Ex Christians

[Jacksnyte]

Of course it's not okay with me. God didn't have girls killed on orders of suspicion. They were killed because they weren't virgins. Also there's no reason to use that law today. It was adressed to the Israelites.

So which old testament laws actually apply today, and which don't? Did god tell the Israelites that these laws only apply to them? Does it say this in the Bible? Why is this law no longer valid, while other old testament laws aren't?

These questions, and many more seem to cause us to chase our tail on this thread quite a bit. If you don't know, and you can't find the answers when you try to look it up, it's ok to say so.

 

[waitasec]

A way out?? He has to pay up for being wrong.

with his life?

That's one, yes, but as I've said before there could've been another one.(and you have no way to prove I'm incorrect about that just as I can't prove that I'm right.)

yes there was another way...something having to do with their breath.

excellent.

 

[waitasec]

The Bible says her parents present proof and display a cloth before the elders.

so if she doesn't bleed and she was a virgin, what then...check her breath?

 

[Hope]

Absolute morals based on the Bible as God's word? I'm sure Judaism and Islam at the very least both have a bone to pick against Christian morals picked as the absolute.

Before we start listening to each Christian denomination all declaring THEY have the Truth on their side.

When you step outside the arena and actually watch all the arguments from each group or individual claiming they know the Truth, it all becomes rather comical.

As a Christian, of course I depend on the Bible for absolute morals. I won't deny that.

However, my main point was to refute waitasec's argument of relativistic morality. Certainly every culture, denomination, etc., has its own preferences ("preferences" being the key word) in regards to certain issues, but if it's true everyone is absolutely right in their morals (according to waitasec), then, actually no one is right. The sky is blue whether I want it to be blue, or feel like it should be blue....the sky is absolutely, objectively blue. Likewise, there are absolute, objective morals as well, that are not dependent on what I want or feel or wish. Certain preferences over details in specific moral instances may change from culture to culture, but absolute, fundamental morality does not change.

Kind of like Plato's "allegory of the cave"----there is perception, and there is reality. The former changes, the latter does not. Just because we perceive something to be moral or immoral does not change the actuality of it being so. Hope this clarifies my point somewhat.

 

[waitasec]

Yep I'm curious, but I'm NOT going to form assumptions about the matter and then claim they're true. The Bible doesn't say why, so I can't know for sure.

you don't think "god" was contributing to a misogynistic society with this fallible understanding of a women's anatomy?

 

[CMike]

Once again the death penalty was very rarely carried out by Jewish courts.

The premise is incorrect.

If you cite Jewish law it would be nice if you have a clue what you are talking about.

 

[waitasec]

The method wasn't fallible, and you can't accurately keep telling me it is. You're just speculating, you have no idea if a single virgin girl was killed unfairly.

i am not speculating i know i didn't bleed my 1st time. so if i were born at a different time and place and my new husband hated me after we consummated the marriage i would be suspect of being a whore because i didn't bleed, right?

 

[Rakhel]

If you cite Jewish law it would be nice if you have a clue what you are talking about.

CMike, you are asking the impossible.
The text has been so misunderstood by those that don't understand them, that when someone comes along, trying to tell them how the text is supposed to be read, they are simply ignored.
It's more fun to debate a Christian's understanding using Christian logic than it is a Jew.

 

[waitasec]

As a Christian, of course I depend on the Bible for absolute morals. I won't deny that.

However, my main point was to refute waitasec's argument of relativistic morality. Certainly every culture, denomination, etc., has its own preferences ("preferences" being the key word) in regards to certain issues, but if it's true everyone is absolutely right in their morals (according to waitasec),then, actually no one is right.

subjective morals cannot be compared to empirical evidence.

The sky is blue whether I want it to be blue, or feel like it should be blue....the sky is absolutely, objectively blue. Likewise, there are absolute, objective morals as well,

no there are not. to suggest such a thing you would need to prove it.
so prove it.

that are not dependent on what I want or feel or wish. Certain preferences over details in specific moral instances may change from culture to culture, but absolute, fundamental morality does not change.

prove it. what is the absolute moral code concerning...birth control,
same sex marriage, stem cell research, euthanasia?

 

[waitasec]

Once again the death penalty was very rarely carried out by Jewish courts.

The premise is incorrect.

If you cite Jewish law it would be nice if you have a clue what you are talking about.

curious, where do these amended laws come from?
please forgive my ignorance, but are they sort of like the hadiths, for lack of a better term, in the islamic tradition?

 

[Falvlun]

Yes that's one method that was used, but there must've been another as well.

