The Ten Commandments

[oi_antz]

If you have a clearly worded commandment straight from an omnipotent being that is not qualified in any way, then it has to be taken as an absolute truth. This commandment can only mean that parents must be honored regardless of circumstances which is of course horrible advice.

What do you think it means to honour our father and mother? The best fitting definition of the word I have found is to "regard with great respect". I don't believe this instruction prevents a child from pursuing appropriate channels of protection if necessary.

I tend to see what is the difference between honour and dishonour as far as respect is concerned. There are people who really hate their parents, and not necessarily for some sort of domestic abuse, but often because the parent has made a decision to prevent their child from having something the child desires. The spoilt brat syndrome for example. How heart breaking that must be for the parent, if you can imagine it. Instead, while I feel that I have been hurt by some of the actions my parents took against me in my youth, it has had a negative impact on our relationship, yet I adore them and respect them, even though we have different opinions on some things. I think that is the honour that is described. Is that different to what you think it means?

 

[alien444]

Why would a Christian be required to stone anyone to death?

You said the bible was written by God. If so, then surely the moral commandments are absolute and not temporal. God commands that the following offenses be punished by death (stoning optional)

• Sacrificing to gods other than YHWHhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capital_crimes_in_the_Torah#cite_note-3
• Sacrificing Children (adults are O.K. I guess)
• Worshiping Baal ]
• False prophecyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capital_crimes_in_the_Torah#cite_note-8
• Necromancy, gastromancy, and enchantment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capital_crimes_in_the_Torah#cite_note-10
• witchcraft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capital_crimes_in_the_Torah#cite_note-13
• Blasphemyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capital_crimes_in_the_Torah#cite_note-14
• Sabbath breaking (so many ways to break the sabbath)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capital_crimes_in_the_Torah#cite_note-17
• Rape by a man of a betrothed woman(single women or slaves are ok I guess) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capital_crimes_in_the_Torah#cite_note-18
• Being either participant in consensual sexual activity, in which a betrothed woman consensually loses her virginity to a manhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capital_crimes_in_the_Torah#cite_note-19
• Adultery with a married woman.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capital_crimes_in_the_Torah#cite_note-20
• Marrying one's wife's mother (ewww!)
  
• Certain forms of incest, namely if it involves the father's wife or a daughter-in-law. Other forms of incest receive lesser punishment; sexual activity with a sister/stepsister is given excommunication for a punishment; if it involves a brother's wife or an uncle's wife it is just cursed and sexual activity with an aunt that is a blood relation is merely criticized.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capital_crimes_in_the_Torah#cite_note-25
• Male on male sexual intercourse. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capital_crimes_in_the_Torah#cite_note-31
• Bestialityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capital_crimes_in_the_Torah#cite_note-33

• Smiting a parenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capital_crimes_in_the_Torah#cite_note-38
• Cursing (i.e. repudiating) a parenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capital_crimes_in_the_Torah#cite_note-39http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capital_crimes_in_the_Torah#cite_note-40
• A son who persists in disobeying his parents (remember are discussion in the other post)
• Kidnappinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capital_crimes_in_the_Torah#cite_note-42http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capital_crimes_in_the_Torah#cite_note-43
• Contempt of courthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capital_crimes_in_the_Torah#cite_note-44
• False witness to a capital crimehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capital_crimes_in_the_Torah#cite_note-45

I don't see how living this way would lead to prison or a mental institution...

Really? Really?

Actually, what you've just written here is "categorically false and absurd." Clearly, you know little of the Bible or its authors. The apostle Paul was killed when he was almost sixty; the apostle John died in his nineties; the other writers of the New Testament were executed.

Yeah you're right, the current life expectancy has been stationary for two-thousand years. Screw you, modern medicine.


