Does the international outcry over modern-day stoning seem "petty and silly" to you?

Absolutely not. But the "rest of us" are 1500 years more advanced than the average ME Muslim. Why, the sectarian assimilation of so many Muslim immigrants in first world nations speaks pretty well to their ability to catch up in record time. Problem is, the first world isn't the second/third world. Life on the ground there is often no different at all than it was 1500 years ago. Only part of that is our fault (Iraq, for instance).

I don't know what the 'proper' answer is per how to deal with the medieval tendencies of camel-riders and dirt-scratchers in what's really the 'forgotten world' more than second or third world. We left them behind. Maybe on purpose, maybe because they wanted to get left behind.

But we can't expect them to change overnight, even though we've input tons of gold and paper money into cultures where neither count very much. A Rolls may be more comfortable than a camel, but not really more efficient. We Are The Arabs. What movie was that from?…

If I had power, and I do not, I'd sadly sign off on their total isolation. Find other resource sources and change my focus, leave them alone to figure it out for themselves. Don't let 'em on airplanes, don't sell 'em cars, don't let them in the country. Just don't. Then, if any of their nations finally do figure out that they have to play our game in order to play at all, we'll talk.

Harsh? Yes. Car bombs, suicide bombers, flying airplanes into buildings, cutting the heads off journalists and aid workers… they're not civilized. They don't WANT civilization at the present time, so isolate them until they either kill each other off or do want to participate. I don't care what they do with their barbaric scriptures to make that happen - it's up to them entirely. And while this will hurt those of good faith, they will be needed to change things inside the restriction zone.

Maybe they'll grow up, maybe they'll inherit the world when we end up killing ourselves off. Who knows? What I do know is that I have zero patience for Islamic radicalism, which has amply proven itself a lot more dangerous than Christian radicalism. I'm glad I don't have power so I don't get to make such policies. Because if I did, I would.

I do not think this is all so difficult to understand or to credit for what it is. Really. Why not admit that you can't judge the relativities present for humans actually in that time and place, from your comfortable middle-class American status in the 21st century? This seems so petty and silly to me.

Joy,

Do you condemn the present-day practice of stoning in the Islamic world?

I guess you can't. After all, who are we to judge the "relativities" of the Islamic world from our comfortable middle-class American status?

Does the international outcry over modern-day stoning seem "petty and silly" to you?

However, when the words are frankly viscious and reinforce the absolute worst that humans sometimes do, I have a problem with stretching the inspiration idea to include it.

But you're engaging in a mental form of retrocausation here. And you may be right that literalists and 'inerrantists' are also engaging in this exercise. My view of scripture is admittedly shaped by my understandings of the material itself, along with historical and cultural peculiarities I accept as presented by the 'scientific' study of history and cultures. It comes from long association with papyrologists focused finely on the texts, and whose extrapolations are always colored by historical and cultural contingencies. Because I have an interest, and have sought out these associations.

There are several specific literary styles reflected in entire eras of "The Writings," both scriptural and apocryphal. Some are purely political, some reflect actual states-of-mind in general of historical cultures. I approach the texts in this way because I think it's the best way to understand them.

If I saw the great natural disasters and blatant miracles described in the early histories of the Bible, it's also likely I would have suffered great loss in those events. Not being Job, I would have to either interpret them as merely natural events that cause serious loss and suffering, or believe the 'authority' of my leadership in how THEY interpret it. Where my suffering is mere "collateral damage" of a much greater and long term plan. And if I were to understand it that way, then my inspiration in translating those events to the bigger picture would require that cognitive process underlie it.

Insurance companies to this very day describe tornadoes and hurricanes and earthquakes and volcanoes, etc., *as* "Acts of God." Most of them also define nuclear war *as* "Acts of God" too, so you'll have to figure that one out for yourself! Money is involved, so apparently these definitions are somewhat fluid to that issue. The same thing was true in ancient times, though what was at stake was something more vitally important than mere filthy lucre.

