Most of Numbers and Joshua. Many hundreds of verses, actually.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
American Muslims Are Now More Accepting Of Homosexuality Than White Evangelicals
- Thread starter Saint Frankenstein
- Start date
Who are you responding to?
Socratic Berean
Occasional thinker, perpetual seeker
I press you on your purposeful use of written passages out of context (out of ignorance or, perhaps, design) to support your controversial position and, rather than address the issue, your retort is to insult an entire belief system?
No, they do not; the doubt is in your wild claim. Again, you have resorted to a feint rather than supply a well supported answer. Can you provide some evidence (not conjecture and speculation) that Ezra 1:2 and King Cyrus are behind all the OT covenants, to include the Davidic, Mosaic, and Abrahamic in addition to those I mentioned earlier?
What if you have a kid who ends up being gay? Just wondering.
Sha'irullah
رسول الآلهة
Well, I will be honest @Saint Frankenstein and say that I was always gay for you anyways! I mean that in the most bizarrest of terms.
Let us say Allahu Akbar while we engage in symbolic midair genital thrusts to celebrate our comradery.
Let us say Allahu Akbar while we engage in symbolic midair genital thrusts to celebrate our comradery.
We'll find a solution. But if you're suggesting I might torture her or send her to a straight camp you're insane.
Fair enough. No, I wasn't suggesting that.
I mean no matter what I'll always love her even if can't accept one aspect. I'll make sure she knows that. Maybe she'll be okay with being living a single life. Maybe down the line she'll find that one man she's attracted too.
But the idea of people judging is from the outside with trying other ways just infuriates me
Socratic Berean
Occasional thinker, perpetual seeker
Could you quote for us, in context, a few of these "hundreds of versus" that, according to your post, say "if you want somebody else's land, you should kill all their men, women and boys and keep their virgin girls for yourself..."?
Magus
Active Member
Genesis depicts Abraham coming out of Chaldea , which is a word used to describe the Neo-Babylonian Empire
of Nebuchadnezzar II.
Ezra 5:12
But after that our fathers had provoked the God of heaven unto wrath, he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house, and carried the people away into Babylon.
Ezra 2:1
Now these are the children of the province that went up out of the captivity, of those which had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon
Ezra 4:2
Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers
Throughout the Book of Ezra, the captives were known as 'Chief of the Fathers', in the Hebrew it is ' אָב רֹאשׁ' (Ab ro'sh ) 'רוּם' (Rosh) (Head / Chief /High ) is synonym with 'רֹאשׁ' (Ruwm) (Exalted High) , so the name 'Abraham' is a collective name of the Chaldean Exiles.
Socratic Berean
Occasional thinker, perpetual seeker
Why do you believe this is at the root of the Adamic, Noahic, and many other covenants of Genesis?
Last edited:
No -- we all own bibles, and if we don't, there's no end of online access. Just follow everything you can about the conquest of Canaan (which is pure fiction, by the way, but that's another story) in Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua. You'll find ample evidence of the command "leave alive nothing that breathes." Try Judges and Samuel if you think the evidence is incomplete. Do, for sure, pay careful attention to Numbers 31. Especially the part about killing all the men women and children (along with their animals) but keeping the females who have not known men by lying with them (virgin girls, in case you don't get the language). Ask yourself why the girls to be saved had to be virgins -- what was the reason for that, do you think?
What's more interesting, of course, is that this whole story of the conquest of Canaan is just about total fiction. Israelites didn't so much conquer Canaan as to arise from (or separate themselves from) other Canaanites. But I am not arguing historical veracity here, merely what the Bible says. And it does indeed say what I said it does.
Socratic Berean
Occasional thinker, perpetual seeker
Your decision to not provide a single example from among "the hundreds" that you claim is noted. While the scriptures clearly state that we should not covet anyone's belongings, I (too) cannot come up with a single verse that would imply, less state, that "if you want somebody else's land, you should kill all their men, women and boys and keep their virgin girls for yourself...". If this is to be an intellectually honest forum, please be more honest in your claims against scripture.