But this is utterly false. In the 20th century there were the two Great World Wars (WWI - 10,670,868 dead, WWII - 50,000,000 dead) the Korean War (995,000 dead), the Vietnamese War (2,048,050 dead), The Mexican Revolution (125,000 dead), THe Russian Revolution (802,225 dead), The Spanish Civil War (466,300 dead), The Chinese Civil War (1,200,000 dead), The Cambodian Civil War (246,204 dead), the Chinese Revolution (2,050,000 dead), The Hutu Rebellion (153,000 dead)and on, and on it goes. Genocides, too, are a prominent feature of the 20th century. Bosnia-Herzegovina (200,000 killed), Rwanda (800,000 killed), Pol Pot in Cambodia (2,000,000 killed), the Nazi Holocaust (6,000,000 killed), Stalin's forced famine (7,000,000 killed) - and so on. As I said, no other century has experienced so much violence and death as the 20th century. And the advancements of technology and the explosion of information have grown right alongside the darkness and death of the 20th century. Cleary, an increase in knowledge does not equate to greater moral insight and action.

I am a world history teacher, I am aware of the wars of the 20th century. Had the previous centuries been less violent you would be correct, however per capita, the world has and continues to be less violent. I urge you to check out the link I posted from Harvard Professor Steven Pinker.

Who is "we"? Obviously, you are not aware that the 20th century saw more slavery than any previous century in human history. Human trafficking is at an all-time high. Today some 27 million people around the globe are slaves.

Modern slavery, while abhorrent, is much different than ancient slavery. Slavery is outlawed by every country in the world and largely consists of debt slavery (where a family's debt is passed on from one generation to the next and is paid with labor). The Global Slavery Index 2013 states that 10 nations account for 76 per cent of the world’s enslaved and are primarily "debt slaves" Once again, the important thing to keep in mind is per capita. The population of the world in 1 C.E. was about the population of the U.S. today. Given the current world population of 7.1B, it is remarkably a safer, more peaceful and more moral world.


Torture, rape, incest, racism - all of these things have plagued the 20th century. And the advancement of knowledge in the last century has done little to stem the tide of such evil. Now we have people shooting children to death in their schools, and massacres in movie theaters, or college campuses, or workplaces.

These are mostly anecdotal incidents that are sensationalized by the constant need of 24hr news organizations to keep the viewer coming back for more. If cable news began covering everyone struck by lightening, and analyzing it ad nauseam for days, it would begin to seem like it was an epidemic. The main point is while torture, rape, incest, racism etc. continue today, they are condemned by both developed and undeveloped countries alike. In the Old Testament however, rape, incest, genocide, racism, murder, torture, human sacrifice are divinely sanctioned. This is the morality of the ancients and the Abrahamic God:

(Deuteronomy 20:10-14)

If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her.
(Deuteronomy 22:23-24 NAB)
If within the city a man comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, you shall bring them both out of the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbors wife.


(2 Samuel 12:11-14 NAB)

Thus says the Lord: 'I will bring evil upon you out of your own house. I will take your wives [plural] while you live to see it, and will give them to your neighbor. He shall lie with your wives in broad daylight. You have done this deed in secret, but I will bring it about in the presence of all Israel, and with the sun looking down.'
Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." Nathan answered David: "The Lord on his part has forgiven your sin: you shall not die. But since you have utterly spurned the Lord by this deed, the child born to you must surely die." [The child dies seven days later.]



(Leviticus 20:9 NLT)

All who curse their father or mother must be put to death. They are guilty of a capital offense.
(Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)

However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way.

(Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)

When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment.



These verses are a dime a dozen. Sure Jesus says "Love Your Neighbor"--Is this really so profound? And the Golden Rule was a common saying for centuries, first attributed to Confucius. Furthermore, if the Trinity is accurate, then the immorality of the OT is a representation of Jesus' nature as well.

 

[aiki]

Why would a Christian be required to stone anyone to death?

You said the bible was written by God. If so, then surely the moral commandments are absolute and not temporal.

Many of the commands God issued in the OT were specifically and only for the Israelite nation. Many of the capital offenses you list below are just such laws. But you would know this if you had a better knowledge of the Bible.

