Human Rights Are Anti-Christian
Human Rights are the exact inverse of the Christian Decalogue:
The Right To Free Speech is the Right To Lie
The Right To Bear Arms is the Right To Kill
The Right To Freedom is the Right To Oppress Others
The Right To Property is the Right To Theft
The Right To Freedom of Worship is the Right To Idolatry
The Decalogue has no positive content but is merely negative. It restricts what can be done. Whereas Human Rights have solely positive content, and hence miss delineating the negative. It is no wonder that Western permissive culture has adopted human rights and forgotten about the Decalogue.
Take the right to free speech for instance. This right sets the truth and the lie on equal footing. It gives one authority to lie and be protected for lying - indeed, lying itself becomes a virtue, as the necessary result of the exertion of one's inalienable rights.
The Right To Free Speech is the Right To Lie
The Right To Bear Arms is the Right To Kill
The Right To Freedom is the Right To Oppress Others
The Right To Property is the Right To Theft
The Right To Freedom of Worship is the Right To Idolatry
The Decalogue has no positive content but is merely negative. It restricts what can be done. Whereas Human Rights have solely positive content, and hence miss delineating the negative. It is no wonder that Western permissive culture has adopted human rights and forgotten about the Decalogue.
Take the right to free speech for instance. This right sets the truth and the lie on equal footing. It gives one authority to lie and be protected for lying - indeed, lying itself becomes a virtue, as the necessary result of the exertion of one's inalienable rights.
Comments (212)
But you are still morally and legally responsible for the consequences of your free choice to lie, kill, oppress, steal. The rules of acceptable human conduct society, in general, has codified into their laws is quite consistent with the Decalogue.
Human rights are God-given in the sense of free will. And as history continually proves itself, when human rights are removed, the people suffer.
I am quite perplexed by this outburst and am curious where on earth you came up with these ideas.
What's your proposed solution to the problem?
That's why the Supreme Court interprets the law for everyday cases so that "Fire!" in a movie theater is not Free Speech. The Founding Fathers were actually quite forward thinking on that front.
Having a branch of government that interprets the written Constitution for practical use. Oh wait, we already have that. It's called the Supreme Court.
The right to bear arms isn't a human right, but in so far as it can be considered one it has to do with freedom from physical coercion and the right to personal physical safety (to not be killed). The right to life (to not be killed) is much more widely held to be a fundamental human right (capital punishment not withstanding, which is ubiquitous in Christianity).
The right to be free is not the freedom to oppress others because the right is meant to apply to others as well. Your suggestion here is at best word-play and at worst a severe misunderstanding of why the west holds "freedom" close to its cultural heart.
The right to property is not the right to steal: we have laws that explicitly forbid theft. Almost paradoxically, without the right to property there is no such thing as theft to begin with. Are you positive that human rights invented greed?
Quoting Agustino
It's also the freedom to not worship idols. Like "the right to be free" in general, it means that we cannot be forced to do things we do not want to do. You may think that people who genuinely worship pagan idols are doing something bad, and many of them would say that you are the bad one.
Do you want to remove our right to worship, or not worship, as we see fit, and begin forcing us at gun point under pain of death and oppression to abandon our civic and religious freedom and property in favor of Christianity?
Quoting Agustino
Human rights are ideal states of affairs we strive toward, but we use prohibitive laws to get there as a matter of course. If restricting harmful actions are the kind of laws you think work best, then the good news is the west has a body of case law and legislation filled with more prohibitive laws than there are verses in the holy bible. Better still (for you) many of these laws were founded on ideals found in Christianity!
Don't steal, don't kill, don't purger/defraud/slander/etc... These are prohibited actions in the west. You can however worship idols and graven images, covet your neighbor's wife's mansion's oxen, ruin your marriage by cheating (not without legal/financial penalty), pick up sticks on Sunday, blaspheme baby Jesus, and sing hymns to Baphomet, because none of those things warrant prohibiting them with force (because that would lead to oppression, unhappiness, death, etc...).
It's no wonder the contemporary west is so very less violent than its thoroughly religious medieval counterparts. Infidelity is ungodly per the Decalogue, and so adulterous women had their noses cut off as a mark and punishment. Petty thieves died by hanging, counterfeiters and fraudsters were boiled to death, while witches and heretics were impaled and burned alive.
"Exod 22:18, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, "
What a curious idea this is... We aren't allowed to allow witches and wizards to continue living.
Are you positive restricting what can be done is foolproof?
Hmmmm....
Only when taken to the extreme.
Quoting Agustino
That's just completely false.
Quoting Agustino
What?
Quoting Agustino
The exact opposite.
There is not a straight path from equality to rights.
Quoting Waya
Iran? Also, why should we accept that theocracy is not an ideal form of government?
Quoting Waya
Having freedom is one thing, having a right to something is another. The Bible makes it quite clear that humans don't have "rights" - we don't deserve salvation for example.
Quoting Waya
It is the right to idolatry as well. Idolatry must be treated, as a result of this right, as equivalent to worship of the real God in society.
Quoting Baden
To remove the concept of "rights" from political discourse, and return to rules and regulations.
Not really.
Those others also have right to freedom.
The constraint is to ensure others' same right.
They are closely related.
Quoting Agustino
Iran is definitely not a theocracy. It is a human government that falsely declares that their god is the leader.
Theocracy could be accepted, but in order for it to work, then every individual must make the personal choice to believe, which is absurd and pretty much impossible. The closest one will get is a government that is restricted by law, that ensures the God-given rights of the people. Read the book of Judges.
Quoting Agustino
Salvation is never a right, and it is irrelevant. Rights can be abused, yes, but they are still rights. Mainly, rights protect people from each other and are advocated in Scripture. The right to life can be found by the command not to murder, which also gives support for self-defense. The right to property is found in the command to not steal.
Quoting Agustino
What is idolatry then? How about working 7 days a week and not attending worship service? Should those people have their throats slit? What is the worship of the real God? Is this based on your standard, your opinion, your ideas? What if, for example, someone said that the icons in the church met the criteria for idolatry? Should we then stone the Catholics and Orthodox? And for the Catholics, should they then burn the "heretics" at the stake for not worshipping as they do? Or rather, should this choice be left to the individual and God?
Quoting Waya
Many African and Middle eastern countries could be defined as theocracies. It demonstrates that people have choices. Also, freedom of choice is not freedom of will.
I had to look that up. Why not just say "Ten Commandments"?
Quoting Agustino
As you should know, there is no "Thou shalt not lie" in the Ten Commandments. There is, however, a "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour". That is perjury, and perjury is an exception to the right to free speech.
Quoting Agustino
No, it isn't. The right to bear arms is the right to bear arms, not the right to kill. And it's the same problem with the rest. Why don't you get your rights right, and then we can take it from there?
This is why legal hermeneutics are best left to those who have actually completed a Philosophy of Law (or a Law degree) course. In any legal reading, and the highest on the totem pole the act being interpreted, the more relevant this becomes, you must both consider the positive and the negative meaning. In legal mumbo jumbo terms, its called reading the a contrario of a law.
