Rape in the bible

[Lukaris]

Ok, thanks for telling how you manage the conflict.

If you were a sinner and refused to repent, if god caused me to rape you would that be ok?

God is not causing anyone to do evil; individuals choose to be evil. In the debauched hypothetical you raise, we both go to hell.

 

[Kiritsugu Emiyah]

Hentenza,

That's an interesting theory but I don't see it evident. Other verses make it clear that god does intend to destroy them. I don't see any reason to think he wills their destruction but that he doesn't will what his destroying causes or that the rape etc is actually only what his destroying caused rather than another part of his plan. I also don't think that without great governments people would necessarily rape and kill each other.

Criminologists and biologists can tell you about different types of cultures and societies and groups of people and how some are violent and some are not. Those that live in areas where food must be found and killed and warred over groups or villages tend to be more violent where as in fertile areas where people grow most of their food and there aren't warring groups or villages then violence is much less. I myself think that violence is biological and not everyone is violent or needs to be violent. Violence serves the genetic purpose. But that's a different topic.

I don't agree with you but I really appreciated your posts in my thread thanks for explaining how you manage the conflict.

 

[Kiritsugu Emiyah]

God is not causing anyone to do evil; individuals choose to be evil. In the debauched hypothetical you raise, we both go to hell.

In your previous post you seemed to be expressing that god did cause that kind of thing in order to "shock" them and the nature of their depravity required something of that extent.

You seemed to be saying there was a reason why god used raped and that it was because those people were so evil. Now you seem to be saying he'd never do anything like that and that it's evil. But doesn't the verse display that he did in fact do it?

 

[Lukaris]

In your previous post you seemed to be expressing that god did cause that kind of thing in order to "shock" them and the nature of their depravity required something of that extent.

You seemed to be saying there was a reason why god used raped and that it was because those people were so evil. Now you seem to be saying he'd never do anything like that and that it's evil. But doesn't the verse display that he did in fact do it?

I have been saying that God is warning, through the prophet, of the murder, debauchery, etc. that people will suffer from their evil deeds if they do not repent. That God is rhetorically taking on the role of being wrathful to instill fear in them so they do not do these horrible things to each other and that innocents will not be slaughtered.


Ezekiel 18:31-32New King James Version (NKJV)

31 Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel? 32 For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord God. “Therefore turn and live!”

 

[SolomonVII]

In Isaiah 13 god judges Babylon and one of his judgements is particularly scary. v16



If you read the whole chapter it seems apparent than these things are a result of his judgements because he uses statements like "I command, I will, I declare, my wrath" etc etc

I don't understand how Christians get past this. Yes they were sinners, yes they refused to repent, yes they disobeyed and angered god but does that make it morally justifiable to rape them and beat their babies heads against rocks?

If you sinned and you refused, absolutely refused to repent and god judged you by having me attack you and rape you, if he "stirred" me up like he did the Medes... would it then be ok for me to rape you? Would him having me rape you be ok for him to do?

The natural state of humans is to rape and pillage and kill. God's Providence is like a firmament keeping the forces of human hatred from crashing in on each other and destroying us completely.

When the greater good is served by allowing the firmament separating us from the full consequences of our evil deeds to be breached, people turn to God in desperation, and God's response is mercy.
It is a disturbing fact that if God commands evil to people who have free will, most if not all of us would delight in the rape and the pillaging.

Nevertheless we have free will, and are no more compelled by his commands to do evil than we are compelled by his commands to do good. The choice is fully our own choices.

The one time in the Bible when God commanded someone to do evil, and that person, Abraham, obeyed God with a pure heart and complete trust and faith, God stayed Abraham's hand.

The typical human response though is to delight in the evil. The command to do it is never necessary, because people dwell on doing the evil day and night, long before the command is given.

The structure of the Bible is very sophisticated and complicated and not at all intuitive The path to the lessening of evil in this world is not always a straight line.

 

[ivanc0]

Well, first off, the Medes were not puppets, mindless automatons God was moving to military action. The Medes weren't fluffy bunnies God forced to become savage barbarians. If God stirred up anything, it was what was already in the hearts of the Medes. They were already cruel, violent, savage warriors before God stirred them to action against Babylon. And it was precisely because they were so cruel that they could be used as a tool of divine judgement.