God commands that the following offenses be punished by death (stoning optional)

• Sacrificing to gods other than YHWH
• Sacrificing Children (adults are O.K. I guess)
• Worshiping Baal ]
• False prophecy
• Necromancy, gastromancy, and enchantment
• witchcraft
• Blasphemy
• Sabbath breaking (so many ways to break the sabbath)
• Rape by a man of a betrothed woman(single women or slaves are ok I guess)
• Being either participant in consensual sexual activity, in which a betrothed woman consensually loses her virginity to a man
• Adultery with a married woman.
• Marrying one's wife's mother (ewww!)
  
• Certain forms of incest, namely if it involves the father's wife or a daughter-in-law. Other forms of incest receive lesser punishment; sexual activity with a sister/stepsister is given excommunication for a punishment; if it involves a brother's wife or an uncle's wife it is just cursed and sexual activity with an aunt that is a blood relation is merely criticized.
• Male on male sexual intercourse.
• Bestiality

• Smiting a parent
• Cursing (i.e. repudiating) a parent
• A son who persists in disobeying his parents (remember are discussion in the other post)
• Kidnapping
• Contempt of court
• False witness to a capital crime

You seem to think it is self-evident that these capital offences should not be capital offenses. On what basis do you assert this? As I have pointed out, if you wish to be arguing anything more than your moral preference, you'll have to appeal to an objective, authoritative moral standard, which, as an atheist, you do not have.

I don't see how living this way would lead to prison or a mental institution...

Really? Really?

But I wasn't commenting on OT laws meant only for God's Chosen People, was I? No, I was speaking to the commands Jesus gave in the New Testament, the commands Christians are to follow. I even cited a passage from Matthew. Are you being willfully obtuse? It seems like it.

Actually, what you've just written here is "categorically false and absurd." Clearly, you know little of the Bible or its authors. The apostle Paul was killed when he was almost sixty; the apostle John died in his nineties; the other writers of the New Testament were executed.

Yeah you're right, the current life expectancy has been stationary for two-thousand years. Screw you, modern medicine.

Yes, well, you wrote:

"The humans who wrote the bible had a life span of about 40 and thought the wheel barrow was the height of human innovation."

The humans who wrote the Bible did not have a life span of about forty years, nor did they think wheelbarrows were the "height of human innovation." That you are so willing to grossly mischaracterize here suggests that your atheistic prejudices are getting the better of you.

But this is utterly false. In the 20th century there were the two Great World Wars (WWI - 10,670,868 dead, WWII - 50,000,000 dead) the Korean War (995,000 dead), the Vietnamese War (2,048,050 dead), The Mexican Revolution (125,000 dead), THe Russian Revolution (802,225 dead), The Spanish Civil War (466,300 dead), The Chinese Civil War (1,200,000 dead), The Cambodian Civil War (246,204 dead), the Chinese Revolution (2,050,000 dead), The Hutu Rebellion (153,000 dead)and on, and on it goes. Genocides, too, are a prominent feature of the 20th century. Bosnia-Herzegovina (200,000 killed), Rwanda (800,000 killed), Pol Pot in Cambodia (2,000,000 killed), the Nazi Holocaust (6,000,000 killed), Stalin's forced famine (7,000,000 killed) - and so on. As I said, no other century has experienced so much violence and death as the 20th century. And the advancements of technology and the explosion of information have grown right alongside the darkness and death of the 20th century. Cleary, an increase in knowledge does not equate to greater moral insight and action.

I am a world history teacher, I am aware of the wars of the 20th century. Had the previous centuries been less violent you would be correct, however per capita, the world has and continues to be less violent. I urge you to check out the link I posted from Harvard Professor Steven Pinker.

