lpetrich

dk: Columbus and Cortez were explores sent to find and bring back riches by whatever means necessary. What they found in the Americas was totally unexpected, inexplicable and unscripted.

Whatever that comment is supposed to mean.

lpetrich: Like baptizing babies and then smashing their heads (Psalm 137, get it?); the idea is to send them to Heaven, a presumably very laudable motive.
dk: No I don?t get it, but read 2 Kings 8:12 and the King of Syria clearly intended to visit genocide upon Israel. ...

And what is your point -- that that King of Syria ought to be imitated?

dk: Baptism was the least of the conquistadors wrongs. Still, on what basis is it rational to equate ritual cannibalism/human sacrifice with Baptism? ...

It was baptism and then murder, so that the baptized baby will be assured of winding up in Heaven.

dk: If I were a member of a primitive tribe subjected to (ruled by) human sacrifice/ritual cannibalism then in a heartbeat I would chose to be baptized in the service of a God that died so I might live.

Exchanging one human sacrifice for another? And also exchanging one form of cannibalism for another? Good Grief!

dk: IYou may not agree, but Western Civilization was coming to the New World sooner or later, if not in 1492 then surely in the next few decades.

Actually, it's an interesting what-if -- what if the Aztecs had defeated Cortez and his men? I suspect that they'd have a big victory barbecue. With those would-be conquerors being the main course.

Which would have bought the Aztecs some time, enabling them to recover from introduced-disease epidemics; they would likely have been a tougher adversary for the next European would-be conquerors to visit them.

dk: My point is that the OT honestly details the most brutal aspects of human nature, ...

Something I entirely fail to see.

(some more of dk's Orthodox-Jewish evangelism snipped)

dk: ... The history and worth of the Jewish people is an objective fact of history, not some unreliable philosophical speculation like psychology, sociology, economics and political science.

And why are those four fields supposed to be "unreliable philosophical speculation"?

dk: Pork needs to be well cooked or people get all kinds of nasty microbes.

So what? Lots of societies have done just fine with eating lots of pork -- the pig is one of the oldest of domesticated animals.

And if it is so terrible to eat pork, then why does the New Testament teach that eating pork is OK?

dk: ... The violence, suicide, and criminal acts that children suffer reflect the laws, what people understand about one another, and the true state of the Union.

Except that the Good Old Days had had plenty of juvenile wickedness.

lpetrich: Abortion PREVENTS births. And does getting an abortion turn one into a raving, wild-eyed, dangerous madwoman?
dk: Many immoral acts prevent births, from genocide to forced sterilization.

I'm not impressed by this attempt at guilt-by-association.

dk: Legalized abortion teaches mothers, fathers and children to understand their enemies, the enemy being one other.

How so?

dk: Good point, are there more raving, wild-eyed, and dangerous madwomen since abortion was legalized? Hmmm, since abortion was legalized the # of women/mothers imprisoned, # of suicidal women, # of depressed women, # of institutionalized children, and the rate of domestic violence by women against their children have increased at an astonishing rate. Though just because there are per capita, and across all socioeconomic strata more dangerous, wide eyed, raving women, it?s difficult to determine a root cause. It seems to me abortion is one of many possible factors but how much of a factor is inestimable.

Notice how dk presents no actual numbers; I think that this alleged depravity exists only in his imagination.

lpetrich: If anything, abortion helps PREVENT crime, by preventing the birth of children that their mothers had not really wanted. "Every child a wanted child" is a good way to reduce crime.
dk: That?s what Margaret Sanger said back in the 1930s, and 40 million abortions since 1972 seem to have had a reciprocal affect. Not only are fewer babies born, but more babies are unwanted, abused, abandoned and neglected.

Again, dk presents no actual numbers.

dk: I?ve offered you resources that explain what the Bible means in the context of Salvation History,
lpetrich: And how is that supposed to be justified?
dk: How do you justify asking a question, then ignore the answer?

DK, that's begging the question.

lpetrich: DK, you ought to realize that you are dealing with people who consider such theological constructions as valid as accounts of the activities of the deities of Mt. Olympus. Or as valid as most Protestants consider veneration of the Virgin Mary and the saints.
dk: That?s not my problem, but yours.

But you are the one who insists on dragging in all that theological baggage.

dk: I?ve linked the concept of human rights to OT Law, specifically the 1st Commandment that puts government under the Law, not above the Law.

Except that it says no such thing.

dk: ... My point is that people aren?t suited to scientific laws because they are more than mere animals. Animals don?t do science, write history, paint, or find music beautiful. ...

Poor dk can't tell the difference between descriptions and normative statements, it would seem.

dk: The US first interpreted the Constitution as a purely secular document around the mid-20th Century, and since then culture has degenerated significantly ...