Socratic Berean
Occasional thinker, perpetual seeker
I am certain that your personal, idealized, individualized definition of morality (as exercised in the bubble of your very small part of this greater planet) has it merits, as even did the Nazi version of morality in its day and place. That said, have we not learned from historical example (this German particular one among many), that a mental construct that allows for individually defined and changeable concepts of morality is inadequate for an optimized civil society? Under such a construct, why is your morality any more fair than Hitler's? If we all get to define morality however we like, then do we not need to accept the consequences as a natural extension of this paradigm? Is it not imprudent, in the face of historical example, to continue to entertain the notion that each of us should be able to have an individually defined, malleable, concept of morality and that, then, all will be well for human kind?
Sorry, but we DO all get to define morality for ourselves. I obey the laws created by the humans in the country where I live. I accept and follow the social norms and standards that make it comfortable to people to interact with one another in social, business and other interactions. But if I decide I want to wank 6 times every day in private, and the Bible says I mustn't, I don't give a rat's patoot.
Socratic Berean
Occasional thinker, perpetual seeker
Is personal comfort, to include your freedom of masturbation rights, really the foundational issue that society should focus on when considering this matter? Isn't this an adult version of the detrimental practice in children's organized sports that "everyone gets a trophy"?
I agree that we all have the freedom of choice to invent a personal definition for morality and then live our lives according to that individually constructed set of boundaries, but that does not mean it is the best model for civil society. Under the construct that you describe, we are left in a world where--since everyone makes their own moral law--it is okay for an African mother to put her daughter under the knife for genital mutilation, a South Asian brother to kill his sister for the sake of family honor, a Central American snakehead to traffick humans, a southern white supremacist group to exist and preach hate in the United States, and early Christian Europeans to commit atrocities under the cover of twisted scripture in the Crusades.
Since your focus is on comfort, are you really comfortable with all that individualized moral law allows for, from your earlier Nazi examples to other abhorrences found in history to modern day travesties like the ones I mention here?
Last edited:
You are missing too much, and glossing too much. In particular, you are glossing over the fact that some cultural practices, which might (just MIGHT) be legal in some nations and jurisdictions are quite illegal in others. Consider you comment regarding female genital mutilation (FGM): that's illegal in Canada, where I live, and therefore not a "moral" issue at all. Many nations around the world ban FGM, and yet there are probably 140 million women who have been cut, and somewhere around 3 million girls are being cut each year. Most of the civilized west not only bans the practice, but like Canada, England and Australia make it illegal to transport a child to another jurisdiction for the purpose.
In other words, those nations have taken a human-centered stand against a practice that is entirely religion/superstition based.
For my own part, I would also like to the ban the practice of MGM (male genital mutilation), also known as circumcision, unless medically necessary. And yet, oddly, nobody really fusses about this. The practice is huge in some parts of the world. It was once heavily practiced in Canada and the US, but has dropped to around 36% in Canada, but only to 75% or so in the US.
You also neglect another very important point: when I mentioned my right to masturbate, you failed to notice that this is something having to do only with me, myself and I (not to mention, I don't have to buy myself drinks and dinner, or even look my best
). But killing a sister for honor, trafficking humans, preaching hate and committing atrocities under twisted scripture are all things you do to other people. And for me, that is something that is easily understood to be good or bad morally from the religiously ubiquitous "Golden Rule". (My preferred formulation of that, though there are many, is "do not do to others what you would not have others do to you.")(As an aside, I'm surprised that you mention the Crusades under "atrocities under twisted scripture," but not the work of missionaries, which in my view have historically been much the same.)
And again, in most of the world, human law forbids most of these practices. So your attempt to make my stance to be based on "comfort" is really quite misplaced.
Now, let it be clearly understood that I also happen to be homosexual. While I was growing up, that was illegal -- and yes, I disobeyed that law, because I could do no other. Sometimes, our laws are just plain wrong. I would include in that list laws that demand capital punishment, and laws that forbid abortion for any reason, at any time during pregnancy. I would include also any law that forbids the free practice of religion, so long as it does no harm, and freedom of speech and opinion -- with the same caveat. (Note, however, that that would make the Jewish and frequently Muslim practice of MGM, currently not barred by law, into something that ought to be barred in the absence of a real medical reason, certified by a licensed physician.)
Do you find my non-religion-based moral reasoning to be so faulty? Why?