Raf

If God shows through one part of the law that He is not moral (say, prescribing the death penalty in a barbaric manner for a petty offense), but shows through another part of the law that He is capable of establishing a compassionate microeconomic policy, does that make Him moral? I would expect YOU to be able to come up with a compassionate microeconomic policy WITHOUT prescribing the death penalty for a petty offense. That makes you more moral than God, which is the topic of this thread. Mod edit: off topic content deleted.

The topic of this thread, again, is "Are You More Moral than Yahweh? (Spoiler alert: the answer is Yes)." 1. For how many crimes do you feel it is appropriate to kill the perpetrator by having everyone in town surround him and throw heavy rocks at him until he dies? 1.a. Did a child being disobedient to his parents make the list? 1.b. Did picking up sticks after sunset on a Friday make the list? 2. If you were to start a society from scratch, how many laws regulating slavery would you require? 2.a. Would any of those laws crack your Top Ten list? 2.a.i. Why the hell not? 3. What difference should the marital status of a raped woman make in determining the punishment meted out to the rapist? 3a. Who is the victim in a rape case, and how much restitution is he due? 4. You have the ability to instantaneously kill someone by turning him into a pillar of salt. On whom do you demonstrate this ability? A. A couple in the process of fatally torturing their 3-year-old son. B. A modern day pedophile. C. Cain, a split second before he makes Abel the first murder victim. D. A woman fleeing her burning home who takes a look back to watch everything she knows going up in flames. E. Hitler. F. No one. You demonstrate this horrifying ability on no one. Incorrect. I am saying outright that Yahweh is not moral. "Implying" implies that I'm holding back in some way. I am not. Yahweh is immoral. Have a look at question 4 above for an answer to your question.

All Summer Long ?

Dispensationalism is a valiant attempt to put some distance between the patently immoral Law of God recorded in the Old Testament and our modern sensibilities, which have a bit more in common with the New Testament (not withstanding Jesus's wholehearted endorsement of the Old Testament law). Dispensationalism raises many fascinating issues, but I would submit none of those issues have any bearing on the points I am raising.

4. You have the ability to instantaneously kill someone by turning him into a pillar of salt. On whom do you demonstrate this ability? A. A couple in the process of fatally torturing their 3-year-old son. B. A modern day pedophile. C. Cain, a split second before he makes Abel the first murder victim. D. A woman fleeing her burning home who takes a look back to watch everything she knows going up in flames. E. Hitler. F. No one. You demonstrate this horrifying ability on no one.

God had a choice between abolishing slavery (which we deem today to be ALWAYS wrong) and abolishing interest (which can be abused, but is not ALWAYS morally wrong). God chose to abolish interest. And shellfish. Interest and shellfish are banned in the Bible. Slavery is regulated. Would it not have been more moral to ban slavery and regulate interest? Not a rhetorical question. There IS a correct answer.

Please stop referring to it as the "death penalty of this day and age." It was the death penalty prescribed by Yahweh. By definition, it SHOULD be the most moral death penalty ever. Pointing out that it is "equally harsh" in comparison to other cultures only serves to reinforce my point. You are more moral than the God you worship.

And that makes up for stoning a man to death for picking up sticks on the Sabbath? (Not a rhetorical question. There IS a correct answer).

The One who directed that a man be executed by stoning because he worked on the sabbath was Yahweh, not the Hebrews in the desert, not the first century Jews, not the 1960s hippie counterculture. God. Promising that Jesus is going to make it all better someday does not mitigate the fact that Yahweh Himself was singularly responsible for directing a man's brutal execution for a petty, petty offense. If you think that was a moral penalty for his offense, ever, then I have serious doubts about your morality. In reality, I do not doubt your morality at all. But I am somewhat entertained by the contortions you twist yourself into in order to avoid saying yeah, that was a flat out immoral instruction. If it were Allah, you would not hesitate to condemn his barbarism. And you would exhibit not one second of patience for anyone who suggested it was okay then because it was a different time then in a different culture then. There are laws in the Old Testament that are far, far worse than "very harsh." They are cruel, inhumane and (I'll say it again) barbaric. Why should anyone be impressed that Jesus will make it better when Jesus is supposedly the perfect representation of the moral monster who established such a barbaric law in the first place?

please clarify whether you are arguing for my position or against it. I am having trouble keeping up with you. Mod Edit: The issue of who was first to bring up first century Jews is off topic. All references from this post onward are being deleted. My question is whether you are more moral than God. You are.