My point wasn't to argue per capita numbers but to show that your contention that an increase in knowledge equates to an increase in moral rectitude is not necessarily true, which I did. (By the way, I posted less than a third of all the wars that have occurred in the 20th century.) There is certainly no direct parallel between an increase in knowledge and an increase in morality. THe statistics Pinker cites are not nearly as dramatic as one would expect if they believed that knowledge and morality were directly linked. There has literally been a titanic explosion of information in the 20th century but there has not been a commensurate explosive decline in human violence and evil.

Who is "we"? Obviously, you are not aware that the 20th century saw more slavery than any previous century in human history. Human trafficking is at an all-time high. Today some 27 million people around the globe are slaves.

Modern slavery, while abhorrent, is much different than ancient slavery. Slavery is outlawed by every country in the world and largely consists of debt slavery (where a family's debt is passed on from one generation to the next and is paid with labor). The Global Slavery Index 2013 states that 10 nations account for 76 per cent of the world’s enslaved and are primarily "debt slaves" Once again, the important thing to keep in mind is per capita. The population of the world in 1 C.E. was about the population of the U.S. today. Given the current world population of 7.1B, it is remarkably a safer, more peaceful and more moral world.

Again, my point wasn't about numbers so much as it was about the fact that slavery still goes on. You said "we" had learned that slavery - among other things - was bad, but this doesn't appear to be true. Whatever "learning" you think has occurred has yet to be reflected in significant change in human behaviour.

Selah.

 

[aiki]

In the Old Testament however, rape, incest, genocide, racism, murder, torture, human sacrifice are divinely sanctioned. This is the morality of the ancients and the Abrahamic God:

Yeah, this is the typical atheist line - and it is quite in error.

(Deuteronomy 20:10-14)

If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her.

THis law actually protected the raped woman. As a "deflowered" female, she would be considered "damaged goods" and thus unsuitable to marry. Unmarried, she would be, as an adult, highly vulnerable to poverty. The law above assured that the wretched act of the rapist would not have this effect upon his victim. He would be permanently obligated to care for the material needs of the woman he had abused.

(Deuteronomy 22:23-24 NAB)
If within the city a man comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, you shall bring them both out of the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbors wife.

While you may not look upon adultery as an evil deed, God certainly does.
And this law reflects how greatly He despised such sin. The Israelites were to be representative of the holy God they served; their lives were to reflect His holiness. Jehovah's holiness is absolute; He does not compromise with wickedness at all. The Israelites were, therefore, to be likewise absolute in their intolerance of wicked behaviour.

Most atheists object to the woman being killed along with the man who had sex with her. But the law assumes that if the woman did not cry out, she was a willing participant in the sexual act. With this law on the books you can be sure betrothed women were highly motivated to avoid any situation where they might be sexually compromised and to yell bloody murder if they suspected they might be. Men who thought to take sexual advantage of betrothed women were also provoked by this law to think again. Thus, the law strongly encouraged high sexual circumspection in betrothed women and was a potent deterrent to men who would sexually abuse them.

(2 Samuel 12:11-14 NAB)

Thus says the Lord: 'I will bring evil upon you out of your own house. I will take your wives [plural] while you live to see it, and will give them to your neighbor. He shall lie with your wives in broad daylight. You have done this deed in secret, but I will bring it about in the presence of all Israel, and with the sun looking down.'
Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." Nathan answered David: "The Lord on his part has forgiven your sin: you shall not die. But since you have utterly spurned the Lord by this deed, the child born to you must surely die." [The child dies seven days later.]

The only One with true carte blanche to take life is the One who gave it. God is in a unique position to do what He wishes with the life He gives. Certainly, for the baby, a heavenly eternity with its Maker was far superior to the temporal life it would have led on Earth. The only one to suffer in this instance was the one who deserved to suffer.

(Leviticus 20:9 NLT)

All who curse their father or mother must be put to death. They are guilty of a capital offense.

Obviously, God really did not like children cursing their parents. Don't see the problem here...Modern culture has a different view. But different does not necessarily mean better.

(Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)

However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way.

