Ex Christians

[Vadergirl123]

So the Bible is wrong. Is that what you're saying?

No, I'm saying you can't say that the test was fallible as a fact b/c you weren't there to observe it. You have no evidence to prove what you're saying. You're making assumptions and forming ideas based on tehm, but you have no way to prove your ideas.

 

[Vadergirl123]

You keep evading them, you mean. Ha ha.

No, I've answered all of them(or the ones I've seen anyway. I'm sure I missed over some of them) but most have been answered

 

[Vadergirl123]

These were God's instructions to human beings, according to you. God wasn't carrying these punishments out himself, he instructed the Israelites to do it. In your religion, humans are fallible, right?

The elders of the town were presented with proof yes, and if the charge against the girl was false she wasn't killed, but if it was true she wasn't a virgin then she was. Yes I do believe human beings are fallible.

I think it's really interesting how you can claim the Bible is the perfect basis for morality and also claim it's incomplete, misleading or incorrect when it openly advocates evil.

The Bible isn't incomplete. Everything in it is what God wants us to know. I said the other forms of proof weren't mentioned. Now it can be misleading at times(but that's the fault of the reader NOT God) and I've never said it was incorrect.

Even if you insist on deluding yourself that a perfect virginity test exists, in your heart, you must know it's wrong to murder girls who fail to pass it.

I believe it's wrong to murder inoccent girls yes. When did I say, "I think it's right to murder a girl who didn't pass a test." Give me the page number and post.

 

[Alceste]

Yeah I know, but the deeds they commit are done in the name of a god they've formed in their own minds. The God of the Bible didn't want them to do the crusades or the witch burnings.

Because her parents were given the chance to present proof of her virginity.(and before you ask I've already said I don't know what the proof was)

IOW, You think the Bible is lying when it tells you unambiguously that the proof was a bloody sheet.

 

[Vadergirl123]

Then why create a law requiring that we be killed if or parents fail to produce a bloody sheet from the wedding night?

The law was created to have girls who had been, "promiscuous in their father's house" killed. Not girls who didn't ahev a bloody sheet. Again it's like you're saying a boy's punished for having chocolate on his mouth.

Surely if He didn't want innocent women killed he would have given his COMPLETE instructions on determining guilt or innocence

Obviously the Israelites didn't have any problems with these instructions. If they had God would've given more descriptiv ones or possibly changed the law.

 

[Vadergirl123]

How would you know if I was innocent?

If you wnat to get technical I woudln't know. I'm not a jewish elder.

The Bible says it all hinges on whether or not a bloody sheet can be produced. Don't you believe in the Bible?

No it doesn't, it says proof had to be offered. Btw if inoccent girls had started getting killed God would've changed the law. He wanted Israel to be a special nation that represented him. He wouldn't have allowed other cultures to look at them as having an unjust law that killed inoccents.

 

[Alceste]

Yes I would cheer for those who enforce God's rules. But God doesn't say to kill a woman who doesn't bleed, nor does he say to kill a woman who's a virgin. So I'd have no reason to cheer for anyone doing those things, since God didn't command them to.

Your assumption that it is more likely that Jewish women always bleed on their first time than it is that the law is unfair tells me everything I need to know about whether you'd be gleefully hurling stones at a girl who didn't bleed. Your idea of morality is absolutely terrifying to me.

 

[Vadergirl123]

Maybe better not to try and justify Hebrew laws.

It would be easier to just dismiss this law and say it doesn't matter. However I don't like people saying things about God that's not true.

Maybe easier to just stick with justifying Jesus?

If they wanted I'm sure they could find some verse to show Jeus as being some tyrant or murderer. You can pull verses out of context and use them incorrectly to show just about anything you want. It's very sad that people come up with arguments that aren't based on what the Bible says so much as on their own ideas of who God is.

 

[Tarheeler]

Ya know, the forum has this cool feature that let's you quote multiple posts in a single response.....

 

[Alceste]

No, I'm saying you can't say that the test was fallible as a fact b/c you weren't there to observe it. You have no evidence to prove what you're saying. You're making assumptions and forming ideas based on tehm, but you have no way to prove your ideas.

