Can you be good without God?

[PsychoSarah]

That's a terrible mistranslation and misrepresentation of the passage.

You have a claim, now back it up.

 

[Achilles6129]

In the bible, yes. The punishment for rape isn't even death, as long as the victim isn't married. And the victim is punished too if they don't scream.

Actually the punishment for rape is death. You're misrepresenting a number of passages.

 

[Achilles6129]

You have a claim, now back it up.

Actually the claim was yours. But you can easily search the web and find some serious theological studies on the passage, so I'll leave it to you.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Actually the punishment for rape is death. You're misrepresenting a number of passages.

And are you going to provide some evidence for that, or are you just going to say I'm wrong, and expect me to treat it seriously?

 

[PsychoSarah]

Actually the claim was yours. But you can easily search the web and find some serious theological studies on the passage, so I'll leave it to you.

I can post the passage, but not a theological study. I could pick and choose people that agreed with me for that, with the same credentials as people you could pick and choose to agree with you. Biblical interpretations are highly subjective.

28"If a manfinds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered,29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.…

from Deuteronomy 22:28-29

and another reference to it in the bible
16"If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife. 17"If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the dowry for virgins.…
Exodus 22:16-17

and a real kicker being listed as related to this
18This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged in marriage to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with Child through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband, a righteous man, was unwilling to disgrace her publicly, he resolved to divorce her quietly.…
Matthew 1:18-19

Mary was viewed as unworthy of marriage by Joseph. How merciless.

Yeah, I fail to see how any simple translation errors would change the meaning enough for this not to be making rape out to be a crime worthy of a slap on the wrist, under certain conditions.

 

[Davian]

Does God say you can get into heaven?

As God is conspicuously absent from these forums, I am asking how his theology works, in his own words, to find out what he means by "wrong". Care to take a shot at it yourself?

In your theology, what are the repercussions for those who rape vs those that never commit such a act? Or are there none?

 

[MennoSota]

YHWH condones slavery, so long as the slaves aren't fellow believers. There's so many rules for it in both the OT and the NT, with even Jesus quoted as telling slaves to obey their masters. Does your inner moral compass agree with that?

Yeshua does not tell people to enslave others. He does not stop evil humans from acting in evil ways. In fact, He uses sinners to bring His judgment and to weave His will.
God is Sovereign. He is not subject to your finite judgments and in fact, He laughs at you when you attempt to judge Him.

 

[MennoSota]

You have a claim, now back it up.

I second Achilles. Your interpretation was terrible. Perhaps you and Joseph Smith are related.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Yeshua does not tell people to enslave others. He does not stop evil humans from acting in evil ways. In fact, He uses sinners to bring His judgment and to weave His will.
God is Sovereign. He is not subject to your finite judgments and in fact, He laughs at you when you attempt to judge Him.

By giving rules about how slavery should be practiced, that is a form of condoning the behavior. Furthermore, there are multiple instances of YHWH stating that the Hebrews could take slaves from among conquered peoples. If I didn't condone, say, eating oranges, why would I make rules about how oranges should be prepared rather than flat saying "don't eat oranges". And if YHWH has done this for sinful acts in the bible, then how are you supposed to figure out what isn't a sin based on the text?

I get it, you don't condone slavery, so you can't handle the idea that the book you view as holy does. Do you understand how much that is directly condoned in the bible? The only form of slavery not condoned is beating slaves to death, or keeping fellow believers as slaves for their whole lives without their consent.

 

[PsychoSarah]

I second Achilles. Your interpretation was terrible. Perhaps you and Joseph Smith are related.

Wow, that burn, that was actually really good and creative.

However, if you don't demonstrate that my interpretation is terrible, you're just making an empty claim. Telling me I'm wrong over and over isn't particularly convincing if you don't back it up with anything.

 

[MennoSota]

Wow, that burn, that was actually really good and creative.

However, if you don't demonstrate that my interpretation is terrible, you're just making an empty claim. Telling me I'm wrong over and over isn't particularly convincing if you don't back it up with anything.

No need to demonstrate. Just re-read your interpretation and shake your head in shame.

Was I wrong on Joseph Smith or are you more of a Charles Taze Russell descendant?

 

[PsychoSarah]

No need to demonstrate. Just re-read your interpretation and shake your head in shame.

Was I wrong on Joseph Smith or are you more of a Charles Taze Russell descendant?