God did not extend to the pagan people's surrounding Israel the benefits of the laws that governed His Chosen People. No Israelite could be made a slave of the sort described above. THey could enter into indentured servitude, but not slavery. The pagan person was different, however. As in most things concerning the Israelites, God was working to make them distinct, separate from, the pagan nations surrounding them. As so many of the laws did, this law distinguished the Israelite from the pagan, the Chosen People from all others.

Were such slaves mere property (after the manner of the slaves of the American South at the time of the Civil War) to be abused as their master wished? No, the Israelites were constrained in their treatment of slaves by laws protecting foreigners (Lev. 19:33, 34; Deut. 10:17-19).

(Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)

When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment.

The only time an Israelite man could sell his children into servitude (not slavery) was when he was financially insolvent, in which case, selling his children into servitude would protect them from destitution. In the case above, the father would have been selling his daughter with a view to making her a concubine (or maidservant) and this is why she was not free to leave after six years. In other circumstances where a girl was sold into indentured servitude without the expectation of marriage she was free to leave after six years just like the men. As the passage indicates, the girl was well-protected against abuse and safeguarded against the effects of her father's financial insolvency.

These verses are a dime a dozen.

And the atheist's misconstruction of them is as common as mud.

Sure Jesus says "Love Your Neighbor"--Is this really so profound?

Yes, it is.

Furthermore, if the Trinity is accurate, then the immorality of the OT is a representation of Jesus' nature as well.

What "immorality of the Old Testament," exactly?

Selah.

 

[Harry3142]

Alien444-

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he didn't recite any of The Ten Commandments in his response. Instead, he recited these:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. (Deuteronomy 6:5,NIV)

Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:18,NIV)

Our proper conduct as Christians is to have its roots not in the superficial following of a set of laws, but rather in the correct motivations being the impetus for our conduct. This was emphasized by Jesus himself, as well as by the authors of the epistles. A favorite passage of mine, since it clearly identifies which motivations we are to see as sinful and which we are to see as conforming to God's will, is this one:

So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. (Galatians 5:16-26,NIV)

Laws can be 'danced around'. History is replete with occasions where those in power manipulated laws so as to have them favor their own particular agenda. But motivations are an entirely different matter. It is clear from the outset whether a person's actions are dictated by love or hate, by envy or kindness, by selfish ambition or faithfulness. And it will be the motivations which dictate our actions that will either condemn us or verify the genuineness of our faith:

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. (Galatians 6:7-10,NIV)

 

[alien444]

Many of the commands God issued in the OT were specifically and only for the Israelite nation. Many of the capital offenses you list below are just such laws. But you would know this if you had a better knowledge of the Bible.

Responding to my question of why the first commandment was directed only at the Israelites, you said,
"Because the Israelites were God's Chosen People. I don't think these commandments were intended solely for Israel, however."
So do you decide which commandments that God intended for the Israelites only and which commandments he intended for others? If you make this decision, you must have a better knowledge of the bible than I.

Who they are for does not determine if they moral. I don't really care who they're for. They're immoral and I am just glad they're not for me.

You seem to think it is self-evident that these capital offences should not be capital offenses. On what basis do you assert this? As I have pointed out, if you wish to be arguing anything more than your moral preference, you'll have to appeal to an objective, authoritative moral standard, which, as an atheist, you do not have.

While I stand by my argument that I do have an objective basis for morality based on science, I would rather live in a world of relative morality than believe in a God that commands his followers to kill others for witchcraft, homosexuality, adultery, or cursing your parents.

But I wasn't commenting on OT laws meant only for God's Chosen People, was I? No, I was speaking to the commands Jesus gave in the New Testament, the commands Christians are to follow. I even cited a passage from Matthew. Are you being willfully obtuse? It seems like it.