So, the Right to be protected from abusive searches and controls by government official also means, a contrario that you are not protected from un-abusive searches and controls by government officials.
All Rights have both a positive and negative claims, that is why Rights and Obligations always goes hand in hand.
We could also analyse the individual claims you make and see how each and every one of them contain clear pro aristotelico-thomist biases. Free speech doesn't actually protect from prosecution over falsehoods that caused real damages. You will likely not be able to dodge a murder charge simply because your carry papers were in order. Freedom and Oppression are too politically charged to be really useful. Theft could not be prosecuted without a concept of property being in place, so there really is nothing more false than saying that the right to property is the right to theft. And, "Idolatry", really? I mean, who cares?
The Decalogue is for the Jews, not the Christians. There are only two Christian commandments, and they are both positive - exhortations to love.
Quoting Agustino
I don't know of any rights campaigners that assert that it is always virtuous to exercise a right. Indeed one of the main points of free speech is that you should not be legally punished for speaking even when what you say is the opposite of virtuous. That goes right back to Voltaire's original famous one-liner about free speech.
Sorry, but that is false. Matthew 19:16-30, Mark 10:17-31, and Luke 18:18-30, Jesus with the rich young man reiterates the commandments of the Decalogue.
As per the Catechism : "1858. Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: "Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and your mother." The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger."
Quoting schopenhauer1
Falsely shouting "Fire!" in a theater and causing a panic are the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1919.
Quoting Schenck v. United States
Thought you'd want to know.
Perhaps what has happened is that the concept of 'rights' has been retained, but without the concomitant obligation to the Christian ethos of service, humility, social equity and justice. So arguably late capitalism is reverting to its pagan origins - a technologically advanced paganism, in effect, but without the 'spiritual anthropology' that animated the original rationale behind human rights. (If you look at the state of US politics, you can argue that things like Voter ID laws are in effect a way to once again relegate certain individuals to an underclass who are stripped of voting rights. This is why I think Catholic social democrats are an important albeit minority voice in US politics.)
@Agustino - if you haven't read it, you might find The Strange Persistence of Guilt germane to your inquiry.
Quoting Agustino
This is absolute nonsense. The right to free speech is a right to be allowed by others to express one's opinions. Especially (and obviously) in complex matters, such as politics and religion, truth and falsity cannot be prejudged because there is no Central Scrutinizer with a hotline to reality who is able to definitively and certainly judge.
Indeed, this is part of the advantage of the right to free speech, it's what makes liberal societies powerful in the discovery of truth (because it sets in motion a distributed discovery process: if everyone's free to express their opinion, then opinions can be tested, and the truth hopefully discovered - any attempt to pre-judge that would short-circuit the discovery process and we'd be stuck with some asshole's opinion about truth and falsity being enforced on society).
On the other hand, certain types of lying (e.g. slander) do not fall under free speech protection.
Yes, thanks I am familiar with that decision and many of the other ones related to First Amendment.
Well, 4 and 5 are positive:
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. (Is Heschell or Agnon who calls the sabbath "a cathedral in time"?
Honor your father and your mother.
Do you find the prohibition on murder and adultery (adultery! Agustino) to be negative? I would think you would consider those positive. I John 5:3 says "His commandments are not burdensome". Ar you finding the Big Ten to be something of a pain?
Your logic is a bit odd, but if it were right, so much the worse for Christianity's claim to moral worth.
May we expect you to begin quoting Proudhon now--Property is Theft?
The next thing you know, he'll be burning his bra. Mark my words.
Laughing, in that sad way one does when faced with that obscene gun obsession that somehow worked its way into American mythology.
Then there would be no use for the word, as no governments has ever been able to meet that specification for a theocracy. A theocracy is a government run by the church leaders. Those countries are theocracy by that definition. Most? Don't you mean all? You can't even have the rule by clergy without people willing enough to listen to the "god given" mandates.
The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.
That applies to me as well as to you of course.
Something to look forward to in this drab, wretched world.
Forget that. I don’t care.
Sorry, I don't get your meaning here. In any case, this is the Catechism. Its the official stance and teachings of the Catholic Church.
You cannot claim that the Decalogue is not Christian if it is Catholic.
He pretended to be French for a while, no? Or did he just pretend to know french?
I do though. Being a Christian is about following the ideas or teachings that one believes to have been given by Jesus of Nazareth, not about following a bunch of dogmas and rules written by a beastly bureaucracy of bishops.
You left out the bit about bearing arms...
You are making a positive claim which is verifiably false. Catholicism is sect of Christianity. Catholic dogma, weither you agree with it or not, includes the Decalogue. We learned it by hearts as kids. Thus, Christianism does include the Decalogue.
The Venn circles dont lie. :nerd:
Im not defending Augustino's ridiculous OP arguments. Just the claim that the Decalogue is exclusively a jewish thing.
The Catechism, for what its worth, only speaks of arms as an evil which the nations must avoid running after.
Well that really is far from what you initially said. And ridiculously chauvinistic.
Which, I guess, is paid in kind. Huguenots really are a weird bunch.
Why do you think you feel that way?
I'm not a Huguenot, by the way. I'm not even a Christian any more. But I was brought up RC and know the religion pretty well.
Because its a ridiculous line to draw in the sand. From "Decalogue is Jewish not Christian" to "Catholicism isn't Christian" to "True Christians aren't Catholics"... I mean... that's pretty much the very definition of chauvinism.
Quoting andrewk
It's just a catch-all anachronistic term with which Francophones refers to Protestants of all shapes and colours.
I inferred - correctly, as it turns out - that that's what you meant, and my response was in relation to that meaning of the term. I am not any sort of Christian now, much more inclined to Eastern mysticism, although I am sympathetic to love-based versions of Christianity.
Quoting Akanthinos We are still at cross-purposes. You are interpreting my statement that the Ten Commandments are not Christian as meaning that one cannot be Christian and believe they still apply, whereas what I mean is that being Christian does not mean one has to believe the 10 Comms still apply.
There are many things that some Christians do - such as believing in the Real Presence, believing in the sacrament of absolution, talking in tongues, believing that we should not accept blood transfusions, believing that the holy day should still be Saturday, believing that the book of Mormon is another instalment of divine scripture - that are not an essential part of being a Christian.
Since I am not a Christian, it is not an act of disparagement, for me to say that a practice is not Christian. Chauvinism is being prejudiced against those outside one's own club, and I am no longer in that club.
I was taught that Jesus Christ in His person and sacrifice superseded the Law -- not just the decalogue but the whole corpus of Jewish law. Even so, we were required to memorize the decalogue in Sunday school, as a very significant part of the Old Testament.
Before Jesus the law applied, pure and simple. After Jesus it didn't--for those who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus "fulfilled" the scriptures. "He began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." Luke 4:21. At first the reviews were very good, but then JC proceeded to piss off everybody in the synagogue and had to make a quick exit.