Sir, I quoted the biblical scriptures. I can look it over backwards and forwards, and it is still saying that if a man rapes an unmarried virgin, he has to pay the daddy, and marry her. How is that not what it is saying?

 

[MennoSota]

Sir, I quoted the biblical scriptures. I can look it over backwards and forwards, and it is still saying that if a man rapes an unmarried virgin, he has to pay the daddy, and marry her. How is that not what it is saying?

What you quoted isn't about rape, but consentual sex before marriage. Verse 25 is about rape.

"But if in the open country a man meets a young woman who is betrothed, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die."

 

[PsychoSarah]

What you quoted isn't about rape, but consentual sex before marriage. Verse 25 is about rape.

The Deuteronomy passage says he seizes her, how does that imply consent?

 

[Davian]

Actually the claim was yours. But you can easily search the web and find some serious theological studies on the passage, so I'll leave it to you.

I second Achilles. Your interpretation was terrible. Perhaps you and Joseph Smith are related.

And are you going to provide some evidence for that, or are you just going to say I'm wrong, and expect me to treat it seriously?

Allow me to take a run at this, as I believe I can see what our ever-evasive internet apologists are alluding to...

[apologist]
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We are all born into sin, and we continue to sin.

As Bananaman Ray Comfort likes to use as an example, even a whispered lie on the school-ground is a sin.
[/apologist]

Which, of course, yanks the rug out from under any claim that such a theology is a basis for morality, as the word is commonly used. A whispered lie, rape, or the slaughtering of millions - no difference. There is no right or wrong, only belief=good.

And, a "gift" that comes at the cost of one's intellectual integrity is not really a gift (even if it was real).

As belief is not a conscious choice, and is the only "act" that can be "bad", they end up with a theology that is morally bankrupt, with rapists and serial killers getting their "reward" while billions [hypothetically] burn for eternity for reasons beyond their control.

Not that this concerns me, as long as the teaching of it is kept out of government and schools, and I'll watch in curiosity as they attempt to build elaborate rationales for why others should adhere to such beliefs.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Also, how about when the women shortage in the tribe of Benjamin was solved through kidnapping women from the other tribes as a loophole in a vow, essentially stealing these women and treating their consent as meaningless? Judges 21:10-24

Or how about when only the virgin Midianite women were kept alive in Numbers 31:7-18 with all the men, male children, and nonvirgin women (their brothers, mothers, fathers, some sisters...) killed? Do you think they consented to being forced to marry the invaders that destroyed their families?

Deuteronomy 20:10-14 has a murder/slavery/rape combo, with anyone that surrenders when the Hebrews invade to become slaves, otherwise, the men are all killed and women married off to the invaders.

David was once punished by god by having his wives raped for all to see in 2 Samuel 12:11-14. These women hadn't committed the crime, so why are they getting raped for what David did? Why is this an acceptable punishment to YHWH. Oh that's right, because the bible considers women to be property akin to cattle, not people. Their pain is irrelevant; it's David's property getting vandalized in an embarrassing way.

Deuteronomy 21:10-14 states that if you take these captured women as a wife, but later lose interest in them, you can essentially divorce them, but you can't enslave or sell them, because they were once your wife UNDER COMPULSION. This is acknowledging that the women are not consenting.

need I go on? Even if you guys are right about the first issue I brought up, which was raping a fellow believer, there are tons of passages condoning raping conquered non-believers.

 

[ScottA]

Good is relative.

 

[MennoSota]

What you quoted isn't about rape, but consentual sex before marriage. Verse 25 is about rape.

"But if in the open country a man meets a young woman who is betrothed, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die."

"...and they are found." Add the entire verse.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

So what is good and evil, then? And how do you prove it?

If "good" and "evil" are subjective terms applied to specific acts, then the proof of an individual's interpretation of those words will be their definitions of those words. Which means that anyone can be good without a god, since even a god's interpretation would be subjective.

If "good" and "evil" are objective terms applied to specific acts, then they exist and can be proven independently of any god. Anyone can be good without a god in this case because of the objective nature of the terms.

So yeah, everyone can be good without a god...

 

[Ed1wolf]

By what you want and don't want, you have no choice in having a moral system or not. You're going to want and not want things, you're going to have a moral system.

The idea that some moral systems are better than others is not relevant.

So morality is just getting what you want? Since Stalin wanted the aristocracy and intelligentsia dead, then he was doing what was moral for him correct?