You are the one who claims the Bible is the true word of God, and that it contains everything we need as a moral guide. But you are also saying the bloody sheet as proof of virginity NOT the true word of God because it is missing essential information. What are the other places where God fails to include essential information in his laws that would help determine guilt or innocence in a matter of life and death?

 

[Alceste]

God's just, he woudn't have allowed an inoccent to die.

What of Jephthah's daughter?

Bump.

Judges 11:29-38

29 Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites. 30 And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, 31 whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering. ”

32 Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into his hands. 33 He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon.

34 When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of timbrels! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. 35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, “Oh no, my daughter! You have brought me down and I am devastated. I have made a vow to the Lord that I cannot break. ”

36 “My father,” she replied, “you have given your word to the Lord. Do to me just as you promised, now that the Lord has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. 37 But grant me this one request,” she said. “Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry.”

38 “You may go,” he said. And he let her go for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. 39 After the two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Bump.

Judges 11:29-38

29 Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites. 30 And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, 31 whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering. ”

32 Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into his hands. 33 He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon.

34 When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of timbrels! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. 35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, “Oh no, my daughter! You have brought me down and I am devastated. I have made a vow to the Lord that I cannot break. ”

36 “My father,” she replied, “you have given your word to the Lord. Do to me just as you promised, now that the Lord has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. 37 But grant me this one request,” she said. “Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry.”

38 “You may go,” he said. And he let her go for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. 39 After the two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin.

But but but but.......but.....she wasn't innocent. She was a sacrifice made to fulfill a promise. And so it wasn't murder. It was okay. It really was okay. *rocks back and forth repeating this over and over again*

 

[Alceste]

But but but but.......but.....she wasn't innocent. She was a sacrifice made to fulfill a promise. And so it wasn't murder. It was okay. It really was okay. *rocks back and forth repeating this over and over again*

The Bible doesn't say she was killed. Maybe Jewish women didn't suffer and die when they were offered to God as a burnt sacrifice. Maybe they had some other method of making human sacrifices to God that didn't cause death. I don't know. All I know is God would never ever ever ever ever let an innocent person die. Besides, you weren't there so you don't know what happened.

 

[Nakosis]

It would be easier to just dismiss this law and say it doesn't matter. However I don't like people saying things about God that's not true.

Where does your certainty about what God is like come from? If you say from the Bible, that what others are doing. Relying on what they understand the Bible to be saying.

I have an idea of what I think God is like. I have no certainty.

I don't think something that is true needs to be defended. If it is true then it remains only for the individual to discover it's truthfulness. Not for me to convince them that it is true.

If they wanted I'm sure they could find some verse to show Jeus as being some tyrant or murderer. You can pull verses out of context and use them incorrectly to show just about anything you want. It's very sad that people come up with arguments that aren't based on what the Bible says so much as on their own ideas of who God is.

But Jesus is your mentor. Not the Hebrew or the Hebrew teachings. If you want to become a Jew, that's a different story. It's their religion, their beliefs, their views. You are not going to beat them at their own belief.

Look the motivation is to discredit Christianity by discrediting the Bible and thereby discrediting the Christian God. Or at least the Christian concept of God.

Jesus is the base, or should be IMO, of the Christian concept. Why is there a need for a Christian to defend anything beyond what Jesus said? Yes someone may take it out of context but it is with Jesus your focus and understanding should be. If you work on understanding Jesus, what else do you need?

You want to defend the Hebrew Bible, go ahead. I just don't think as a Christian you should feel a requirement to in order to justify your faith in Jesus and what he taught.

 

[Alceste]

Look the motivation is to discredit Christianity by discrediting the Bible and thereby discrediting the Christian God. Or at least the Christian concept of God.

That was a brilliant post, first off.

If I can nitpick over this single point, I have no interest in discrediting Christianity. I think the world would be a much better place if people really got the gist of Jesus' ethical philosophy and tried to apply it in their lives, as many Christians do.

I do have an interest in defeating the claim that the Bible is the inerrant, literal word of God, because this ideology causes enormous social harm.