I think it is you who is being willfully obtuse if you think that you can have a holy trinity and not have 1/3 of that trinity represented by another 1/3 of that trinity. Whether the commandments were meant for Christians or Jews is irrelevant, they are still immoral commands by the Christian God. I also believe the New Testament is equally immoral in suggesting 1)the only way for God to forgive humans for their "sins" was for God to have his son/himself tortured and killed and 2) that someone can be absolved of their "sins" by anyway other way than taking responsibility for their actions and attempting to bring justice to those wronged.



Yes, well, you wrote:

"The humans who wrote the bible had a life span of about 40 and thought the wheel barrow was the height of human innovation."

The humans who wrote the Bible did not have a life span of about forty years, nor did they think wheelbarrows were the "height of human innovation." That you are so willing to grossly mischaracterize here suggests that your atheistic prejudices are getting the better of you.

When it comes to the quest for discovering the most moral way to live my life I am extremely prejudiced against trusting solely the writings of the ancient Israelites as am I to the Summerians and Egyptians. I am not saying they have nothing to say on the subject, but it must be incorporated with the 2-3000 years of knowledge that followed.

My point wasn't to argue per capita numbers but to show that your contention that an increase in knowledge equates to an increase in moral rectitude is not necessarily true, which I did. (By the way, I posted less than a third of all the wars that have occurred in the 20th century.) There is certainly no direct parallel between an increase in knowledge and an increase in morality. THe statistics Pinker cites are not nearly as dramatic as one would expect if they believed that knowledge and morality were directly linked. There has literally been a titanic explosion of information in the 20th century but there has not been a commensurate explosive decline in human violence and evil.

Again, my point wasn't about numbers so much as it was about the fact that slavery still goes on. You said "we" had learned that slavery - among other things - was bad, but this doesn't appear to be true. Whatever "learning" you think has occurred has yet to be reflected in significant change in human behaviour.

You can't compare modern and ancient violence without compare the change in population. If I can't convince you that children shouldn't be put to death for cursing their parents, I am not surprised that I can't convince you that ignorance breeds immorality.

As far as my claim that we live in the most peaceful time in human history is concerned, if you don't believe Pinker's research you are not going to believe others, but it is the well-researched prevailing opinion of historians and sociologists.


Selah.

You can have the last word on this as I feel it has run its course.

 

[aiki]

Responding to my question of why the first commandment was directed only at the Israelites, you said,
"Because the Israelites were God's Chosen People. I don't think these commandments were intended solely for Israel, however."
So do you decide which commandments that God intended for the Israelites only and which commandments he intended for others? If you make this decision, you must have a better knowledge of the bible than I.

I'm quite certain I have a much better knowledge of the Bible than you do. I don't, though, decide arbitrarily which laws of God are universal and which are solely for the Israelite people. The Bible clarifies which laws are for who.

Who they are for does not determine if they moral. I don't really care who they're for. They're immoral and I am just glad they're not for me.

Well, inasmuch as you were trying to make them representative of Christianity it is important to make such a distinction. Again, your declaration that the laws were immoral only indicates your opinion - unless you can point to an objective standard of morality against which the laws can be shown to be immoral. But as an atheist you have no such objective moral standard. There is only what you prefer morally, so your objection to God's laws in the OT doesn't carry any particular weight.

While I stand by my argument that I do have an objective basis for morality based on science, I would rather live in a world of relative morality than believe in a God that commands his followers to kill others for witchcraft, homosexuality, adultery, or cursing your parents.

Science merely describes what is; it does not prescribe anything. Scientists may try, in their efforts to interpret science, to prescribe certain philosophies and morality but they are not being scientists when they do, but philosophers. It is not possible to point to science as the basis for objective morality. It has nothing whatever to say about what we ought or ought not to do. It simply says, "This is the nature of the material world."

In a world of relative morality there can be no truly right or wrong action. The "evil" commands of God in the OT that you are trying to decry cannot be really, objectively evil if what is moral is relative. You may not like how God commanded His Chosen People to act, but so what? Why should God - or anyone - do things your way? He prefers a different morality; and in a morally-relative universe there's no fixed point for morality and thus no way to assert your morality above His. You're just objecting to differences in preference.

