The OT = UGH

[dgirl1986]

I have to wonder how many christians have read the whole Old Testament and have managed to keep an unchanged opinon of their god. I have to wonder how many have turned away from it after reading the OT.

It seems to me that the OT and the NT are so different that it seems their god has multiple personalities or something.

The amount of raping that occurred in the OT was horrifying.

 

[F0uad]

I have to wonder how many christians have read the whole Old Testament and have managed to keep an unchanged opinon of their god. I have to wonder how many have turned away from it after reading the OT.

It seems to me that the OT and the NT are so different that it seems their god has multiple personalities or something.

The amount of raping that occurred in the OT was horrifying.

Raping? What about the killing of children?

I don't belief a Christian who ever has children can belief the book to be fully true.

 

[Father Heathen]

I have to wonder how many christians have read the whole Old Testament and have managed to keep an unchanged opinon of their god. I have to wonder how many have turned away from it after reading the OT.

It seems to me that the OT and the NT are so different that it seems their god has multiple personalities or something.

The amount of raping that occurred in the OT was horrifying.

From what I've read, Gnostic Christians believed that the god of the OT and the god of the NT were separate entities.

 

[dgirl1986]

Raping? What about the killing of children?

I don't belief a Christian who ever has children can belief the book to be fully true.

Raping was one example.

You also have the murder of men, women and children. People being sold off. That kind of stuff.

 

[dgirl1986]

From what I've read, Gnostic Christians believed that the god of the OT and the god of the NT were separate entities.

...I am not sure how that would work.

 

[F0uad]

Raping was one example.

You also have the murder of men, women and children. People being sold off. That kind of stuff.

Well there is a difference between murder and killing sometimes killings can be justified however there are some things in the book that just don't make sense.
I am more worried about the killing of children i can't imagine a parent teaching those ''verses'' (stories) to there children.

 

[George-ananda]

I have to wonder how many christians have read the whole Old Testament and have managed to keep an unchanged opinon of their god. I have to wonder how many have turned away from it after reading the OT.

It seems to me that the OT and the NT are so different that it seems their god has multiple personalities or something.

The amount of raping that occurred in the OT was horrifying.

Please, the OT represents the ideas and thinking of a group a few thousand years ago. It's pointless to analyse it with twenty-first century eyes.

My opinion is that the OT doesn't really warrant the amount of time people spend analyzing it. Why are we not more concerned with the spiritual teachers of more modern times and today. Why are these ancient writers considered so important that we keep discussing them? Were people so much wiser then....No.

It seems like anti-theists bring up the OT more than the theists here.

 

[Shermana]

Not all Gnostic Christians. I believe it was mostly a Marcionite concept that infiltrated the later Gnostic movements. It was mostly a strictly later-Gnostic concept with groups like the Sethians. And even that's a bit debatable as to which of them believed the OT Jewish god was the Demiurge in disguise.

The Valentinians most certainly didn't separate them (at least most of them), and the group which authored the Pistis Sophia didn't.

As for all the "raping", what parts are you talking about? The taking of virgins as war booty? What else were the girls supposed to do exactly? Their only other option back then was to become prostitutes when their city-state is destroyed. Besides, these Israelite warriors were strong, strapping, freshly-rich dudes. I'd personally bet many of them would be happier with that option than a life of whoredom. There was no social security back then. The only options really are: A) Marry your conqueror B) Whore yourself. Not much else for women back then.

 

[apophenia]

Please, the OT represents the ideas and thinking of a group a few thousand years ago. It's pointless to analyse it with twenty-first century eyes.

Like the vedas ?

 

[dgirl1986]

Please, the OT represents the ideas and thinking of a group a few thousand years ago. It's pointless to analyse it with twenty-first century eyes.

Why bother teaching it or basing religious law and legal law on teachings from the OT then?

 

[Riverwolf]

I've never been able to finish the Book of Joshua. It's pretty much the most disgusting book I've EVER read.

