Evolution and meat: Berkeley University

Originally posted by RJHinds
You don't think paying all that money to the father and being forced to
get married and take care of a wife for the rest of his life without the
chance to ever getting divorced is not punishment enough? You are a
hard man.

P.S. Jesus explained that Moses made some rules for the people due to
the hardness of their heart, but it was never meant to be that way from
the beginning. Jesus made a new covenant.

No I don't think it punishment enough because the guy obviously wanted to have sex with
the women and now he gets to do so as much as he likes now he's married.
As I said before, people genuinely did this to marry up in the world.

Second, this punishes the women for being raped.
Screw the guy, the women is being forced to marry the man who just raped her.

Also, you want to claim Jesus negated the first half of the bible (or parts of the first half),
show me the chapter and verse where he does it.
And answer why those bits still get published.

And again, you believe it is the same god you worship today as said this back then.
Your god once said that this was the moral thing to do.
I will not accept that at any point ever, any being claiming to be a moral authority could
legitimately claim that rapists should be made to marry their victims.
Or more to the point, that rape victims should be forced to marry their rapists.

Originally posted by karoly aczel
Are you implying that your example of a "situation that is bad" is universally understood,that it is a unversal truth? If no, then where do you get this standard from?
If so, then do you concede that there is an enternal, universal set of "guidelines" that apply to all people at all times, irrelvent of faith or not?

*bump* for googlefudge

Originally posted by karoly aczel
*bump*

oops sorry, I had a nagging feeling there was a post I wanted to reply to but couldn't figure out what it was....


EDIT: I am really glad you bumped that, It was like an itch you can't scratch,
it would have bugged me all night.
I hate the feeling of knowing there was something you were going to do/say/ect but can't remember what it was, or even if you have done it already and have forgotten.

Originally posted by karoly aczel
Are you implying that your example of a "situation that is bad" is universally understood,that it is a unversal truth? If no, then where do you get this standard from?
If so, then do you concede that there is an enternal, universal set of "guidelines" that apply to all people at all times, irrelvent of faith or not?

Right. Interesting question.

I have a couple of background links I think it worth looking at (anyway) which cover the issue (and from which I will shamelessly nick ideas)

http://atheistexperience.blogspot.com/2010/10/matts-superiority-of-secular-morality.html

YouTube&feature=channel_video_title

I am not sure that I believe in a set of 'universal absolute correct in all situations morals'.
Such a thing might exist, possibly, but I don't think it likely we will ever deduce exactly what they are or be able to tell even if we ever do.

However I do think it is still possible to define actions as being universally bad.

In this specific instance; (points 1 to 4)
1 I claim that a society that treats half the population [women] as property of members of the other half is bad.
2 I claim that rape is bad, and thus a society that allows rape or does little to discourage it is bad.
3 I claim that forcing a women Reveal Hidden Content into marriage and continual close contact with the man who raped her is bad.
4 I claim that punishing the victim of a crime (in this case rape) is bad.

If these things are bad Reveal Hidden Content then any powerful being that comes across this society Reveal Hidden Content and this powerful being has the power to change this society, Giving them an instruction that makes the situation worse
by adding in additional bad things (points 3&4). Is not acting morally, and can't be considered as moral.


I don't have to have a hard and fast defining line between good and bad to categorize certain things as being good or being bad.
Some things might be neutral, and some things may not be able to be put squarely into any camp, but can be graded as better or worse than some other position.

Watch the films if you can (both worth while, but relatively long (hour plus each)) as they explain quite well and in reasonable detail what I base my position on.
If you have any questions, or you really think i need to go through the process of justifying those positions as bad, feel free to ask.
But I am not going to do it tonight :-) but I wanted to get some answer to this done, before I lost it again.

Originally posted by googlefudge
No I don't think it punishment enough because the guy obviously wanted to have sex with
the women and now he gets to do so as much as he likes now he's married.
As I said before, people genuinely did this to marry up in the world.

Second, this punishes the women for being raped.
Screw the guy, the women is being forced to marry the man who just ra ...[text shortened]... eir victims.
Or more to the point, that rape victims should be forced to marry their rapists.

The woman would probably remain unmarried under your remedy and
she would become a burden on her father. Moses may have not come
up with a perfect solution, but apparently it was effective enough in
that culture to remain in force for a long time.

It still gets published because it is a part of their history. Many bad
things happened and we need to know about it. Don't we learn from
mistakes of others? This may have been the best they could do at the
time, we don't know. As Jesus pointed out, it was not God that gave
these rules to Moses. Moses made these rules to bring order, discipline,
and justice to the people.

Jesus talks about this type of thing, but I would have to go back and read
the New Testament again to find the Chapters and verses, for my mine
is not an encyclopedia of the Holy Bible.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Right. Interesting question.

I have a couple of background links I think it worth looking at (anyway) which cover the issue (and from which I will shamelessly nick ideas)

http://atheistexperience.blogspot.com/2010/10/matts-superiority-of-secular-morality.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm2Jrr0tRXk&feature=channel_video_title

I am not sure ...[text shortened]... o do it tonight :-) but I wanted to get some answer to this done, before I lost it again.

I may get around to watching those films-they are up there with checking out the new Primus clip 🙂. As always with me, I have credit problems with net surfing and hence hang around rhp mostly.

