchebag like me. But when the subject of the thread came up, I fealt I had the kind of first hand knowledge to at the least contribute.
I guess the individuals answer about the state of man devoid of G-d, and his relative morality apart from G-d, rests greatly in what they take as the primary example of ‘man apart from G-d’.
Evil - Jeffrey Dahmer? Pol Pot? Joseph Stalin?
Or Relatively Good - Francis Crick? Ayn Rand? Andrew Carnegie?
I just don’t personally see there being a whole hell of a lot of difference, and do not feel fundamentally different myself, from a moral perspective.
Edit - So that it doesn’t get taken the wrong way, when I say I don’t see much of a difference, I don’t mean between the two lists I provided, I mean to say that there are equal lists both evil and relatively good of ‘believers’, and therefore I don’t see at least, the relevance of belief in G-d as it relates to morality.
I know that the come back is - “But belief in G-d or not has nothing to do with HIS existence”. But if humans are capable of morality whether or not they ‘believe’ because of something innate that G-d either built into us, or provides by means of his continued existence, then the only unnecessary element is the acknowledgement of / belief in G-d. Why do we need to believe in or worship him if this is not required to be a moral person? Why does he desire or require it?
So that it doesn’t get taken the wrong way, when I say I don’t see much of a difference, I don’t mean between the two lists I provided, I mean to say that there are equal lists both evil and relatively good of ‘believers’, and therefore I don’t see at least, the relevance of belief in G-d as it relates to morality.
I know that the come back is - “But belief in G-d or not has nothing to do with HIS existence”. But if humans are capable of morality whether or not they ‘believe’ because of something innate that G-d either built into us, or provides by means of his continued existence, then the only unnecessary element is the acknowledgement of / belief in G-d. Why do we need to believe in or worship him if this is not required to be a moral person? Why does he desire or require it?
So that it doesn’t get taken the wrong way, when I say I don’t see much of a difference, I don’t mean between the two lists I provided, I mean to say that there are equal lists both evil and relatively good of ‘believers’, and therefore I don’t see at least, the relevance of belief in G-d as it relates to morality.
I know that the come back is - “But belief in G-d or not has nothing to do with HIS existence”. But if humans are capable of morality whether or not they ‘believe’ because of something innate that G-d either built into us, or provides by means of his continued existence, then the only unnecessary element is the acknowledgement of / belief in G-d. Why do we need to believe in or worship him if this is not required to be a moral person? Why does he desire or require it?
Sorry guys, the site is playing havoc with me… I can’t even delete the repeat posts, ‘access denied’.
Guess Push has more Pull then I knew. How many supplements DO you purchase, Push? 
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:
…On consistency, it seems inconsistent to me that god would sanction incest at one point, and then forbid it at another point.[/quote]
Well then, you employed selective reading and omitted item #2 from your consideration. But since your original question was obviously insincere and you, like many of us, are here on PWI with ensconced presuppositions it was…consistent of you.[/quote]
I haven’t seen any evidence for item #2, was hoping you would respond to the request for evidence earlier.
More generally, I see moral inconsistencies throughout the bible. God tells people not to kill, then commands them to bash the heads of infants against the wall. I don’t know of any society today that would sanction infanticide, but it’s clear as day in the bible.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:
They claim morality is absolute and noncontextual, only to rationalize cases like you describe as exceptions to the rule. [/quote]
You apparently flunked your Old Testament courses too.
[/quote]
Do you believe the children of Adam and Eve had sex with one another?[/quote]
Yes, long, long, long before:
-
It was forbidden by God.
-
Sex of that type started causing harmful genetic mutations.
[/quote]
So incest was ok in a certain situation (one may say context), but then it was forbidden. It sounds like you are making the case for moral relativism as it pertains to incest. But rape is clearly still absolutely evil right?
I have a question for you. If it is possible that God has changed his stance on incest before, is it possible that in the future (say perhaps if we find a way to stop the harmful genetic mutations you mentioned) that God might change his stance on incest once again? What if it’s crucial for the existence of the human species?
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:
I haven’t seen any evidence for item #2, was hoping you would respond to the request for evidence earlier.
[/quote]
I’ve done it before, several times, on various creation vs. evolution threads. I distinctly remember you participating in those. I’m not going to the trouble now to go over it again.
Google is your friend.
I completely convinced you do. It’s necessary for you to feel this way in order to facilitate your antipathy toward God and justify your defiance.
[/quote]
I don’t recall you ever providing evidence that sex between Adam and Eve’s children didn’t produce genetic mutations, but I’ll believe you if you say you did.
What is your take on god commanding people to bash the heads of infants against the wall? Morally consistent, or morally inconsistent?
Wow. Way to completely jump down into the mud, take aim at a group, and go completely off topic. Poo flinging and seeing what would stick seems to have made it’s way into this thread, after all. Looks like I got out while the thread still had a shred of respectability and honesty to it. I’d meant to at least follow along and see if anyone had anything new to say about the, you know, topic. What a fool I was. Just retitle the thread “Challenging Christians with biblical passages, for the umpteenth time, when the original topic doesn’t seem to have any traction.” Perhaps it’s too long? Time to mentally file this one away as even a no-reader. Yeesh.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Wow. Way to completely jump down into the mud, take aim at a group, and go completely off topic. Poo flinging and seeing what would stick seems to have made it’s way into this thread, after all. Looks like I got out while the thread still had a shred of respectability and honesty to it. I’d meant to at least follow along and see if anyone had anything new to say about the, you know, topic. What a fool I was. Just retitle the thread “Challenging Christians with biblical passages, for the umpteenth time, when the original topic doesn’t seem to have any traction.” Perhaps it’s too long? Time to mentally file this one away as even a no-reader. Yeesh.[/quote]
Good call 
I’d be interested in your thoughts on my second scenario, but understand if you’re thread tired at this point.