I sold my stock in XPian doctrine, but it does seem to be the case that a lot of XPians feel under no obligation to worry about them.
What an erudite abbreviation! It was only yesterday that I first heard an explanation of the chi-rho symbol, on this In Our Time podcast about the emperor Constantine. After 50+ years of either being a Christian or being surrounded by them, I finally learned the meaning of that chi-rho symbol.
I suppose the Roman form is XR, because the greek rho corresponds to the roman letter R.
Who is it or what is it that determines a lie has been spoken?
The speaker may just have made an error, possibly based on rumor from another source.
Free speech, a right to express what may turn out not to be true, is a better platform for that same speaker, and others, to possibly find out what is true.
Theocracy belongs in the same category as capitalism and communism; none of these have truly been executed in the absolute sense in the real world, nonetheless, the theory exists. Theocracy is rule by a god, not by the religion's leaders. Lots of superstitious people are easily manipulated into thinking that they are serving a god, but in reality, they serve another person. So until they can prove the existence and authority of their god, then they don't serve any god, but man.
Quoting Waya
Theocracy is defined as the rule of government by priests that act as a conduit for God or a god. That form of government has existed and still does. Whether or not they actually have God/god's authority is another thing. Also, Capitalism has been achieved in a sense. The capital is owned and controlled by private citizens, communism has never been achieved on any large scale.
Freedom of speech can still be perverted and made into a lie; fake news. But freedom of speech for all also allows the truth to be heard, so the lie is not as effective. Christianity attempted to teach the good side of rights, so the dark side does not have a monopoly.
Uh no. Through most of history we were organised in tribes.
Interviewer from the House UnAmerican Activities Committee: Are you now, or have you ever been a Hugoenot?
Mr. Andrew K. I am not a Huguenot!
HUAC Interviewer: But Mr. K, we have documents that prove you have aided and abetted known Huguenot conspiracies. Are you a Christian, then, Mr. K?
Not any more.
HUAC Interviewer: According to informed sources, you were brought up Catholic; do you admit you were lying under oath when you said that you are not a Christian?
Attorney for the subject of interest: Mr. K refuses to answer the question on the grounds that any thing he says may incriminate him.
HUAC Interviewer: Huguenot fellow traveler; not Christian; brought up Catholic! Obviously a lying subversive! Take him away.
NEXT
I define theocracy as rule by a god. Humans are far too corrupted to act in place of God, so they are not really accurate in demonstrating what God wants.
True capitalism has never existed except in theory, being that it is the complete absence of governmental restrictions on trade.
Contempt.
God would appear far more corrupt than humans.
Are you faithful? Are you blameless? Are you pure?
Quoting Waya
If it's good enough for Humpty Dumpty, it's good enough for you. But just be aware that the rest of us use theocracy to mean rule by priests.
Quoting Waya
The god who tried to hide his errors by drowning everyone except the family of a blindly obedient old man? Who demanded obedience even to the point of sacrificing a son? Who permits tsetse fly, thelazia gulosa, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and the Holocaust?
Quoting Waya
Which amongst us knows what god wants? Are you putting up your hand as his representative? See the definition of theocracy above.
Quoting Waya
Same goes for True Scotsmen...
Quoting Waya
More Humpty Dumpty.
Quoting Waya
Come on, then... show us your proof.
How are they "His errors" if human beings have free will?
Quoting Banno
Yeah, the problem of evil has been dealt with so many times already. You can head to the sources which deal with it.
How does free will excuse mass murder? Was it A Good Thing to drown all those evil two-month old babies?
Take the myth seriously, and it is an abomination.
Yup. And I disagree. :halo:
Quoting Banno
What errors did he try to hide with the deluge? All I know is that MAN became corrupt and refused to repent. They were warned 120 years before it was going to happen. As far as I know, only God sacrificed his own son. Because humans sin, the world falls short of perfection, hence disasters are going to occur because of OUR sin.
Quoting Banno
The way we can truly know what God wants is by reading the Scripture, not by interpreting things any which way we please.
Quoting Banno
Proof of what?
Because humanity used its free will in order to build a corrupt society, where abomination reigned in the social, moral, and religious spheres. The children born in that environment would have become corrupted, and the only way to save Creation was to restart it.
These ideas of God given human rights, made Christianity very dangerous to the powers to be, since the slaves were a needed majority, and if they started to think and hope too much, it could upset the country club status quo of the ruling classes. The Romans and all the various religions of prestige, persecuted, tortured and killed the Christians hoping to snuff out the movement. Christianity, however, was hard to kill, since slaves have it hard, and they have little to lose and much to gain.
As the centuries passed, the hope, persistence and gentle lawfulness of the Christians made then more and more socially acceptable. Christianity never taught anarchy, with Jesus teaching to render onto Caesar was Caesar's.
By the 4th century, the Christian soldiers who fought for Rome, had become the best armies of the empire. They were fearless in battle. Though they walked in the shadow of the valley of death there was no fear. The Emperor Constantine, who was very grateful, rewarded the Christians for their service by making Christianity the official religion of Rome. He was also hoping that their ways would rub off on the rest of his armies by elevating them.
This is where Christianity changes. It became one of the religions of prestige and power. The original became a hybrid of Roman and Christian ways, with Rome the over dog. It was still the religion of love but with a large sword and empire; Roman Catholic. It became a paradox of faith and knowledge, war and peace, due to the merger of two different cultures.
This hybrid lasted about a 1000 years and underwent another transition starting the 14th century, where the two aspects of the hybrid began to separate like two daughter cells. Rome and Christianity started to become distinct again. Nazi Germany was a Christian nation that was very heavy on the Rome side of the hybrid split. The Catholic Church, which had been the seat of power became more and more a figure head, going back to the basics of human rights.
The idea of human rights being anti-christian depends on where we look in terms of the evolution of the church and which aspect of the hybrid you focus on.
Scriptures...? :o Good luck with that, here's a list of maybe 50 of them.
[quote=Quran 4:157]And [for] their saying, "Indeed, we have killed the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, the messenger of Allah." And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but [another] was made to resemble him to them. And indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption. And they did not kill him, for certain.[/quote]
The Bible alone has tediously long lists of problems. But, hey, ambiguities and inconsistencies do have a sort of strength to them. When one verse is inconvenient, just find another, or interpret in whatever presently convenient way. Which has happened.
Adam, Eve, and Jesus don't figure in the Vedas. Can't have been that important I guess.
Certifiably non-authoritative.
Past theocracies has indeed been run by clergy. Deities neither evident nor necessary in the first place, just humans. If some such deity wants something in particular, then it should be a walk in the park to let everyone in on that. Meanwhile I'll do the talking on the one really true deity's behalf. Good with you?
The commandment isn't specifically against lying, but is in the prohibition against bearing false witness against one's neighbor (i.e. perjury).
The proscription against killing is actually against murder, not self-defense.
I'm not sure what commandment you reference when you say there is a proscription against oppressing others.