What are we to make of the horrific character of the judgement God prophesies through Isaiah? Is God being excessive? Is He revealing a dark, monstrous side? No, I don't think so. We understand how wrong a particular deed is in no small part by the consequences it incurs and by the punishment the law renders upon it. I know stealing some gum from the corner store is not as bad a thing as murder (at least in the human moral economy) because the consequences and lawful punishment for stealing gum is no where near as severe as they are for murdering someone. I know murder is really, really bad, in part, because the punishment of it is really, really harsh. Likewise, I recognize that when God levies His terrible judgement upon Babylonia via the Medes, the awfulness of it is a testament to the deep wickedness of the Babylonians. I don't, then, see the awful tactics of the Medes as God going too far, but as God testifying to the profound evilness of the Babylonians through the punishment He enacts upon them.

Part of the problem with your reaction to what God does arises out of your very small view of Him. How you see God and how He really is are two vastly different things. Consequently, you don't see giving offense to God as a particularly big deal. You probably wouldn't think twice about making a rude remark to your annoying sibling; but you would likely think very hard about smarting off to, say, the Queen of England. Why? Because you recognize that your sibling does not hold the power and authority of the Queen. Now God, of course, is infinitely more powerful than the Queen of England. There is no way to properly describe how great the difference is in authority and power between the greatest human ruler we can think of and the Creator and Sustainer of Everything who is God. Our planet is dwarfed by the Sun around which it revolves. 1.3 million Earths could fit within the sphere of the Sun. But there are stars burning in the cosmos that make our Sun a mere speck of dust in comparison! And there are many billions of such stars populating the visible universe. Over all of them and in full control of them, sustaining the existence of the entire universe moment by moment, is God. He is the One we offend when we sin. He is the One humans have the impossible temerity to defy, and criticize, and despise! And when He judges human wickedness, we see in the terrible character of that judgement how truly wicked it is to sin against God Almighty who by the power of His Word and Will made and upholds all that exists.

In light of these facts, would it be okay "for God to stir you up to rape me"? Friend, God is going to do far more than rape the unrepentant wicked of this World! He is going to consign them to an eternal hell when they stand before Him on Judgement Day still in their sins! Is God right to do so? He most certainly is!

If God did stir you up to rape someone else, He would only be stirring up what was already in you to do. He would not, then, be causing you to act evilly, only giving you a direction in which to do so.

Selah.

Your God is so human, that is scary!

 

[Kiritsugu Emiyah]

The natural state of humans is to rape and pillage and kill. God's Providence is like a firmament keeping the forces of human hatred from crashing in on each other and destroying us completely.

When the greater good is served by allowing the firmament separating us from the full consequences of our evil deeds to be breached, people turn to God in desperation, and God's response is mercy.
It is a disturbing fact that if God commands evil to people who have free will, most if not all of us would delight in the rape and the pillaging.

Nevertheless we have free will, and are no more compelled by his commands to do evil than we are compelled by his commands to do good. The choice is fully our own choices.

The one time in the Bible when God commanded someone to do evil, and that person, Abraham, obeyed God with a pure heart and complete trust and faith, God stayed Abraham's hand.

The typical human response though is to delight in the evil. The command to do it is never necessary, because people dwell on doing the evil day and night, long before the command is given.

The structure of the Bible is very sophisticated and complicated and not at all intuitive The path to the lessening of evil in this world is not always a straight line.

well it's slightly off topic but if you ever stop believing in god I don't think you'll suddenly desire to rape or kill people. I've never wanted to do either of those things and I'd actually try to prevent you from doing it.

Does the verse appear to you as god simply allowing bad things to happen rather than commanding them? If he simply allowed it, what's the difference? Both imply that he condones them.

 

[aiki]

Your God is so human, that is scary!

Uh...yeah...riiiight.

 

[ViaCrucis]

He also didn't ask Mary for her permission to be impregnated.

Firstly, "May it be as you have said" was Mary's response to the Annunciation.

Secondly, Mary wasn't impregnated by God or by anyone. The conception was done without "seed". When it comes to the humanity of Jesus, Jesus is solely the offspring of Mary, and has no father (except an adoptive father in St. Joseph). We call Jesus the Son of God because, in His divinity, He is the only-begotten Son of the Father, "begotten before all ages" is the way the Creed puts it. What we call the eternal generation of the Son, the Son is eternally generated/begotten of the Father without beginning, there was never a time when He was not, there was never a time when He began to be.