Vadergirl made a claim (about 4000 pages ago) that the Bible is the ONLY valid source of morality. That is what I am discrediting. I think I've done a pretty good job of showing the social harm of that ideology too, by bringing Vadergirl to the point of confessing that she herself would accept or participate in just such a murder without a whisper of doubt or regret in her heart, because she believes God can not do wrong and the Bible communicates the will of God. This is the exact same mentality that continues to cause women to be murdered to please Allah.

 

[Nakosis]

That was a brilliant post, first off.

If I can nitpick over this single point, I have no interest in discrediting Christianity. I think the world would be a much better place if people really got the gist of Jesus' ethical philosophy and tried to apply it in their lives, as many Christians do.

I do have an interest in defeating the claim that the Bible is the inerrant, literal word of God, because this ideology causes enormous social harm.

Vadergirl made a claim (about 4000 pages ago) that the Bible is the ONLY valid source of morality. That is what I am discrediting. I think I've done a pretty good job of showing the social harm of that ideology too, by bringing Vadergirl to the point of confessing that she herself would accept or participate in just such a murder without a whisper of doubt or regret in her heart, because she believes God can not do wrong and the Bible communicates the will of God. This is the exact same mentality that continues to cause women to be murdered to please Allah.

Ok, fair enough. I wasn't trying to be specific to anyone. I was thinking more in terms with some Atheists I've dealt with in the past trying to use contradictions in the Bible to disprove the general concept of the Christian God.

I think it is wrong to use religion as an excuse for my actions. They are either humane or they are not. I don't need God to make that determination for me.

(Also equally wrong to allow someone else to use religion as an excuse for their actions.)

There is no excuse for the mistreatment of another human being. Unfortunately in the OT there is plenty of that.

 

[Rakhel]

Babylonian Talmud Kethuboth 10b Babylonian Talmud: Kethuboth 10
And brought down to The Shulchan Aruch (Even Haezer Siman 68)
This is where my confusion between the time periods came from. The Shulchan Aruch is the code of Jewish Law. It was written by Rabbi Caro in about 1563, while the Talmud is a much older set of books.

 

[Heathen Hammer]

God's just, he woudn't have allowed an inoccent to die. That's not really an assumption

It's definitely an assumption. And as I have been grittingly pointing out, it's an assumption not borne out by evidence.

I've never said there was a "better method," Here I'll change the word from method and say the parents might've brought some form of proof other than a cloth.

Basically you're casting around violently for any excuse not to understand that your argument is full of holes.
You swear the test for virginity which the bible suggests, is foolproof, but have no idea what it actually is; then pretend that there might possibly be some other test, equally valid, which is not even mentioned. You cannot swear to how valid the test if if you haven't even got the foggiest clue what it might be, in order to verify for yourself that such a type of test would succeed.

Independent thought; seriously you should try it.

 

[Heathen Hammer]

Why am I wrong? Because you say I am?

Because you say I am?! Because you say I am?!

Look, if you cannot be bothered to follow the conversation, then posting back to you is really pointless.
You've been given reasons why you are wrong. Address them or give up, I don't care which, but stop resorting to childish pretenses at ignorance of what's been said.

What example?

the example of 'follow what I say or go to Hell', or any variation of blackmail which I've illustrated for you so far.

Because God stoops to doing such things, and I never would even with his power, I am more moral.
[^^ just in case you feel the desire to pretend to not know what Im talking about]

You don't believe willingly dying for someone to save them demonstrates love?

Jesus pretended to die. His sacrifice was a play-act that lasted all of 2 days. The sacrifice would only have been valid if he were merely a human, and had stayed dead. That's why, when a real person does it, it means something.

God did not die. He didn't do a damned thing.

 

[Heathen Hammer]

The Bible says, "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."(Genesis 6: 5) That doesn't sound very inoccent to me.


God's always been against sex before marriage and what makes you think the Midianites were an "inoccent" people?

First off the Midianites were being punished for the Peor incident in which they decieved Israel. Seccondly do you beleive children are inoccent and can do no wrong?

The God of the Bible never told anyone to fly into a building, you're thinking of another god.

Basically what you display here is a total dehumanization of anyone God ever slaughtered. It doesn't matter how absurd the idea of newborn babies or infirm elderlies being wholly evil can be, you don't care: kill them all.