 

[Riverwolf]

...I am not sure how that would work.

There was also an early Christian leader, very passionate in his beliefs, but pre-NT, who read the Tanakh, and declared "That's not the God I believe in!" He actually started the idea of a Christian Bible, and created the first one out of a modified form of the Gospel of Luke (with all references to the Tanakh removed) and 10 of Paul's letters.

 

[Riverwolf]

Like the vedas ?

The Vedas actually aren't comparable to the whole Tanakh, but more specifically to the Psalms and Proverbs.

 

[CMike]

I have to wonder how many christians have read the whole Old Testament and have managed to keep an unchanged opinon of their god. I have to wonder how many have turned away from it after reading the OT.

It seems to me that the OT and the NT are so different that it seems their god has multiple personalities or something.

The amount of raping that occurred in the OT was horrifying.

What's the OT?

How much raping was done? Where do you get the report from?

 

[Shermana]

I've never been able to finish the Book of Joshua. It's pretty much the most disgusting book I've EVER read.

Are you reading it in the context of what the book paints the story as or are you reading it through a post-modern view in which you're thinking the author is falsely villifying the conquered people?

 

[CMike]

Let's look at which religion is reponsible for more violence and unjust behavior...

The Inquisition | Jewish Virtual Library


Christian-Jewish Relations:
The Inquisition

The Inquisition was a Roman Catholic tribunal for discovery and punishment of heresy, which was marked by the severity of questioning and punishment and lack of rights afforded to the accused.


While many people associate the Inquisition with Spain and Portugal, it was actually instituted by Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) in Rome. A later pope, Pope Gregory IX established the Inquisition, in 1233, to combat the heresy of the Abilgenses, a religious sect in France. By 1255, the Inquisition was in full gear throughout Central and Western Europe; although it was never instituted in England or Scandinavia.


Initially a tribunal would open at a location and an edict of grace would be published calling upon those who are conscious of heresy to confess; after a period of grace, the tribunal officers could make accusations.

Those accused of heresy were sentenced at an auto de fe, Act of Faith. Clergyman would sit at the proceedings and would deliver the punishments. Punishments included confinement to dungeons, physical abuse and torture. Those who reconciled with the church were still punished and many had their property confiscated, as well as were banished from public life. Those who never confessed were burned at the stake without strangulation; those who did confess were strangled first. During the 16th and 17th centuries, attendance at auto de fe reached as high as the attendance at bullfights.


In the beginning, the Inquisition dealt only with Christian heretics and did not interfere with the affairs of Jews. However, disputes about Maimonides’ books (which addressed the synthesis of Judaism and other cultures) provided a pretext for harassing Jews and, in 1242, the Inquisition condemned the Talmud and burned thousands of volumes. In 1288, the first mass burning of Jews on the stake took place in France.


In 1481 the Inquisition started in Spainhttp://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Spain.html and ultimately surpassed the medieval Inquisition, in both scope and intensity. Conversos (Secret Jews) and New Christians were targeted because of their close relations to the Jewish community, many of whom were Jews in all but their name. Fear of Jewish influence led Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand to write a petition to the Pope asking permission to start an Inquisition in Spain.

In 1483 Tomas de Torquemada became the inquisitor-general for most of Spain, he set tribunals in many cities. Also heading the Inquisition in Spain were two Dominican monks, Miguel de Morillo and Juan de San Martin.


First, they arrested Conversos and notable figures in Seville; in Seville more than 700 Conversos were burned at the stake and 5,000 repented. Tribunals were also opened in Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia. An Inquisition Tribunal was set up in Ciudad Real, where 100 Conversos were condemned, and it was moved to Toledo in 1485. Between 1486-1492, 25 auto de fes were held in Toledo, 467 people were burned at the stake and others were imprisoned. The Inquisition finally made its way to Barcelona, where it was resisted at first because of the important place of Spanish Conversos in the economy and society.