Wait, you can speculate that there was another method that God simply chose not to mention in the book of laws when there is absolutely no evidence of this? But we cannot speculate that fallible humans would sometimes fail when using a fallible system for proving virginity?

 

[Me Myself]

Are you serious? How do I know what the test in the Bible was? Because I read it in the Bible, for Pete's sake. Are you saying the Bible is incomplete, wrong, misleading, or otherwise false?

Pretty much exactly what she is suggesting. She says the bible didn´t have the complete story of God´s will on a matter of life and death situation.

Not the kind of things you omit if you ask me, but what do I know? I actually care about women, so I cannot be anywhere near divine inspiration.

 

[Alceste]

i am not speculating i know i didn't bleed my 1st time. so if i were born at a different time and place and my new husband hated me after we consummated the marriage i would be suspect of being a whore because i didn't bleed, right?

You and me both, sister. Vadergirl, with her "superior" morals, would be ready and waiting to murder us. If the lack of blood didn't do the trick, the fact that I'm currently half drunk certainly would.

 

[Me Myself]

Everybody knows god of the armies loves the blood.

 

[Alceste]

Everybody knows god of the armies loves the blood.

And that there is the number one reason people leave Christianity. Thread closed.

 

[Heathen Hammer]

God didn't "force" Adam into a relationship and he doesn't force people today. If he did we'd all be in a relationship with him. He also didn't threaten Adam with eternal torture if Adam didn't want to be in the relationship. Our relationship with God isn't one sided. If itw as God would get his way all eth time, which just isn't the case in reality.

Hell IS the force. He IS forcing you do to do what he wants; or you GO TO HELL.

It is a one-sided. It's basically the definition of one-sided.

There are a number of discussions to open about Adam but we are not talking about the myriad problems with the Garden of Eden, when we have not gotten past this yet...

As to why it's okay for God to create laws and punishments. It's becasue he's nothing like us, and so superior to human beings.

'Superior' in what sense? Not in morals, certainly.

Superior in power, is really all you are working with here.

Again, if a human dictator threatened torture for as long as a person could be kept alive, for not obeying him, how is that any different from God threatening you with Hell for not following him? [in fact, technically it's WORSE being from God because you cannot die out of Hellish torture; it's eternal] How is the human morally wrong, but God morally right? Simply because we humans, who are being threatened, have no way to defend ourselves? After all, the human dictator is 'superior' to anyone subject to his law. You can say that about the victim of a human dictator, too; so, how are the moralities of two identical situations so totally different?

God didn't create sin,

Yes he did. Sin is nothing natural, nor is it a natural consequence for an entire being's biology to change simply for eating a single fruit. These were magical occurrences directly performed by God, as a result of his ire.

he created Adam, who was perfect, and then Adam chose to sin(go against God). You can't blame God for sinning, as he doesn't force you to. It's your choice.

Ah, that old Christian bugaboo 'choice'.

It's not my choice to be made capable of sin. God did that.

 

[jasonwill2]

i leave for 3 or 4 days...

something like 200 new posts..


so my question, did Vadergirl ever find any verses in the Christian Bible condemning suicide or calling it "self-murder"?

I asked a while ago because she insisted that the Bible did as such and then I made the claim that the Bible is completely silent on the matter as i have researched it and such (mostly when still a christian).

 

[jasonwill2]

So which old testament laws actually apply today, and which don't? Did god tell the Israelites that these laws only apply to them? Does it say this in the Bible? Why is this law no longer valid, while other old testament laws aren't?

These questions, and many more seem to cause us to chase our tail on this thread quite a bit. If you don't know, and you can't find the answers when you try to look it up, it's ok to say so.

The Old Testement, or rather the Old Covenant, was an agreement between Israel and the Yahweh. They obey these rules, and they are blessed. The Commandments are contained in Leviticus mostly AFAIK and there are a few hundred of them. They were mostly criminal and civil laws for the Theocracy of the nation of ancient Israel.

The idea that a Christian should at all obey any of the rules in the Old Testament is hilariously inconsistent with Jesus Christ's entire approach to the Old Covenant. As far as I can tell, Jesus presented a more simplistic and minimalistic approach of love your neighbor as yourself and to love God with all your heart.

Which isn't bad, in theory.

 

[Vadergirl123]

Actually, just because He's a creator doesn't mean that He knows what is best for us. If we look at gnostic mythology, the creator of humanity is ignorant.

I'm not looking at gnostic mythology though.

 

[Vadergirl123]

If we look at the test he made to see if the girls were virgin, I´d say he definetely doesn´t know everything about us.

Again you can't really, "look at the test." You weren't there and didn't see how it worked.