He is Son of God by His eternal generation from the Father from before all ages, as God of God, therefore truly God.

He is Son of Mary because He is the true Child of Mary's womb, flesh of her flesh, truly human.

Hence we say He is Theanthropos, God-Man. Being both truly God and truly human without a confusion or separation of the two natures. Hence the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Kiritsugu Emiyah]

Firstly, "May it be as you have said" was Mary's response to the Annunciation.

Secondly, Mary wasn't impregnated by God or by anyone. The conception was done without "seed". When it comes to the humanity of Jesus, Jesus is solely the offspring of Mary, and has no father (except an adoptive father in St. Joseph). We call Jesus the Son of God because, in His divinity, He is the only-begotten Son of the Father, "begotten before all ages" is the way the Creed puts it. What we call the eternal generation of the Son, the Son is eternally generated/begotten of the Father without beginning, there was never a time when He was not, there was never a time when He began to be.

He is Son of God by His eternal generation from the Father from before all ages, as God of God, therefore truly God.

He is Son of Mary because He is the true Child of Mary's womb, flesh of her flesh, truly human.

Hence we say He is Theanthropos, God-Man. Being both truly God and truly human without a confusion or separation of the two natures. Hence the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union.

-CryptoLutheran

Those are some strange ideas indeed but the angel told her exactly what was going to happen to her and did not ask her for consent or her thoughts or her desires or how she felt about any of it... that she submitted isn't amazing.

You're supposed to ask first...

 

[ViaCrucis]

Those are some strange ideas indeed but the angel told her exactly what was going to happen to her and did not ask her for consent or her thoughts or her desires or how she felt about any of it... that she submitted isn't amazing.

You're supposed to ask first...

Mary could have said no. Mary wasn't an unwilling vessel, but by her humble submission she is the handmaiden of God, the blessed among women, the mother of God, and the spiritual mother of all the Faithful. Because she said yes.

You also seem to be missing the larger point I was making: Nobody had sex with Mary. That's kind of the reason we say she is "the Virgin" or "Blessed Virgin" or "Virgin mother of God" etc. Nobody had sex with her.

That you wish to view this as God having intercourse--and more so, rape--really has no bearing on our Christian faith. That's not how we see it, that's not how we've ever seen it, and it's not what we believe. Your personal hang-ups about this aren't really our problem.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Kiritsugu Emiyah]

I'm not trying to make anything your problem and that clearly was not the main theme of my post.

My point in bringing that up was that god wasn't interested in her consent which is relevant to the topic of rape which is something the Christian god also condoned and caused in the chapter I referenced.

My MAIN point was a question of if god caused me to rape you would it be good since he's done the same thing to other people.

 

[ViaCrucis]

I'm not trying to make anything your problem and that clearly was not the main theme of my post.

My point in bringing that up was that god wasn't interested in her consent which is relevant to the topic of rape which is something the Christian god also condoned and caused in the chapter I referenced.

My MAIN point was a question of if god caused me to rape you would it be good since he's done the same thing to other people.

God didn't cause anyone to rape anyone else.

Warnings that terrible evil will befall a people was a common theme in the writings of the Prophets. But to suggest God caused anyone to rape anyone else is a pretty fundamental misreading of the warnings of the Prophets.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Kiritsugu Emiyah]

God didn't cause anyone to rape anyone else.

Warnings that terrible evil will befall a people was a common theme in the writings of the Prophets. But to suggest God caused anyone to rape anyone else is a pretty fundamental misreading of the warnings of the Prophets.

-CryptoLutheran

Have you actually read the chapter for yourself?

"I will summon an army against you they will destroy you and they will rape you and kill your kids"

To say that he was not responsible for the whole thing is silly.

Further more his commandments to his own followers to do equally heinous things doesn't help your argument that he wouldn't and hasn't. Like in Leviticus when he told his followers to burn to death women who have certain kids of sex. Why wouldn't he have women raped when he already has them burned to death?

God didn't simply warn them that it was going to happen... he said he commanded it and called it and directed it.

 

[Kiritsugu Emiyah]

Viacrucis

Let's say I am a very strong and dangerous sexual predator and I prey on other men.