More than 13,000 Conversos were put on trial during the first 12 years of the Spanish Inquisition. Hoping to eliminate ties between the Jewish community and Conversos, the Jews of Spain were expelled in 1492..


The next phase of the Inquisition began in Portugal in 1536: King Manuel I had initially asked Pope Leo X to begin an inquisition in 1515, but only after Leo's death in 1521 did Pope Paul III agree to Manuel's request. Thousands of Jews came to Portugal after the 1492 expulsion. A Spanish style Inquisition was constituted and tribunals were set up in Lisbon and other cities. Among the Jews who died at the hands of the Inquisition were well-known figures of the period such as Isaac de Castro Tartas, Antonio Serrao de Castro and Antonio Jose da Silva. The Inquisition never stopped in Spain and continued until the late 18th century.


By the second half of the 18th century, the Inquisition abated, due to the spread of enlightened ideas and lack of resources. The last auto de fe in Portugal took place on October 27, 1765. Not until 1808, during the brief reign of Joseph Bonaparte, was the Inquisition abolished in Spain. An estimated 31,912 heretics were burned at the stake, 17,659 were burned in effigy and 291,450 made reconciliations in the Spanish Inquisition. In Portugal, about 40,000 cases were tried, although only 1,800 were burned, the rest made penance.


The Inquisition was not limited to Europe; it also spread to Spanish and Portugese colonies in the New World and Asia. Many Jews and Conversos fled from Portugal and Spainhttp://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Spain.htmlto the New World seeking greater security and economic opportunities. Branches of the Portugese Inquisition were set up in Goa and Brazil. Spanish tribunals and auto de fes were set up in Mexico, the Philippine Islands, Guatemala, Peru, New Granada and the Canary Islands. By the late 18th century, most of these were dissolved.

 

[Riverwolf]

Are you reading it in the context of what the book paints the story as or are you reading it through a post-modern view in which you're thinking the author is falsely villifying the conquered people?

It's a story of the conquest of innocent people.

 

[CMike]

Let's not forget pogroms...