I do not think this is all so difficult to understand or to credit for what it is. Really. Why not admit that you can't judge the relativities present for humans actually in that time and place, from your comfortable middle-class American status in the 21st century? This seems so petty and silly to me. I do not think it's a very effective debunking of that which has been held Holy for thousands of years before you were ever a twinkle in your daddy's eye.

Keiths and Onething are right: the Jehovah of much of the old testament is a tyrannical, abusive, murderous tribal deity. So is the "God" many Christians believe in who would roast his children in eternal hellfire because they displease him. . .

I always thought of Tyrants as people who seize and abuse power. 'Man dominating man to his injury'. Taking something that does not rightfully belong to them. But I don't think this applies to God when we consider his relationship to Mankind and his intent towards them within the Christian viewpoint (Ezekiel 18:4, Romans 3:23-26, Acts 24:14-15).

But as far as people burning eternally in hell for finite crimes, that's another discussion altogether. I'll simply say that I think it to be a false teaching for various reasons…

Woe to them who call evil good, and good evil.

At long last I am too upset to continue. I just didn't realize the situation could be this bad. That people could cling to a book even when it means ignoring the living God within. In Jesus' time the Hebrews were the people with the only religion inspired by God, and there were these pharisees, and they were great followers of scripture. But yet Jesus said that they behaved as if the devil were their father. They had no conscience.

Now how could that be?

Thanks to Keiths and onething for your help.

I wouldn't dream of it as long as I had hope that he could turn around. That hope would run very deep. How you feel about your childern is how they felt about theirs.

Hmmm. I see that there are parents today who bash their six-months-old infant's head in because they won't stop crying.

I'm not sure that those parents are feeling the same way about their kids that I would want the right to execute your children enshrined in a religious legal code.

Keiths and Onething are right: the Jehovah of much of the old testament is a tyrannical, abusive, murderous tribal deity. So is the "God" many Christians believe in who would roast his children in eternal hellfire because they displease him. . .

"There are serious problems with the idea that God defines goodness. True, it resolves the problem of God's atrocious behavior in the Old Testament by redefining it as good, but at what cost? Our moral intuitions and consciences become completely useless."

"If you believe that God's actions define good, then He can't do evil, no matter how vile his actions seem to us. On the other hand, if you believe that morality is defined separately from God's actions, then he can do evil. But this doesn't make the standard inconsistent, it makes God inconsistent for proclaiming the standard and not following it. Similarly, just because humans don't adhere perfectly to their own morals does not, in itself, make those morals inconsistent. So we do have a moral basis from which to judge God's actions, just as we can judge the actions of Zeus, or Hamlet, or Paris Hilton."

Keiths, as you've made clear through your own comments, goodness can only be understood in relation to goals and intentions. Just as letters are meaningless apart from the ideas they represent, so actions are meaningless apart from the goals and intentions they express. I think you'll agree that the goal toward which we all strive is ultimately Universal Happiness. It is with reference to this ultimate goal that we are able to determine with limited success weather a person's behavior is good or bad. Remember that in the Christian view, God is not a fellow creature with god-like powers like Q from Star Trek; He is the source of the laws that makes our existence possible. If God is our creator then our moral intuitions and consciences that we use to seek happiness must come from him. If they do not, then it doesn't matter in the least how you feel about His behavior since you are not using the same standards. There is simply no way for you to validly judge his actions. Moral Nihilism reigns. Now, I understand that you and Onething think the OT God is evil; you're confident that he defies his own standard through actions you call atrocious. The point I was trying to make is that we and God are seeking the same thing, ultimate happiness. Happiness for him is happiness for his creation. But if God's actions really are evil as you beleive then God is acting in a way so as to offend himself. If God is evil then God is masochistic. Now just because we share the same standard doesn't mean we don't run into contradictions. Actions can and will be misinterpreted when we don't share the same frame of refrence by which they are judged. I believe this is the point that stunney and oyarsa were trying to make. In the end, do you think your frame of reference allows you to determine the value of God's actions with reference to Universal Happiness?

Keiths:

"If you have a rebellious teenage son, you wouldn't dream of stoning him to death. Your conscience wouldn't allow it. Indeed, most of us would not consider stoning anyone to death, even for vile crimes. Yet in Deuteronomy, God tells parents that they must stone a rebellious son to death. According to you, that command is good, since God defines good. But it forces you to ignore what you know in your own conscience to be right."