If you sin and you refuse to repent and god judges you by compelling me to come to your house and god makes you vulnerable to me because you wouldn't repent.... is that right for him to do?

and is he really innocent of everything I do to you after I get there?

 

[ViaCrucis]

Have you actually read the chapter for yourself?

"I will summon an army against you they will destroy you and they will rape you and kill your kids"

To say that he was not responsible for the whole thing is silly.

Further more his commandments to his own followers to do equally heinous things doesn't help your argument that he wouldn't and hasn't. Like in Leviticus when he told his followers to burn to death women who have certain kids of sex. Why wouldn't he have women raped when he already has them burned to death?

God didn't simply warn them that it was going to happen... he said he commanded it and called it and directed it.

I'm saying that to understand the Prophets as literature means understanding what kind of literature it is.

First and foremost in ancient Israel a prophet was someone who called the people back to God, they were social provocateurs in order to condemn injustice and proclaim justice. Which is why they frequently condemn their own people when they fell into idolatry, or for the mistreatment of the poor, the hungry, orphans and widows. They also condemned the brutality of their neighbors, criticizing that brutality by speaking, in the harshest language they had, that the injustices they committed would come back upon them. Thus what the Babylonians had done to others, would be done to them.

As for the terrible things which the Israelites did, I'm well aware of many troubling things in Scripture, such as the slaughter of the Ammonites. I see Scripture as something to be engaged with, which means allowing Scripture to both disturb me and inspire me. If you were hoping I'd try and defend the actions of the Israelites in places such as the book of Joshua, I'm afraid I won't be of much help.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

Viacrucis

Let's say I am a very strong and dangerous sexual predator and I prey on other men.

If you sin and you refuse to repent and god judges you by compelling me to come to your house and god makes you vulnerable to me because you wouldn't repent.... is that right for him to do?

and is he really innocent of everything I do to you after I get there?

No, if some sort of god brain-contolled you to come and rape me I would consider such a god quite a disgusting thing.

But that's not how I read the Prophets. I don't read the Prophets and then conclude that God created instigated mass hypnosis and made people start raping anyone. I regard that as a very creative way of misreading the Prophets.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Kiritsugu Emiyah]

I'm saying that to understand the Prophets as literature means understanding what kind of literature it is.

First and foremost in ancient Israel a prophet was someone who called the people back to God, they were social provocateurs in order to condemn injustice and proclaim justice. Which is why they frequently condemn their own people when they fell into idolatry, or for the mistreatment of the poor, the hungry, orphans and widows. They also condemned the brutality of their neighbors, criticizing that brutality by speaking, in the harshest language they had, that the injustices they committed would come back upon them. Thus what the Babylonians had done to others, would be done to them.

As for the terrible things which the Israelites did, I'm well aware of many troubling things in Scripture, such as the slaughter of the Ammonites. I see Scripture as something to be engaged with, which means allowing Scripture to both disturb me and inspire me. If you were hoping I'd try and defend the actions of the Israelites in places such as the book of Joshua, I'm afraid I won't be of much help.

-CryptoLutheran

So you're saying the prophets statements weren't true but rather they were just provocative? God didn't mean what that prophet said?

I'm not asking you to do anything, I was just making a case for the reliability of what i've provided.

I wasn't referencing Joshua's acts, I was reference your god's commandments.

If you don't believe the chapter to be a true representation of god's intentions then that's fine, but I think "fundamentally wrong" is an error in response. Your position seems to be sketchy one.

 

[Kiritsugu Emiyah]

No, if some sort of god brain-contolled you to come and rape me I would consider such a god quite a disgusting thing.

But that's not how I read the Prophets. I don't read the Prophets and then conclude that God created instigated mass hypnosis and made people start raping anyone. I regard that as a very creative way of misreading the Prophets.

-CryptoLutheran

Have you actually read Isaiah 13 for yourself? It specifically states that god called raping murderers to come destroy their city and he specifically told them they'd be raped and killed by the people he brought there.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Have you actually read Isaiah 13 for yourself? It specifically states that god called raping murderers to come destroy their city and he specifically told them they'd be raped and killed by the people he brought there.

Yeah, and again, when the Prophets engaged in criticism and condemnation of Israel's neighbors (and also of their own people) it was about reciprocation, reaping what one has sown. Babylon would experience the same tragedies it had visited upon other nations--that's the point of the text here.

-CryptoLutheran