I think it is you who is being willfully obtuse if you think that you can have a holy trinity and not have 1/3 of that trinity represented by another 1/3 of that trinity. Whether the commandments were meant for Christians or Jews is irrelevant, they are still immoral commands by the Christian God.

Immoral?No, you haven't shown that. Not to your liking? Yes, sure. So what?

I also believe the New Testament is equally immoral in suggesting 1)the only way for God to forgive humans for their "sins" was for God to have his son/himself tortured and killed and 2) that someone can be absolved of their "sins" by anyway other way than taking responsibility for their actions and attempting to bring justice to those wronged.

Well, God sacrificed His only Son on a cross because His holiness and justice required that payment for sin be made. If we made the payment for our sin ourselves we would never be able to satisfy God's perfect standard of justice; we would forever be paying for our sins. "But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love with which He loved us" (Eph. 2:4) in order to satisfy His own loving nature, made a way for us to escape the eternal punishment of our sin by the sacrifice of the perfect Lamb of God on the cross. Was this the only way God could have acted? No. But it is the way He chose to fulfilll the demands of His own holy, just, loving nature, which is His prerogative as God.

You can't compare modern and ancient violence without compare the change in population. If I can't convince you that children shouldn't be put to death for cursing their parents, I am not surprised that I can't convince you that ignorance breeds immorality.

Clever rhetoric. But rhetoric is all it is. As I said, if knowledge and morality were directly linked, the explosion of information in the 20th century should have made us all saints. But it hasn't. Far, far from it - as the list of wars I provided points out.

I am not part of a tribe of people living under theocratic rule whose God was focused upon demonstrating His holiness through His Chosen People to a world of wicked, pagan, unholy nations. "God is light and in Him is no darkness at all," the Bible says, and we see this clearly illustrated in God's severe responses to the wickedness of His people. We recoil from God's severity because we are sinful creatures who are very easy with sin. We wonder at God's commands because we do not look at sin from the perfectly pure position God does. But this is a problem with us, not God. He is not too severe; we are are far too lax.

As far as my claim that we live in the most peaceful time in human history is concerned, if you don't believe Pinker's research you are not going to believe others, but it is the well-researched prevailing opinion of historians and sociologists.

And I think we have the effect of the Christian worldview to thank for much of the peace that there is in the world. It was Christianity that turned Roman culture from an infanticidal, mysogynistic, bloodthirsty, pagan, sexually perverse, and generally brutal culture into one that birthed hospitals, universities and charities. The effects of Christianity on other cultures was, when it was not warped by political agendas and made a cloak for greed, the same. The rights and freedoms western cultures so cherish can be traced back to the Christian worldview and its high regard for the truth that each person is made in the "imago dei," the image of God, and thus possesses enormous intrinsic value.

Selah.

 

[Emmy]

Dear alien444. God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses for Mankind to live by, God was establishing His Kingdom. Since Jesus died and paid with His Blood for our sins, the Two Commandments, which contain all what God had given us in His Ten Commandments, on those Two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. In Matthew 22: 35-40: Jesus told us: " Love God with all our hearts, with all our souls, and with all our minds. Also:
Love our neighbour as we love ourselves." At the end of verse 37: " This is the foundation of all the Law, and as well, applies to the present Day of Grace.
God wants our Love freely given and NO conditions tagged on. The Bible tells us: " Repent," and to "be Born Again." Change all our selfishness into Love for God and love for our neighbour: all we know an all we meet, friends and not-friends. God is Love and God wants loving sons and daughters.
Matthew 7: 7-10: " Ask and ye shall receive," then we thank God and share all Love and Joy with our neighbour. Love is very catching, and we will find that gradually we will turn into the men and women which God wants us to become. Jesus our Saviour will help and guide us, JESUS IS THE WAY.
I say this with love, alien. Greetings from Emmy, sister in Christ.