Pogroms


1917 to 1921

The third wave of pogroms occurred during the years 1917–21, in scope and gravity far surpassing the two previous outbreaks. These attacks on the Jews were connected with the revolutions and the civil war which took place in Eastern Europe during this period. At the end of 1917, pogroms had already occurred in the townlets and towns within proximity of the war front. The riot was headed by groups of soldiers from the disintegrating czarist army, and consisted of unruly acts against Jews by drunkards and of looting. Many pogroms of this type occurred in the Ukraine after the declaration of its independence in 1918. The first pogroms to be accompanied by slaughter of Jews were, however, perpetrated by units of the Red Army which retreated from the Ukraine in the spring of 1918 before the German army. These pogroms took place under the slogan "Strike at the bourgeoisie and the Jews." The communities of *Novgorod-Severski and Glukhov in northern Ukraine were the most severely affected. After a short period of confusion, the Soviets adopted stringent measures against pogromists found in the ranks of the Red Army. In addition to a fundamental and comprehensive information campaign, severe penalities were imposed not only on guilty individuals, who were executed, but also on complete army units, which were disbanded after their men had attacked Jews. Even though pogroms were still perpetrated after this, mainly by Ukrainian units of the Red Army at the time of its retreat from Poland (1920), in general, the Jews regarded the units of the Red Army as the only force which was able and willing to defend them.
In the spring of 1919, at the time of the retreat of the Ukrainian Army before the Red Army which occupied Kiev, units of the Ukrainian Army carried out organized military pogroms in *Berdichev, Zhitomir, and other towns. These pogroms reached their climax in the massacre at *Proskurov on Feb. 15, 1919, when 1,700 Jews were done to death within a few hours. On the following day, a further 600 victims fell in the neighboring townlet of Felshtin (Gvardeiskoye). Those responsible for these pogroms went unpunished, and henceforward the Ukrainian soldiers considered themselves free to spill Jewish blood. The Jews regarded Simon *Petlyura, the prime minister of the Ukraine and commander of its forces, as responsible for these pogroms (in 1926 he was assassinated while in exile in Paris by Shalom *Schwarzbard). The general chaos which reigned in the Ukraine in 1919 resulted in the formation of large and small bands of peasants who fought against the Red Army. The commanders (atamans) of these bands occasionally gained control of whole regions. The Jews in the villages, townlets, and towns there were constantly terrorized by the peasants, who extorted money ("contributions") and supplies from them or robbed and murdered them. These atamans included Angell, Kazakov, Kozyr-Zyrko, Struk, Volynets, Zeleny, Tutunik, and Shepel. The ataman Grigoryev, who in May 1919 seceded from the Red Army with his men, was responsible for pogroms in 40 communities and the deaths of about 6,000 Jews in the summer of 1919. He was killed by Ataman Makhno, who led a peasant rebellion in eastern Ukraine and endeavored to restrain his men from attacking the Jews. One of the most notorious pogroms carried out by the peasant bands was that in Trostyanets in May 1919, when over 400 people lost their lives.
In the fall of 1919, there was a wave of pogroms committed by the counterrevolutionary White Army, under the command of General A.I. *Denikin, in its advance from northern Caucasus into the heart of Russia. This army, which sought to restore the old regime, proclaimed the slogan: "Strike at the Jews and save Russia." Its officers and soldiers made savage attacks on the Jews in every place which they occupied. The most sinister of these pogroms was in Fastov at the beginning of September 1919, in which about 1,500 Jewish men, women, and children were massacred. The soldiers of the White Army also perpetrated similar pogroms in other regions of Russia: in Siberia, where they were led by Admiral Kolchak and where the Cossack battalions of Baron R. Ungern-Sternberg gained notoriety for the systematic destruction of many communities in eastern Siberia and Mongolia; and in Belorussia, where Bulak-Balachowicz was in command in 1920. During 1920–21, when the Red Army gained control of Ukraine, the armed anti-Soviet bands still retained their full strength and the pogroms and brutalities against the Jews assumed a character of revenge, such as the massacre in Tetiev, in which about 4,000 Jews were put to death and the whole townlet was set on fire. The anti-Jewish movement set the total annihilation of the Jews as its objective and destroyed whole townlets. Only the military weakness of the attackers prevented a holocaust of Ukrainian Jewry.

During this period of pogroms, Jewish self-defense organizations were formed in many places throughout the Ukraine. The "Jewish Militia for War against Pogroms" of Odessa was renowned; it prevented pogroms in the largest community of Ukraine. Such groups were created in many towns and townlets but they were not always capable of withstanding military units or large armed bands. It was only after the consolidation of the Soviet regime that they received its support and played an important role in the suppression of the armed counter-revolutionary movement.

It is difficult to assess the scope of the pogroms during the civil war years and the number of victims they claimed. Partial data are available for 530 communities in which 887 major pogroms and 349 minor pogroms occurred; there were 60,000 dead and several times that number of wounded (according to S. Dubnow). The pogroms of 1917–21 shocked East European Jewry, as well as world Jewry. On the one hand, they rallied many Jews to the Red Army and the Soviet regime; on the other, they strengthened the desire for the creation of a homeland for the Jewish people and a powerful and independent Jewish force. This aspiration found its expression in the Zionist movement, the *He-Ḥalutz movement, and the *Haganah in Ereẓ Israel.

 

[CMike]

Raping was one example.

You also have the murder of men, women and children. People being sold off. That kind of stuff.

You obviously have a great lack of understanding of the Torah.

 

[CMike]

Why bother teaching it or basing religious law and legal law on teachings from the OT then?

Because it's the basis of morality.

The laws given to Noach for the entire world was recognized by the US as the foundation of western civilization.

It's not our fault you have a deep lack of understanding regarding the Torah.