I wouldn't dream of it as long as I had hope that he could turn around. That hope would run very deep. How you feel about your childern is how they felt about theirs. Also, it was up to the parents to decide if their child was unreformable and even then, they had to present their case to the judges. But that's beside the point. What did the law accomplish when applied? What must be the case for parents who love their children as much as you do to seek this out?

Keiths:

"In all of the thousands of cultures that have ever existed in the world, can you think of a single one which was extinguished, or even merely set back, because of an outbreak of testicle-crushing among its women?"

No, I can't. Then again I never said that this particular law was the only one standing in the way of a society's downfall.

"If a society fails to cut off women's hands for this infraction, does it follow that child-rearing is unimportant to them?"

Not at all. But this says nothing about the fact that this law was an exception to 'the golden rule in reverse' in order to respect the woman's right to have childern.

"Mertens, do you realize that you just defended the practice of cutting off a woman's hand for grabbing a man's genitals in defense of her husband?? If it's such a good thing, should we return to this practice?"

Really? I thought I was defending a law that showed respect for procreation and life while teaching that self-defense does not excuse someone from unnessesary viciousness. It was a good thing at the time but as a Christian, I'm not bound by the Mosaic Law. I do try to follow the priniples behind it though.

"At some point you have to stop and ask: What has happened to me? How has it become so important to me to believe that a particular Book is correct, from cover to cover, that I am willing to condone the stoning of one's own children and the cutting off of women's hands for defending their husbands?"

There are particluar things about this book which have led me to currently believe that it's inspired. Every account you mentioned in this thread I already know of, including alot more that you would probably despise. The thing is, there is a central theme being developed throughout the whole collection showing how God's actions, however hard to stomach for us, are directed towards bringing about Universal Happniess as mentioned at the beginning of this response. Because of this I see no diffrence between the God of the OT or NT. I simply see Jehovah doing what is nessessary to ensure the happniess of his creation.

We must acknowledge that God is not perfect, or that the Bible is an inaccurate reflection of a perfect God, or that God doesn't exist at all. But to claim that God is perfect, yet did all of the horrible things attributed to Him in the Old Testament, is perverse "” unless, as I've said before in this thread, you can come up with an explanation of how all of this evil was really necessary in the service of a higher good.

Some of those things I do acknowledge. Let me lay out my point more fully:

1 - I believe the Bible to be inspired by God, but let me be clear on what that means. I mean that even though it is a book written by various authors with their own flawed agency, the work as a whole is no less than the very word of God. It is the story of God working the redemption of creation intentionally using autonomous, imperfect and unruly instruments, and the story itself is composed as part of the process by these agents.

So yes, you could certainly say that parts of it are an inaccurate reflection of a perfect God. The Christian view has always been that it is ultimately through Jesus that we know who God is, and otherwise what we see is like looking through cloudy glass.

2 - I think the traditional statement that "God is a Spirit, Infinite, Eternal and Unchangeable in his Being, Wisdom, Power, Holiness, Justice and Truth" to be a helpful and accurate one, though perhaps not perfect.

The Torah certainly paints a picture that (by itself) falls short of this statement (God changing his mind, God not working justice on an individual level, God not being omniscient). Yet, when compared with its contemporary works (such as the Enuma Elish), the Torah is an arrow pointing decisively in the direction of the traditional statement. It becomes even more clear in the prophets, especially the book of Jonah.

3 - I believe that it is impossible to talk of human beings in any meaningful way without talking of their culture, history, and community. For God to engage humanity in the context of history, he needs to do it in the context of our particular identity and culture. Thus it is silly to decry the fact that God didn't immediately instruct the ancient Hebrews in modern science and hygienics, or to get too huffy about them in general acting like ancient people.

So, don't mistake me for someone who is insistent about the literal inerrancy of every little statement/census/myth/story in the Bible. But also don't mistake me for someone who doesn't have a high view of the Bible as the inspired word of God.