The Western right to property does not include the right to theft. The biblical proscription against theft assumes a right to own property, else there'd be nothing to steal.
The Western right to freedom of worship is a restriction against state enforced religion. It provides no commentary on the righteousness of idolatry.Quoting Agustino
This isn't true. The first commandment states you should believe in God. You are also told to keep the Sabbath holy and to honor your parents. Those commandments are not in the negative. Quoting Agustino
That's not what the right to free speech is. The right to freedom of speech relates to the limitations on the government in regulating speech, although the crime of perjury and the torts of libel and slander continue to exist.
Most everything we talk about on this site has been dealt with for 1000s of years, so this response could be a universal response to most every post.
That's like rule by Santa. Do you have a realistic political theory to put forward for consideration?
Yes, and with the same creatures with the same free will that led to the corruption requiring the destruction of Creation the first time around. There's certainly no error in that. Clever fellow, God.
Most of those are fairy tales...
Quoting jorndoe
1) You quoted from the Quran, which I find tons of problems in those texts. They are illogical. I don't think I've ever heard the Quran be referred to as the Bible...
2) Interpretations have to be made in the context of the entire Scripture, according to historical basis, and grammar, so the "just find another verse" excuse doesn't work, neither does the "change the interpretation" excuse.
Quoting jorndoe
Probably because it isn't historically accurate?
Quoting jorndoe
Past claimed theocracies have been run by clergy. But in the case of the Roman Catholic, they, in fact, were quite far away from following their own Scripture. They were not a theocracy, but merely a claimed one. The Crusades, for example, were some of the most unchristian wars ever fought. The site you linked needs to research many things better, as most of it is inaccurate. However, if you want to talk about death by governments, then I think that the Soviet Union should be addressed, as that secular atheistic government murdered more people than all the "Christian" governments combined. Maybe a fake theocracy isn't so bad after all... :chin:
Quoting Sapientia
That's why I said it isn't realistic, dearest Sappy... a true theocracy does not exist today. :flower:
Or ever has, to the best of our knowledge. (According to your definition, that is).
That ought to work. Scripture is so clear and uncontroversial.
How does that work? God presumably set up human nature. Why make it corruptible? Yeah, all the stories of free will. A get-out-of-jail-free card for the Good Lord.
All of which take too much faith for my critical mind.
The bible tells us how this occurred, in the book of Genesis. It has to do with eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That tree is a symbol and symbolizes laws of good and evil. Law teaches us how to differentiate good and evil. Natural human nature is morally neutral. Law, which was a choice, polarized the mind and corrupted natural human nature.
The age old problem with law or knowledge of good and evil is connected to how the brain is naturally wired. Law creates a problem in the natural wiring of the brain, which amplifies sin or evil behavior. It is not natural for human nature to do evil, since it is morally neutral, but rather law causes evil to appear by changing neutrality.
When the brain writes to memory, an emotional tag is added by the aspects of the limbic system in the core of the brain. Our memory is a combination of sensory content plus this emotional tagging. Law is a unique form of memory in the sense that by defining both good and evil behavior in one thing, a law memory needs two conflicting emotional tags; fear of evil and rest for the good.
With natural instinct, a food might be liked or disliked. It can be either, depending on the person. But it is not ambiguous. With law you get an ambiguous affect, where like and dislike are part of one thing called law. The law induces mixed feelings due to the writing process, which can paralyze the person in terms of action. A law feels right and wrong.
The way the brain resolves this ambiguity is to store law memories in two separate layers. All the evil and fear side of law is in one layer and all the rest and peace side of law is in another area. Heaven and Hell symbolize this segregation of the law memories.
As an analogy of this affect, is say you had mixed feelings for a person. It is common for some lovers to have a love and hate relationship. These mixed feelings create a state of tension, since you wish to approach and run away from the same person, at the same time. The brain resolves this by having us do an assessment of why we love them and why we hate them, forming two lists. This allows us to focus on the good or the bad as separate things, even though both come from one person. We can then compare. If we decide we really do love them, we may repress the things that bother us about them. But this is still part of them, so it is not erased, only repressed.
If you honestly try to do good, by the law, you essentially need to repress the fear or evil side of the law making it unconscious. However, since this is the other side of the same coin, it does not go away. It is only hidden from consciousness. The result is a shadow side appears in human nature. Like coins, if we collect one hundred coins and place them all heads up; good, although the tails are not seen, we also have 100 hidden evils in the unconscious, to impel and even create new shady behavior.
The way Jesus dealt with this was to teach love your enemy. He attempted to induce one unambiguous tag of love to the writing of memory, in place of the dual tagging of law. Jesus knew-how the brain was wired based on internal meditation.
That is one way to look at it. The other way is Genesis tells about how human nature changes during the transition between prehuman and civilizations. In terms of the time table for Genesis, it coordinates with an important invention, which was the invention of written language. Both written language and Genesis occurred about 6000 year ago, based on carbon dating and bible genealogy, respectively. In the beginning was the word and word was God. This tells of this connection.
The beginning chapters of Genesis amounts to the first published theory of cosmology and evolution on human record. Whether you believe it or not, it was the first published theory. It reflected a new beginning for humanity where humans began to ponder, document and study the world around them as they theorize the nature of reality and document it.
Humans 6000 years ago were well aware of the biological nature of birth; animals and humans. Adam and Eve are described as appearing in ways that were not normal biology. Adam was from the dust of the earth and Eve was cloned from on of Adam's rib cells. This departure from known biology, symbolized changes in the human psyche, that was induced by things that were not exactly biological in origin or expected from evolution/genes.
The tree of knowledge of good and evil or law, for example, tricked the writing process of the brain to create an unconscious potential and internal polarization that was not naturally biological, although it impacted biology and changed human nature.
There was other changes in the psyche induced by civilization, itself, since civilization is an environment that is not natural, yet the input data to the brain will be organized by the brain using natural firmware. A departure occurs from natural reality and instinct. Much of the second half of Genesis, describes the unnatural humans that appear. It is interesting to read how the witnesses of those times describe the changes.
The invention of writing was critical to the change. Consider going to school where there are no books, no notes, and no study materials. You hear a lecture and try to remember, with everyone remembering somewhat differently. The final version that everyone will agree to accept will be based on who can pretend to have the most conviction; con artist, or who is the toughest and can force his opinion on everyone. The brain will forget as time goes on, with no good way to refresh the memory. Civilization had many starts and abortions before the first sustainable civilization appear. Those humans could invent, but later generations could not sustain due to an unreliable data stream.
Written language changed all that. It was a way to document things so the data stream was sustainable and reproducible. This was critical to sustainable civilization. The problem for the brain was early humanity did not have all the answers in terms of reality. Therefore writings, such as sacred texts, will perpetuate ideas, that were good for their time, but which may come into conflict with an evolving unconscious perception.
Before writing, the brain was more organic and would forget and invent anew, but after writing, walls and dams appear that altered human nature. Genesis describes the changes. It was a time of the men of renowned, often describe in myths, as well as bestial humans compelled by unconscious potential.
