Look at the big picture of all the religions. They share more than many are willing to admit…
[/quote]
Yep. Perennialism is certainly an interesting school of thought. People always think they know so much about me and what I believe and so on. I’m sure they’d be surprised to learn I take an interest in the writings of an Islamic Sheikh(Abdul Wahid Yahya - Rene Guenon). Atheists are always under the illusion that they know it all and mostly they don’t even know anything about what they’re trying to undermine. Usually a few quotes from Deuteronomy are proffered as conclusive proof of the immorality of God. He doesn’t come up to their standard.
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
I’m thinking you’re confusing “severity of punishment for wrongs” with “is it moral”, but please elaborate.[/quote]
Na, I used that example on purpose.
Suppose someone attempted to steal your hat. That is all he intended to do.
Now, I would imagine most of us would say that murdering a guy for trying to take your hat is a bit extreme. Indeed, I believe that’s why you asked “Do I know he is simply trying to take my hat, or is it reasonable to assume he’d kill me for said hat if he had to?” You interpreted my statement as being quite extreme for the crime committed, and so you sought to clarify the situation at hand. The questions you asked are all legitimate, and clearly show why my question isn’t a good one.
And therein lies the issue I see. That a victim exists of on itself doesn’t mean a whole lot when it comes to moral issues. It’s the degree of damage the victim receives that people are almost always more concerned with. I very much doubt you’d agree with me attacking a guy with intent to kill for stealing a lollipop from my hand. But suppose the guy stole a briefcase filled with my life savings instead?
Indeed, this is an issue I have with morals in general. They generalize. They seek to find an absolute truth that applies to all given situation. And so they’re sort of useless. We always have to work to specify what they mean and find situations when they may or may not apply.
I’ll focus on the Ten Commandments. One of the Ten Commandments clearly state “Thou shalt not kill”. It seems pretty damned obvious what that means, right? Don’t kill. Period. The End. The Ten Commandment never specifies on it, so we can’t do anything but take it at face value.
Yet the Jews have passages later in the OT clarifying what that means, and in doing so creating what are supposed to be moral and immoral killings.
As I wrote earlier, morals are meaningless unless they’re objective morality. This means that they must be absolutely, undeniably, true. Any other claim to morality is essentially a matter of opinion. The very fact that you have to attempt to clarify a moral renders it subjective, and thus an opinion.
[quote]hmm87 wrote:
That doesn’t make sense to me. That god would teach how to treat slaves while not supporting it. Why not just say that slavery is wrong.[/quote]
I would look at it in it’s historical context, with slavery being relatively common in that time.[/quote]
This doesn’t work. Historical contexts don’t work when you have all-powerful beings like God supposedly giving you the message. Sexmachine wrote earlier that he believes people know in their heart that whether their action is good or bad. Indeed, I believe John touches on a similar topic at one point in the NT. He essentially says that we know in our hearts the ways of God.
This means that there is an objective right and wrong. The only issue is whether we choose to follow it or not. If we do, the we’re righteous. If we don’t, then we’re sinful.
The issue with slavery is that there are passages that seemingly condone it in the Bible. If we take the concept of Biblical inerrancy as truth, then this must mean that slavery is not a big deal. Indeed, our hatred of slavery today would be sinful in the eyes of God.
Or it could be like Countingbeans wrote- We’re interpreting God’s message wrong, and those who wrote the Bible didn’t actually write God’s words. If that is the case, then we can’t trust the Bible on anything, really. The best we can do is trust our hearts. But then that becomes a giant clusterfuck, imo.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Because there is no way to know what is, and what is not, tainted.
[/quote]
Yup.
This is why the concept of Biblical inerrancy is such a big deal. Either the Bible really is written through divine inspiration, and so the overarching themes and messages and what have you are genuinely from God. Or it’s written by men who misinterpreted God/written by men who claimed to speak for God but actually didn’t. In this case the Bible means nothing whatsoever.
Honestly, I’ve long held the opinion that it is very possible that, if God exists, what he considers righteous is very much different from what we consider righteous.
After all, we’re fucking tainted by the fruits from the Garden of Eden and Satan’s whispering. For all you know, what we consider good is just Satan trying to poison our soul!
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Because there is no way to know what is, and what is not, tainted.
[/quote]
Yup.
This is why the concept of Biblical inerrancy is such a big deal. Either the Bible really is written through divine inspiration, and so the overarching themes and messages and what have you are genuinely from God. Or it’s written by men who misinterpreted God/written by men who claimed to speak for God but actually didn’t. In this case the Bible means nothing whatsoever.[/quote]
Good grief. CB gave two possibilities and I responded as well.
The book did not even have to be divinely inspired and scribed by man. It could have magically materialized. Perfect message and all. However, those in power may have not liked certain passages, teachings etc. so, they changed it to benefit them. Add in a thousand years and you have a book that it no longer recognizable.
[quote]xXSeraphimXx wrote:
Good grief. CB gave two possibilities and I responded as well.
The book did not even have to be divinely inspired and scribed by man. It could have magically materialized. Perfect message and all. However, those in power may have not liked certain passages, teachings etc. so, they changed it to benefit them. Add in a thousand years and you have a book that it no longer recognizable.
Not misinterpretation but, manipulation.[/quote]
How does this not fall under “written by men who claimed to speak for God but didn’t”?