So you agree that the Old Testament law was not God's law? What Jewish leaders were doing in the first century is totally irrelevant to this discussion and my point. It would be nice if you stayed on topic. For this, see my posts.

that's just proved to me that the law of Israel was no different from all the other man made laws. are you seriously arguing that it was moral to execute a man by stoning him to death for the crime of picking up sticks on the Sabbath? are you seriously arguing that there is a moral way for one human being to literally own another? I would expect the perfect law of a perfectly moral God to be more moral and to stand out from the moral codes or the legal codes of other cultures.I would not expect the perfect the law of a perfect God to be indistinguishable from the savage and brutal legal codes of other cultures of the time. quibbling about which Greek word Jesus used while speaking Aramaic to his disciples does nothing to undermine a single point I am making.

Is that really true? Do all the law and the prophets really hang on the principle of love God and/or love your neighbor as yourself? When a man rapes a married woman, he is to be executed by stoning. If it's in the country, the married woman's life is spared. If it's in the city and she doesn't scream, then she's executed too. Because she could have yelled for help but didn't. Apparently in those days, "Make a sound and I'll kill you" hadn't been invented yet. So they are executed. BY stoning. A punishment that we reserve today for... NO ONE, because it's a flipping barbaric practice. I guess God didn't know then that it was barbaric. Otherwise, maybe "thou shalt not stone people" would have been right there next to "thou shalt not own people," another commandment He found no room for while He was banning midgets from his tabernacle. I swear I didn't make that up. But good news! If the rapist goes after an unmarried woman, she will not be killed! WHEW! Neither will the rapist. [Wait, what?] No, the rapist pays the victim 50 shekels. Oh, and by the victim, I mean the girl's father. The victim is not the one who was pinned down and forcibly violated. It's her father. The rapist also has to marry the girl. Because, you know, justice. I mean, heh heh, what's the father going to do, pass her off to some other man even though she's no longer a virgin? So dad gets rid of his damaged property, and he gets his 50 shekels. Meanwhile the rapist is saddled with a wife, a life sentence. Was there EVER a time when this was moral? How about, "Thou shalt not force yourself on a woman. Ever. And the punishment is the same whether the woman is married, unmarried, cute, ugly, a harlot, a nun, ANY WOMAN. Thou shalt not rape!" Surely we can move another equally necessary commandment out of the way to make room for something important like banning rape -- like the commandment against cooking a young goat in its mothers milk (which actually made the Top Ten. Well, the second Top Ten, the only set of laws actually CALLED "The Ten Commandments" in the Bible. You can find the list in Exodus 34. Is the concept of cooking a goat in its mother's milk covered by loving God or loving your neighbor as yourself? I can see why it gets a higher place than "thou shalt not stone people" and "thou shalt not own people." After all... Ok, I lied, I can't think of a single reason why goat cooking gets a commandment but the buying and selling of human beings as property does not). A different law for a different culture? A barbaric law for a barbaric culture. An immoral law for a culture that had a LOT to learn. Not the "holy, just and good" law of a loving God who could have instituted any law he wanted.

When you have a God who embodies morality, his law should embody morality. The Law does not. Either it is not God's law, in which case, oopsie, or Yahweh is not moral. The only other alternative is, slavery IS moral, stoning is a moral punishment for a petty misdemeanor, and marrying the person you raped is a fitting punishment for a rapist.

Really? Why could an omniscient God not make "Thou shalt not OWN PEOPLE" a commandment? He found plenty of time to ban lobster and shrimp. Different laws for a different culture? A morally just God was creating a society from scratch. He answered to NO ONE. All he had to do was say the word, and thousands of years of human suffering at the hands of our fellow man would have been averted. When was it EVER moral on ANY culture for a rapist to be "sentenced" to marry the woman he raped? Please.

1. For how many crimes do you feel it is appropriate to kill the perpetrator by having everyone in town surround him and throw heavy rocks at him until he dies? 1.a. Did a child being disobedient to his parents make the list? 1.b. Did picking up sticks after sunset on a Friday make the list? 2. If you were to start a society from scratch, how many laws regulating slavery would you require? 2.a. Would any of those laws crack your Top Ten list? 2.a.i. Why the hell not? 3. What difference should the marital status of a raped woman make in determining the punishment meted out to the rapist? 3a. Who is the victim in a rape case, and how much restitution is he due? To be continued...

"One often meets his destiny on the path he takes to avoid it."

Ruminating

I haven't forgotten this thread. It's just not a priority.

Another aspect of the outsider test: Listen to your own argument. Would you accept that argument coming from someone defending a different religion? If not, on what basis would you reject it? Now, apply that basis to your own faith.