Moral person by what standard? God is the very standard of morality... By your standard of morality I may not be a good person, but why should I be worried about that?
You [i]should[/I] be worried. That's very disconcerting. No one who permits stoning adulterers to death, whether your fictional "God" or anyone else, can rightly be called the very standard of morality. Where is your humanity, Agustino?
I have no problems with such laws. If they happen to be the laws of my society, then I will follow them. I wouldn't personally advocate for such laws because I'm not used to living in such a society (and I personally find it barbaric), but I can certainly imagine living back in the day and accepting such laws as part of the way the world is. My bet is that if you too lived in Ancient Judea, you too would have accepted stoning as the just punishment for adultery too. Most people did in those days. What makes you think that you would have been different?
That's sickening.
If you were born and lived in Ancient Judea, you reckon you would have found stoning as punishment for adultery to be unjust?
That's beside the point, so I choose not to answer.
No, it's not besides the point. If your answer is "no", then it shows that there is nothing intrinsically immoral with having stoning as the punishment for adultery. It may seem immoral to us, because it is very distant from the way our society is currently structured. We don't have such punishments even for mass murder.
However, just because we're not used to something, and we have a very difficult time imagining it, doesn't mean that it is therefore immoral. I think the Ancient Jews would be horrified with our modern societies too.
So if you are honest with yourself you will come to this same conclusion.
It is beside the point, it shows no such thing, I am honest with myself, and I have reached a different conclusion. Your reasoning is clearly erroneous. Even if, counterfactually, I grew up in an environment in which, as a result of cultural conditioning, I believed that stoning or slavery or genocide or torture or what-have-you was acceptable, it doesn't follow that it [i]is[/I] acceptable, or that that is any good reason to doubt that it's not acceptable. (And as for why these things are not acceptable, I really shouldn't have to explain that to you).
Relativist nonsense. That it might not have stood out at the time, that it might have been viewed differently, or that it might not have been as cruel as practises in other contemporaneous societies, wouldn't make the slightest difference. It's wrong. Obviously wrong.
It is directly tied into the perception of justice.
Whatever it is, let's at least pick a sensible place to start contemplating that question by recognising that it's no more God than the Easter Bunny.
The question of what establishes objective morality is a legitimate one and involves looking at what our intuituve conscience determines is moral and in looking at consistencies and themes in what presents as moral and arriving at logical theories to explain what is moral.
In arriving at a theory (e.g. Kantianism, utilitarianism, divine command theory, etc.), we have to see how well each theory works against what we know to be right and wrong. The Bible, if presented as a morally inerrant document, is rejected based upon it's draconian response to dishonesty in marital relationships. The Bible therefote can't be looked upon as a perfect guide, but more a source of inspiration from very primitive peoples.
Yet the message of Jesus as it appears in the gospels is more about personal transformation via forgiveness.
It's about freedom from the cycle of violence that accompanies the pursuit of justice.
Agree?
No, no, no. The message of Jesus is more about stoning people and chasing people with whips. It's about mindless submission to God and carrying out acts of cruelty and violence in his name.
The Nuremberg defence.
You can't escape responsibility for your moral actions by being a moral coward. You decide to follow what you take to be god's commands, or not.
What you are doing here is telling the rest of us more about your capacity to make moral comment. It reaches a point where one simply ignores your posts; their basis and logic are too twisted to be helpful. I had made such a judgement long ago, from your comments in the Trump thread. You simply reinforce that here.
You are not worth listening to on questions of morality.
Although I have only read a few of your posts, it might be that the post above, directed at Agustino, applies yo you as well.
You are a moral agent, whether you like it or not. You choose what you will do next; you choose to follow whatever you suppose to be god's laws, or not.
Nothing could show your lack of moral understanding more clearly.
There's this whole field of philosophy called ethics. I suggest you look into it.
Quoting Hanover
But the problem still remains, why is a "draconian"' response wrong? The answer is that justice is intolerant, as are the laws of nature. When only justice exists, and no mercy, why do we perceive as unfair? Is it draconian when a person is struck by lightning? Rather, we see that as the result of nature. Justice is natural, but the problem is in defining justice. Hence, the death of an unfaithful spouse is a natural and just solution. However, mercy is seen as admirable, hence we value mercy over justice and do not stone the unfaithful today.
Quoting Banno
Contrary, somehow, people are missing the point.
Quoting Baden
Yup, I have. But the absence of the efficient cause of ethics is missing from an atheistic view. And the "reasons" given are illogical.
Indeed. You are a moral agent. You choose to follow a screed rather than admit that you choose for yourself. Hence you deny that you are a moral agent, and fall to inconsistency.
Adultery is also quite natural. You're inconsistent.
Oh really?
And yours is an abomination.
Yes. I have a speculation about why you might be more drawn to the Old Testament than the New: you have a need for a strong external source of order.
Jesus was an unapologetic law breaker: recall the gleaning incident. He did profess to replace the whole Mosaic Law with two simple rules.
So please tell me where he broke the Law... The gleaning incident, as found in Mark 2:23-28, he addresses why it was not breaking the law, but rather that the Pharisees were legalistic.
Mark 12:28-34 answers your questions about the "two commandments".
As C. S. Lewis declared, Christ of the actual Christian Scripture was either a liar, lunatic or Lord.
So why are you filling poor Agu's head with Matt 5:17 if it isn't even binding anymore? Drop that scripture, drop the crap about it being natural to stone adulterers, and focus on love.
Those who refuse Christ are under the law, and the law brings death.
Indeed; on your part, if you are going to convince folk that your ethics is of any value.
Especially if your method involves threats of violence:
Yeah, but it's not a Christian fundamentalist preaching forum.
You've been called out.
Echo'ing @Banno's comments above:
Deferral to someone else (that cannot be asked in particular) is to forfeit being considered a moral agent.
Refusal to take responsibility for one's actions is moral cowardice.
Anyone doing this stuff ? are likely inconsistent or pathological.
Does that describe you?
Nope, but this thread's title is "Human Rights are Anti-Christian"; it seems logical to use the religion in the discussion.
Exactly, I agree the refusing to take responsibility is cowardly, hence the "wages of sin is death" according to Christianity.
Which was supposed to be fixed by the propitiatory sacrifice: one of the more obscene aspects of that religion.
Settle down Captain Happy.
Well... That is a peculiar way to define it in my opinion. Theocracy is meant to refer to the forms of government that existed like the definition I gave because those have actually existed. A god run government never has and likely never will so I don't know why you would be referencing that. More importantly, the types of governments that I described have existed and still do, whether or not you call them theocracies or not.
I don't think it mentions the absence of governmental restrictions on trade in the definition. But you are right that the form you are describing hasn't existed.
Yes, death is the result of sin, and sin is ugly and dark and black. Not disagreeing there, I hate death, but what kind of judge would let someone go who has done wrong? Would it not be legally acceptable to demand a payment? BTW, I started a new thread for this kind of discussion so that it doesn't get off topic, as I am uncertain how far this is allowed to venture.