I'm quite happy with your answer and I cant find anything wrong with it ,(I suspect we both adhere to a similar brand of common sense,for example point 4 was going one step furthur with morals than most would, but I would definately agree with you on that), however I did find your answer slightly unsatisfying,(p'haps the vids might explain to me), but ....how should I put this...Do you think there is a "universal guide" for these things,('universal' here meaning "timeless", mainly) ?

Or did humans just "evolve" common sense independentaly of any other outside "force",(aliens,gods,runaway computer programs ??) ?

Sorry if I seem to be labouring the point, there's no rush here ...

Originally posted by RJHinds
The woman would probably remain unmarried under your remedy and
she would become a burden on her father. Moses may have not come
up with a perfect solution, but apparently it was effective enough in
that culture to remain in force for a long time.

It still gets published because it is a part of their history. Many bad
things happened and we need to ...[text shortened]... again to find the Chapters and verses, for my mine
is not an encyclopedia of the Holy Bible.

First, you give the woman no choice, she might want to remain unmarried (she could be a lesbian for starters, or simply after being raped
be to traumatised to want to be with another man) And even if she did want to be married to a man she still might prefer no marriage than
to be married to her rapist.

She is only a 'burden on her father' because the revolting society didn't allow women to do a lot of things including having the ability to work
and earn and own property like a man.
You are using the fact that the society is revolting in its treatment of women to justify making it worse.

Moses came up with a revolting solution that was to the benefit of the powerful men of the society. Of whom he was one, funnily enough.

You suggest this was the best they could do at the time.... really? because people at the same time or earlier had better laws/treatment of
women. so that is patently not true.
Also Given they were supposed to be getting advice and instruction from an omni max benevolent god you would think that they could do better.

also I quote you.

"I am from a protestant background being raised in the Baptist Church.
So I first became aware of biblical inspiration from church teachings,
like 2 Timothy 3:16 "All scripture is inspired by God..." So for Baptists
that means everything that is written in our Holy Bible. Other Jewish
writings, like the Apocrypha, were not considered inspired, but good
writings to help in the understanding of the inspired writings. You can
read more about biblical inspiration in the links below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_inspiration

http://biblical-inspiration.org/

P.S. Evidence of biblical inspiration

http://carm.org/evidence-biblical-inspiration"


"All scripture is inspired by god"..... So Deuteronomy is not scripture?

Originally posted by googlefudge
First, you give the woman no choice, she might want to remain unmarried (she could be a lesbian for starters, or simply after being raped
be to traumatised to want to be with another man) And even if she did want to be married to a man she still might prefer no marriage than
to be married to her rapist.

She is only a 'burden on her father' because ...[text shortened]... tion"[/i]


"All scripture is inspired by god"..... So Deuteronomy is not scripture?

You were not there to know what was best for these people, so stop
making up hypotheticals and being so dishonest about what you know
or don't know, to be more accurate. Stop quoting me for no apparent
reason.

Originally posted by RJHinds
You were not there to know what was best for these people, so stop
making up hypotheticals and being so dishonest about what you know
or don't know,

Just a few posts ago, you were hypothesizing about how it was the best choice at the time etc. Then you started back tracking and blaming it all on Moses. Now you want to pretend that we can't know?

Originally posted by twhitehead
Just a few posts ago, you were hypothesizing about how it was the best choice at the time etc. Then you started back tracking and blaming it all on Moses. Now you want to pretend that we can't know?

Stop being so critical. You know neither one of us is perfect.
Judge yourself so I don't have to.

Originally posted by RJHinds
You were not there to know what was best for these people, so stop
making up hypotheticals and being so dishonest about what you know
or don't know, to be more accurate. Stop quoting me for no apparent
reason.

I am sorry, do you not like being reminded that you said in a different thread something that directly contradicts
something you said in this one?

Tough.

I don't care how long ago it was, what is said in Deuteronomy is inarguably not the best thing for those people
thus they must have been able to do better.

You are trying to weasel out of the fact that what is said in your bible is an abomination.

I am not just saying its a little wrong, I am saying it's abominable.

I am saying it has no justification at any period in history or prehistory.

I am saying whoever wrote that had no moral's worth the name.

And you are apologising for them.

You are claiming that it was ok to treat women like property, and marry them off to rapists.

As well as all the other stuff in Deuteronomy involving stoning people for such crimes as being an unruly teenager
or adultery.

This leads me to question your morals.

You can't legitimately claim to have any morals worth the name and support what your bible preaches.

You can't take the bible as the literal word of god, certainly not in today's age, because you would be imprisoned in
short order for all the murders you would have been biblically instructed to carry out.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I am sorry, do you not like being reminded that you said in a different thread something that directly contradicts
something you said in this one?

Tough.

I don't care how long ago it was, what is said in Deuteronomy is inarguably not the best thing for those people
thus they must have been able to do better.

You are trying to weasel out of t ...[text shortened]...
short order for all the murders you would have been biblically instructed to carry out.

I did not say anything contradictory. I might have not used the best choice
of words to get my point across clearly. It is common for twhitehead to make
a mountain out of a molehill. He knew what I meant for he can't be that
stupid. And since Dasa is not here, I will have to call you on being dishonest.
Moses was not perfect anymore than we are so everything must be considered
in context of the time and situation. Dishonest people can't understand, just
ask Dasa.