If the Bible was manipulated into something that it’s not supposed to be, then it’s no longer useful, correct? We no longer know what the Bible actually contained. Therefore we have no idea whether any information within it can be trustworthy or not.
I don’t even understand the point of making the argument that people manipulated the Bible into something that it’s not supposed to be.
[quote]hmm87 wrote:
So you’re telling me an omnipotent being can’t properly communicate with it’s creation? [/quote]
No. I’m telling you that it is arrogant beyond belief to think that:
a) Humans made no mistake in the interpretation of the omnipotent
b) Humans were pure in thought, mind and expression while scribing the book.
Yes. It doesn’t make sense to you because you’re trying to place the blame on God and not on man, which is the ultimate of folly. You’re giving humans way too much credit.
I’ve done no such thing, and we’ve been over this a few times now.
Christianity doesn’t have a dark past, the people involved have done dark things and used Christianity to gain their lust for power.
Your arrogance is astounding. Not only do you assume God is the fallible one, but you also assume I’ve not considered the possibilities quite a bit.
[/quote]
If man is fallible it is because god made us that way. Assuming that man was created by god. So if god gave us a message that we cannot comprehend then that is not man’s fault. Why would an omnipotent being give a message to it’s fallible creation knowing very well we would not fully understand it? Only way this would be true is if he wanted us to mess up or he messed up.
Clearly an omnipotent being would know better and would have no problem delivering a message for it’s creation to understand. Also such a being would not need us to write down his message and ineffectively pass it on.
So you’re the one limiting god’s ability and thus implying his fallibility.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Because there is no way to know what is, and what is not, tainted.
[/quote]
Yup.
This is why the concept of Biblical inerrancy is such a big deal. Either the Bible really is written through divine inspiration, and so the overarching themes and messages and what have you are genuinely from God. Or it’s written by men who misinterpreted God/written by men who claimed to speak for God but actually didn’t. In this case the Bible means nothing whatsoever.[/quote]
Good grief. CB gave two possibilities and I responded as well.
The book did not even have to be divinely inspired and scribed by man. It could have magically materialized. Perfect message and all. However, those in power may have not liked certain passages, teachings etc. so, they changed it to benefit them. Add in a thousand years and you have a book that it no longer recognizable.
Not misinterpretation but, manipulation.[/quote]
Don’t know why this is so hard for him to understand or at least consider.
Oh I’m perfectly aware of the silly pretzels into which the faithful have twisted themselves in order to try and forget all the nonsense in their book. Note that, above, I said “OK with” rather than “approves of” – and for that very reason, no less.
If an omnipotent/omniscient/omnibenevolent being is talking to you about slavery, in a book in which he’s telling you all about what’s wrong or right, and does not mention that slavery is unequivocally among the former, then either he is OK with it, or he is not omnipotent/omniscient/omnibenevolent.[/quote]
We probably need to clarify what we’re talking about. When you refer to “slavery,” what are you talking about? I imagine that God is perfectly okay with one voluntarily working for another in exchange for a place to live/food to eat/whatever.
And all I read was how to treat slaves, not to enslave.
I may have missed the passage about this.
[/quote]
Matty, you’re a good guy, and a thoughtful one. So please take this in the spirit in which it’s offered.
You are not going to find answers from sources with agendas.
The site you quoted is an evangelical Christian website. This is their agenda:
Assist individual Christians and the church in growing in knowledge and understanding of the Christian life;
Bear witness to God’s truth, beauty and holiness, and to the Lordship of Christ in every area of life;
Help bring men, women, and children to Christ as their Lord and Savior;
Glorify our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in every way.
Not criticising this agenda in any way, just saying that one cannot expect them to be objective about the Hebrew Bible, particularly the awkward bits.
For example, the reason you missed, say, Leviticus 25:44-45 (which tells the Israelites exactly who they are allowed to enslave) is because it does not abet the cause of glorifying Jesus.
And notice that the site quotes Ephesians 6:6-8, but leaves out the crucial verse 5, in which Paul tells the slaves of Ephasus that they should obey their earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as they would obey Christ.
Not, it should be noted, that they should throw off their chains and assert their right to be free men and women. Because let’s face it: in the first century, the truths that all men were created equal, and that they were endowed by their creator with the unalienable rights to life, liberty and property, was not held to be self-evident by anybody. Not even by Paul, and not even, I daresay (at the risk of offending somebody) by Jesus.
But I digress.
If you want to know what the Bible really says about anything, then read it. Don’t read a bowdlerised regurgitation of carefully picked cherries presented by people who want you to think about it in a certain way.
It goes without saying that this goes for anything I write, as well. I may deny that I have an agenda, but of course I’m full of shit. As are we all.
But if you’re pressed for time, here is a better source than open bible.info.
Shalom
PS: Don’t be fooled by the word “bondservant”, a word that you’ll encounter quite a bit. The words 'eved in Hebrew and doulos in Greek mean “slave”. Yeah, ‘bondservant’ sounds milder, but not really, when you think about it. A bondservant is a servant who is in bondage. In other words, a slave.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Not, it should be noted, that they should throw off their chains and assert their right to be free men and women. Because let’s face it: in the first century, the truths that all men were created equal, and that they were endowed by their creator with the unalienable rights to life, liberty and property, was not held to be self-evident by anybody.[/quote]
And no, the irony that this immortal line was penned by an anti-Christian slave-owner is not lost on me.