It need not be. Philosophy of Religion is what this is and I think it belongs here, if people can be civil enough to discuss the topic with their o so great critical minds™.
Yeah, I think I see your point now. I was referencing extreme versions.
Mercy is an element of justice as is proportionality. That's why stoning a mother at the town's gate is draconian. In fact, I find your argument disingenuous to the extent you are suggesting you would advocate throwing rocks at a child's mother until she died because she cheated on his dad. Say it all you want, but your conscience wouldn't allow it, so why pretend to believe it? Quoting Waya
This is just a nonsensical analogy.
Not only does Christianity not have the moral monopoly it claims, it is itself morally wanting; it is stagnant.
Does it matter in a court of law if she was a mother, a prostitute, or a barbarian? Does it matter if an elderly grandmother who makes cookies for the grandkids and knits cute hats crashes into a van full of a family of a minority group, killing them all because she hates those from that nationality? I would say no.
I advocate for justice, and mercy when the person pleads for it.
In your example, justice would be served, but not mercy. It would be a bad judge to let a criminal go, UNLESS someone offered to pay the price AND the person accepted it.
Sure - let's compare their writings. oh, wait...
Or prove that Christianity is morally wanting? Hm. Should I use its incoherence? Systemic pedophilia? Inept dealings with the poor?
But if you mean, by "Prove it", that I should try to convince you, I've seen from your writing that incoherence is not one of your concerns. So I doubt I would be able to convince you.
I see that as being about you rather than about christianity.
Go ahead and believe in your religion. Whatever gets you through the night. But don't pretend to the moral high ground.
Quoting Waya
Ah, I see. : )
Exactly.
Quoting Banno
And so is yours from my perspective. Where do we go from here?
Quoting Banno
I can say the same thing about you, where does that leave us?
Quoting Banno
Sure, you can't. But that's not the question. The question is, who decides that God choosing to destroy all Creation is immoral? How do you reach that conclusion? If God is your rightful owner, and without Him, you would not even continue to exist, based on what can you claim that He lacks the RIGHT to choose when you live and when you die? Just because this doesn't appeal to your soft sensibilities?
Quoting Benkei
That's not being a moral relativist. I did not claim that X or Y is immoral at one time in history and not at another. I did, however, claim that stoning as punishment, or jail as punishment in the case of adultery are both just forms of punishment, and if society was structured such that these types of punishments were the norm and would not offend our sensibility, I would have no problem with it.
Imagine for a moment someone from the Ancient world coming into our modern world. They would quite honestly be horrified... they would ask what has become of humanity? Because they would interpret our way of living as effeminate, weak - they being used to cutting heads off, public beatings, etc. would have found our modern world a world for weak men and women, who cannot bear anything more.
Quoting Sapientia
Yes, and so too would Ancient Jew Sappy believe that, even if, counterfactually, he grew up in an environment in which, as a result of cultural conditioning, he believed that not stoning a vicious criminal was acceptable, it doesn't follow that it is acceptable, or that that is any good reason to doubt that it's acceptable. (and as for why these things are acceptable, he really shouldn't have to explain that to you)
Why if adultery unnatural? Why not marriage itself?
In any case, I find the distinction natural and unnatural unhelpful. Anything that is, is natural. It's better, I think, to differentiate between caused by humans and not caused by humans. That's the basis on which being struck by lightning is bad luck and murder or stoning adulterers immoral.
There is nothing immoral about stoning adulterers if such is the law and everyone knows that the law is such.
Relativism with regard to the appropriate punishment is still moral relativism. Apparently you think stoning is going a step too far, that's a different ethical rule and you accepted that in the past it wat appropriate but not now. It's textbook relativism.
That something is legal does not mean it's moral.
If you think there are a range of appropriate (or just) punishments, does that make you a moral relativist?
Quoting Benkei
Sure, I agree.
We each must decide. And making that choice is exactly the question.
Quoting Agustino
Hiding behind the law is no better than hiding behind god.
But you don't. You said one of them is barbaric. So relativism.
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
Then explain to me what this meant
Quoting Agustino
These distinctions have less to do with mercy than standing in the community, but absolutely, a showing of remorse will result in a lesser sentence than would defiance. Quoting Waya
We're not talking about "letting someone go" as much as affecting one's sentence. At any rate, stoning an adulterer fails as being disproportionate, not just in lacking mercy. The bar against cruel and unusual punishments would also be violated.
That's an incorrect definition of relativism. You're explicitely stating that the morality of stoning is relative to the moment in history when it occurred. Should it occur today, it's immoral, yesterday moral. It denies the absolute nature of morality, which would be that stoning is wrong whenever and where ever it occurs.
It's historically obvious that views on morality have shifted over time, as is it clear that moral values vary across the globe, but unless you're willing to state that there is only one right and wrong, you're a relativist.
You think adultery is absolutely wrong because God said so, and I suspect you would consider any society over the history of mankind that felt otherwise morally wrong, correct? That is absolutism, a concept you abandon when it comes to stoning.
Should an ancient society exist alongside a modern one, the manly men ancients wouldn't scoff at the girly moderns, but would live in constant fear and dependence on them. The good old days weren't.
It doesn't matter what an ancient hypothetical version of myself would have thought. If he would've thought that stoning is acceptable, then he would just be wrong. You can imitate what I say back to me, but the obvious difference is that stoning is not actually acceptable, as anyone with sound moral judgement would acknowledge, whatever rhetorical tricks you pull out of your sleeve.
Why is your decision better than mine?
Quoting Hanover
No, that's not what I said. Check below:
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
I don't claim stoning would be immoral today. It wouldn't. It would just offend our sensibilities, but it would not be immoral. There is no moral relativism there at all. You and Benkei are both misreading what I've written.
Quoting Hanover
Yes, adultery is absolutely wrong, but not because God said so.
Quoting Hanover
Only due to technology, not because the ancient society wasn't more manly. They clearly were.
Quoting Sapientia
So people 2000 years ago didn't have sound moral judgement? Only we have sound moral judgement, because our time is privileged over all other historical times. Don't you see how arrogant and ridiculous this is? Every historical era sees itself as the standard to compare everyone else to - I don't see any reason to prioritise today over yesterday - quite the contrary, we should do the very opposite, because very likely we have many blindspots that make us ignore the faults of the present (just like the Ancients ignored the faults of their present).
A quick glance at ancient history should show that, no, they didn't.
Individuals with the intellectual and emotional maturity of anything more than an angsty 15 years old were the exception, not the rule.
Why is it wrong?
You said it was barbaric, which is a clear moral judgment. I didn't misread you, you're just back-pedaling because you can't admit you're wrong. Here is an overview as to how your use the word barbaric which proves it beyond a doubt:
Agustino says "barbaric"
:rofl:
Rather than inverses I think of them as a progression. Human rights is a more advanced form of the decalogue.