I reject the book of Mormon because it makes demonstrably false claims about history, demonstrating that it is not based on a deity who has knowledge of the truth. I reject the Q'uran for the same reasons. I reject Jehovah's Witnesses because they made specific prophecies that failed to come to pass. I reject Scientology because it presents false information about human origins and ethereal nonsense about why people suffer physical and psychological ailments. Followers of those religions would be perfectly willing to testify on their behalf with stories nearly identical to those told by WW and Twinky in this thread. Any follower of any religion could say exactly the same thing. As an outsider, why should I give your testimony any more weight than the testimony of a sincere Muslim, a sincere Scientologist, a sincere Mormon, a sincere Jehovah's Witness, a sincere anythingist? Do you see how your responses do not reflect an outsider's approach? Are you treating your religion the way you treat other religions? WW, do you mean to tell me you subject the Bible to the same critical scrutiny that you would subject other "holy" books? Do you mean to tell me that you would accept another religion's tortured explanations for why a blatant contradiction really isn't a contradiction if you understand this and that and the other thing, so really, the cock crowed six times and not three? [if I read earlier threads correctly, I haven't seen you seriously consider the notion that the Bible can contain actual errors or contradictions until recently, and I have yet to see you accept that notion]. The book of Mormon contains numerous claims about North and South American history that are historically false. How do you dismiss the Mormon's faith in the historicity of those debunked claims while maintaining that the Exodus, which never happened, is historically true? Seriously, it didn't. Look it up. Moses has as much historical documentation as the prophet Moroni. Name the Pharoah in Exodus. If you answered "I can't," you win a prize for honesty. People have tried to figure it out for centuries. Would have saved a lot of time if the Bible had just named him, but the (very human and very late) writer of Exodus didn't bother to tell you who he was. Why not? [Coming soon, Actual Errors in Exodus]. If I can reject the Book of Mormon on the basis that it presents a fictional account that is passed off as history, why shouls anyone protest if I reject the Book of Exodus on precisely the same grounds? THAT is the outsider test for faith. Subject YOUR religion to the same scrutiny, the same healthy skepticism, the same intolerance for weak, apologetic nonsense to which you would subject ANY OTHER religious claim. Is that what you've done? If so, congratulations! Your faith passes the outsider test! Really! Really?

Speaking only for myself, no other religion EVER had a chance with me. The Bible was true, period. The only issue was, who was right about what it says? What is the correct Biblical doctrine? That there WAS a correct Biblical doctrine, that the Bible WAS the ultimate source of truth, was something I never denied or even seriously questioned. If you were to ask me, "on what grounds do you accept the Bible as truth?" I would not be able to give you an answer that was any different from the way a Muslim would answer about the Q'uran, a Mormon about the Book of Mormon, a Scientologist about Dianetics, etc. As an outsider, it was easy for me to reject the ridiculous claims of those other books. But I never subjected the Bible to the same critical thinking that I subjected those books to. And now, as an outsider to Christianity, when I subject the Bible to the same critical thinking, it fails. Spectacularly. Its history is not history. Its morality is not moral. Its laws are not just. If the Bible were the claim of ANY other faith, I would reject it wholesale. That's my feeling, anyway.

I want you to stop and think for a moment about why you are not a Muslim. Or a Hindu. Or a Jehovah's Witness. Or a Buddhist. Or a Mormon. Or a Scientologist. What is it about those religions that you reject? What standard are you holding those religions to, and how/why do they fail to meet your standards of acceptance? If you're like most Christians, your standard is The Bible, but there's a problem there. You may reject Islam because it is in conflict with the Bible, but what of the Muslim, for whom the Bible is not sacred? Isn't a Muslim who rejects Christianity because Christianity is in conflict with the Q'uran on preceisely the same logical ground as a Christian who rejects Islam because Islam is in conflict with the Bible? *** Karl Kahler, in his book on The Way International titled "The Cult That Snapped," made an interesting observation about PFAL. He noted, accurately, that Wierwille declared "the Bible is the revealed Word and will of God" without doing a single thing to prove it. PFAL takes for granted that the Bible is true. Nothing wrong with that, but there it is. PFAL offers the critical thinker no reason to accept the Bible as true. It is not an apologetic work. It doesn't really claim to be. *** The former evangelical turned atheist John Loftus developed what he calls "the outsider test for faith" as a way to get people to understand why he is no longer a Christian. The idea is simple: Approach your faith/religion the same way an outsider to your faith/religion would approach it (and please, let's not get into a semantic war over faith/religion/whatever word you want there. You know full well what I mean). Why should the outsider accept your faith? Remember, NO aspect of your faith can be taken for granted. Otherwise, you're not an outsider. "I would accept my faith because it is consistent with the Bible" assumes that being consistent with the Bible is a value. An outsider would not think that. An outsider would think there are no holy books, or that some other book is holy. If you approached Christianity the same way you approach every other religion, would it win you over?

What do you mean "y'all"? I did not address you, John Maybe he meant "y'all without distinction." Or is that "y'all with a distinction"? Tough to keep track.

"I see you like to chew. Maybe you should chew ON MY FIST!"