If they thought that stoning was acceptable, then obviously not. That's a very good test for sound moral judgement. Thinking that stoning is acceptable is comparable to thinking that Earth is flat. It's a clear indication of extremely poor judgement.
By whose standard? We can prove that the Earth is not flat by experiment, but we cannot prove that stoning adulterers is wrong by experiment.
And I think it's not. Who is right?
I just checked my dictionary and barbaric does not mean immoral.
By the moral standard.
Quoting Agustino
The latter shouldn't require proof. If you require it to be proved to you, then that's your moral failing.
He is, obviously. :rofl:
Oh how quaint. I thought the same about you. If you require proof that stoning adulterers is moral, then that's your moral failing since you're too weak to do justice.
But the difference is that you're wrong and I'm right. And yes, I know you think the same about me in that respect also, but you're wrong about that too. And that. And [I]that[/I].
Quoting Agustino
If you think that stoning is acceptable, then why should anyone here accept as credible anything you have to say about moral failings or justice? :rofl:
If you can't figure out and need it explained to you why putting a woman (or man) in a hole and throwing rocks at their head until you do so much physical damage that you kill them, and doing this simply because they committed adultery then you are too morally disgusting to be worth engaging. Why should anyone who is not a professional psychologist waste time on explaining to you why torturing someone to death in this way is wrong any more than we would waste time explaining to someone why raping someone as a punishment for their crimes would be wrong? There are certain things that no civilized individual would contemplate doing, and yes, there are reasons for that that any half-decent ethical theory can provide. But you're beyond all that. The best thing for you to do would be to crawl back into the hole from which you emerged and leave the moral debate on these boards for those with at least a reasonable degree of human empathy.
Anyway, here's a picture of an actual stoning victim for you.
[hide]
What a silly question!
Which is why I checked how you use it. And of course, no value judgment at all where it's defined as "savagely cruel". Please continue with the back pedaling. It's entertaining.
So the majority of people in Ancient Judea lacked a reasonable degree of human empathy? If that is so, probably the entire Ancient world lacked a reasonable degree of human empathy... if that is the case, how come we suddenly gained this empathy that they lacked?
I am not saying we should stone adulterers, I am just saying that I don't necessarily see such punishments as morally wrong, just disgusting to our modern sensibilities. So I want you to explain to me how we go from disgusting to our sensibilities, to immoral - I am asking the question because I see that there have been many people, in fact, entire cultures in the past, who didn't see it this way.
Right, and next to that definition it says "unsophisticated, primitive". Their punishments were primitive, you would expect savages to behave that way. But primitive or savage isn't the same as immoral.
So what? Cultures, like individuals, can be morally wrong. You need that explained to you? What exactly is wrong with you?
As Zizek says (somewhere), one mark of a civilized society is that certain things are considered without the need for debate as right and wrong. We have a basic moral background, which allows us to consider ourselves above your beloved barbarism. When some morally sick individual such as you talks about rape, slavery, or torture to death by stoning (for a moral infraction that is not even a crime) as being a form of justice, we call the mental help professionals. We don't debate them. We are above that. It's called progress.
Why were they morally wrong - how did they become morally wrong in the first place? And how do we know that? Again, you don't seem to understand the difference between "X offends our sensibility and we would never do it", and "X is morally wrong and we would never do it".
For example. Take the Holocaust. We can say that the Holocaust not only offends our sensibility, but it is also morally wrong, and we would never do it. And I'm pretty sure that literarily any reasonable person, from the Ancient or from the modern world would concur that the Holocaust is immoral. So position in history doesn't really matter to coming to this conclusion.
Quoting Baden
Right, well, thanks, but I haven't insulted you nor misrepresented your position.
Quoting Baden
Well, philosophy is about questioning all kinds of matters that would otherwise not be questioned. I am interested to know why such societies found such forms of punishment acceptable and moral, and we don't. My view is that the acceptable degree of violence as a form of punishment within a society varies historically- I'm not so quick as you to claim that it necessarily is morally wrong. You are obviously not interested - you just like to think that you are right.
Quoting Agustino -emphasis mine
It is clear what you mean with the word and have meant with the word in the past. No dictionary is going to tell us how you actually use it but that sentence above puts it succintly enough. It has been used by you continuously as a moral condemnation. So you condemned stoning in this thread, hence moral relativism. That this doesn't compute with your incomprehensible approach to ethics is because your moral system is nonsense and evil. At least your initial moral intuition with regard to stoning people to death was initially correct. Your misplaced rationalisation of what you "really meant" when that meaning was abundantly clear is what makes you an immoral character. Not only are you dishonest with us but with yourself as well.
Don't give me this self-righteous stuff about philosophy. You are not peddling philosophy any more than ISIS are, and you're not going to get any more respect for what you're doing than they would. Torturing a woman to death by standing above her while she's in a hole and throwing large rocks at her head until you've broken it into so many pieces that she dies is obviously morally wrong just as killing Jews for no reason other than their ethnicity is. If you are trying to convince us you are not utterly degraded morally because you can see the latter is immoral while still claiming the former is moral, you're failing. Again, you don't need a philosopher, you need a psychologist.
I know, sorry. But this is the reality. This is what Agu is condoning as moral. Real people today, men and woman, are suffering the punishment that he is trying to paint as just and moral. This along with holy books being used in an equally sick way to justify slavery and rape. None of this has anything to do with a civilized approach to religion or morality and just reflects an animal level of barbarism. And then Agu will ask, "But what's wrong with animal barbarism?"
"An Execution in Ghazni: Stoned for Adultery
"When the soldiers reached the stake, they inexpertly drove several nails into it -- and lashed the prisoner's hands to these nails, at the same time securing her ankles to the bottom of the stake. When they stepped back, the dirty white chaderi fell completely over the bare feet and the prisoner was wholly masked. She was still free, however, to look out upon the world of hate-filled faces. I turned to watch the mullahs and did not see what happened next, but I heard a thudding sound and a gasp. I looked around quickly...to see that a rather large stone had struck the woman and fallen at her feet. The gasp must have come from her. Now the men at my right, the ones who had eaten with me and brought me to the scene, knelt to find stones...they began throwing at the shrouded figure. From all sides stones whizzed toward the stake, and most struck, and it was obvious that punishment for adultery in Afghanistan was severe.
The Woman refused to cry out, but a cheer soon rose from the crowd. One powerful man had found an especially good stone, large and jagged, and he threw this with force,aiming carefully at her body, and it struck so violently in her abdomen that soon the first blood of the afternoon showed through the chaderi. It was this that brought the cheer...another stone of equal size struck the woman's shoulder. It brought both blood and cheers...A large man with unerring aim pitched a jagged rock of some size and caught the woman in the breast, blood spurted through the torn chaderi and at last the woman uttered a piercing scream... men from all sides gathered fresh ammunition.
The sagging body was struck eight or nine times in the next fusillade, but mercifully the woman could not have know. Now a burly man shouted that he had found the perfect rock and the others must stand aside. The crowd obeyed and watched breathlessly as he took careful aim, whirled his arm, and launch his missile with ugly force. It flashed across the fifteen yards separating the men from their target and sped accurately as intended, striking the unconscious woman in the face. Quick blood marked the spot and the crowd cheered.
The blow was so terrible that it wrenched the prisoner's hands from the nails and allowed her to collapse in a heap about the stake. As she did so, the crowd broke loose and rushed to the fallen body smashing it with boulders which no man, however powerful, could have thrown from a distance. Again and again they dropped the huge rocks on the fallen body until they crushed it completely, continuing the wild sport until they had build a small mound of stones over the scene..."
http://lobojosden.blogspot.com/2010/09/death-by-stoning-description.html
Animal barbarism at its moral best.
Interesting. Anyway here's more (this time not an actual stoning but an accurate representative video of one). Again, so people make no mistake about what Agu's thinks is morally worthy of debate and is a just punishment for adultery.
Essentially the moral equivalent of walking around on your hands and knees and eating shit from the ground.
And I'm going to keep doing this until Agu realizes that no-one will sink to the level of even justifying this by debating it. It speaks for itself.
[quote=Deuteronomy 20:10-15]When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it.
And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you.
But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it.
And when the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword,
but the women and the little ones, the livestock, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourselves. And you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you.
Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here.[/quote]
[quote=Numbers 31:14-20]And Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, who had come from service in the war.
Moses said to them, “Have you let all the women live?
Behold, these, on Balaam’s advice, caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the LORD in the incident of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of the LORD.
Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him.
But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves.
Encamp outside the camp seven days. Whoever of you has killed any person and whoever has touched any slain, purify yourselves and your captives on the third day and on the seventh day.
You shall purify every garment, every article of skin, all work of goats’ hair, and every article of wood.”[/quote]
(Quarrels about translations, context, what have you, are irrelevant if this cruft can be used to justify immoral actions, and is installed in impressionable children.)
As to war strategies and tactics there are other ancient writings that are much better, e.g. Sun Tzu's The Art of War.
Quoting Agustino
You seem dumbfounded for some reason. Did you not pay sufficient attention in your history lessons at school? Do you not read history books? We used to stone people to death, burn people at the stake, crucify people, put people on the rack, keep people as slaves, until we gradually progressed from barbarism to the considerably more civilised and enlightened period in which we presently reside. It didn't happen all of a sudden. You can actually look up the history of how and why each of these gruesome and perverse stains on human history came about, and how and why they fell out of practice or were outlawed in most places. The psychology of it probably has to do with the dark side of our nature, backwards thinking, religious extremism, herd mentality, aversion to change, ignorance, abusive authorities, and so on. Then the freethinkers began to question, and speak up, and stand against, sometimes at great cost.
You’re suggesting that advocates of barbaric and inhumane punishments such as stoning should be respected?
Because they were operating in the darkness of an inculcated superstitious belief that that was what God wanted. And then Christ came along and said, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
If you continue to persist with this disgustingly perverse unphilosophical nonsense, I would be forced to come to the conclusion that excommunicating you would not be unjustified, as I see no reason why a site such as this should be so lenient as to continue to tolerate and play the host to that kind of degenerate "thinking".
:gasp:
https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Stoning
Thanks for taking a look and being so reasonable about it. :up:
Here's an important clue as to what fulfill meant and it doesn't mean "obey" the Law. Or at least, not under the interpretation of the Law offered back then as a strictly legalistic endeavour. The law, to Jesus, was justice, mercy and faithfulness (Matthew 23:23) and mercy and forgiveness was emphasised in his sermon on the Mount. That sermon also emphasises the moral character of the law but not the punishment. He only mentions ending up in hell as punishment, not capital punishment.
Looking at John 1-11. The adulterer was guilty but forgiven (she was judged by Jesus). We obey the Law even when punishment is humane and even when we forgive.
Also, the trap the Pharisees set up in that event wasn't that both the man and woman had to be present but because the romans forbade stoning other than imposed by Roman courts and adultery want in the list of capital crimes. Mosaic Law required it.
I'm sure there's more in this but it's been almost 30 years since I studied the Bible and turned atheist.
Nice!
I disagree: evolution is evolution and it is, per se, not concerned with anything. Evolution is adaptation that happens naturally due to interactions between the evolving entity, whether that be an individual, a society, or a species, and its environment.
It's an interaction between internal and external conditions. If what you said were correct then you would be contradicting yourself in saying that society and culture have evolved. The fact that human society in general has evolved is no guarantee that it has improved, but I think it is fair to say that in fact human society in general has improved, mostly insofar as it has freed itself from the entrenched dogmas of tradition, and all the atrocities which were committed in their name. Modern society is obviously still replete with problems and far from perfect, though.
To return to the OP, the evolution of the idea of human rights is a large part of that improvement and is very far from being "anti-Christian", even though it might not be in accordance with some of the more repugnant draconian religious dogmas which have survived the Enlightenment.
Under the constitution there are rights given like freedom of speech and freedom of worship that protect people’s rights to speak and worship freely. Now say that there is a child born into a home where the parents of this child tells them that they are not allowed to speak foul language and that they will practice Christianity. By doing these two things are the parents restricting the rights of the child or performing actions in opposition to human rights? Of course not! The parents of this child are simply laying out guidelines for a life that they think will lead the child to success and health.
The parents are not attempting to strip the rights of the child, at the end of the day the child is going to speak and believe whatever they hold to be their own. In the same way when God laid out the Christian decalogue for the Israelites he was not trying to strip them of their rights. As creator God endowed human beings with the freewill that allows them to do these things such as choose what to say and what to believe.
The 10 commandments instead are a moral code that God sets forth for those that choose to follow him to uphold in order to lead a life deemed healthy and successful in the eyes of God. Restricting the rights of those that hear these commandments and not allowing them to break them was never a part of the discussion. In this way the Christian decalogue and human rights are not at odds with each other, but are instead each stepping stones in the determination of the moral code that each human being chooses to uphold.
Along with many of the comments above, I agree that your conclusions don’t necessarily follow. Especially “the right to bear arms is the right to kill” and “ the right to property is the right to theft”. If we are talking about what the United States of America considers “natural rights”, by no means did the Founding Fathers affirm the right to bear arms and the right to property along with killing and theft. Murder and theft are against the law, showing that they are not thought of as “human rights”.
I also do not see how lying becomes a virtue in any way.
Some food for thought:
The Christian Decalogue is a sum of commandments. God gave His people free will.
1. If God gave His people free will then they have the right to choose.
2. The right to free speech, to bear arms, to freedom, to property, and to freely worship are all choices.
3. God gave His people the right to free speech, to bear arm, to freedom, to property, and to freely worship.
Of course lying, killing, oppressing others, stealing, and idolizing are all wrong and the law has attempted to limit those wrong choices. If anything human rights to all these freedoms allow a great God given gift: the gift of free will.