Except that that pre-mid-20th-cy. alleged Golden Age of Americanism had never existed.

Ion

You are wrongly obesessed with Jews and the Bible speaking in the name of "The One True God", dk.

I was born and grew up in Romania, and I can tell you that I am impressed with Romanian courageous history of 2000 years.

Similarly, when one studies world history, one finds courageous people in many cultures, over millenniums.
Consider the Italians for example, descendants from Romans.
The Dutch, descendants from Flemish.
The Finns.
And so on: the list of people to consider is long.

There is no reason to consider the Jewish history and people superior to others just because there is a religious book -The Bible- falsely claiming divinity, thus to develop racist views and religious fanaticism favoring the Jewish.
The "...spirit of the Law..." here being the law written in the Bible, I repeatedly point out to you that the Bible has no corroboration from the outside (think of my posts about archaeology), and has no justification when it is compared to the secular law (think Exodus 21:4 compared to Article 4 in the UN Code of Human Rights).

lpetrich

Actually, there is a lot of outside support for the historicity of the monarchy period -- Sennacherib's besieging of Jerusalem during the reign of King Hezekiah is corroborated by King Sennacherib's Hexagonal Prism, which brags about his victories, including keeping King Hezekiah cooped up "like a caged bird."

This account agrees with the Bible that Sennacherib's siege of Jerusalem was ultimately unsuccessful; however, the two accounts' slants are very different.

Likewise, the Moabite Stone agrees with the Bible that King Mesha of Moab had fought King Omri, but the two accounts do not agree on much else.

Interestingly, Sennacherib claims that the god Ashur was on his side and Mesha that the god Chemosh was on his side; since dk undoubtedly believes that these two documents support the historicity of the Bible, does he also believe in the existence of Ashur and Chemosh?

lpetrich

However the historicity tends to taper off toward the beginning of the monarchy period; there is no independent support for the Exodus or the Conquest.

As for the Jews having been a long-lasting ethnicity, that is quite correct. However, some ethnicities have had even longer recorded histories, like the Greeks and the Chinese.

In the Greek case, the Greek Alphabet was adopted ~750 BCE, and has been in continuous use ever since, with a Greek ethnicity being continuous over all that time. Furthermore, there is a lot of legendary material that features memories of Mycenaean Greek times, ~1200 BCE -- places like Mycenae itself, Tiryns, Pylos, Knossos, and Troy, and objects like bronze armor and boar's-tusk helmets.

To use a common defense of the Gospel of Luke, all those details must indicate the existence of the deities of Mt. Olympus.

And China's written records go back to the Shang Dynasty, ~1500 BCE.

dk

You've disengaged from the issues, and now the dialect. That's ok, I enjoyed your discussion. So peace!

dk

lpetrich: Actually, there is a lot of outside support for the historicity of the monarchy period -- Sennacherib's besieging of Jerusalem during the reign of King Hezekiah is corroborated by King Sennacherib's Hexagonal Prism, which brags about his victories, including keeping King Hezekiah cooped up "like a caged bird."
This account agrees with the Bible that Sennacherib's siege of Jerusalem was ultimately unsuccessful; however, the two accounts' slants are very different.
Likewise, the Moabite Stone agrees with the Bible that King Mesha of Moab had fought King Omri, but the two accounts do not agree on much else.
Interestingly, Sennacherib claims that the god Ashur was on his side and Mesha that the god Chemosh was on his side; since dk undoubtedly believes that these two documents support the historicity of the Bible, does he also believe in the existence of Ashur and Chemosh?
dk: No, because the Assyrian Empire was ruined around 600BCE. From a secular perspective cultures, nations and civilizations grow and prosper by solving problems, but when they encounter an insolvable problem are reduced to ruins. We know of the Assyrians only from the description of cuneiform scripts found in the ruins. The Jews on the other hand have grown and prospered across the millennium under God’s Covenants, but even in the David Kingdom the kings were under God’s Law. How the Jewish people prospered around the world, generation after generation. How the Jews from 70-1948AD prospered in exile without a homeland mystifies me. If we transported a 21st century Orthodox Jew in Mr. Peabody’s Way-back Machine to the Davidic Kingdom in 1000BC, he would slip into the culture like a glove. To my knowledge there is simply no other equivelent historical parallel.

dk

I'd be willing to accept it as a dogmatic statement but that wouldn't be very scientific. What 5 or 10 archeologists think or believe doesn't prove or even imply consensus. I refuted the claim by listing several books and authors that contest the claim. A third grader should be able to understand in science, consensus requires acceptance, and sinse the conclusions are still being contested the proof is inconclusive.

Ion

I disagree with this statement:
How dk 'refuted' is with 'information' lifted from theology.

It's as bad as David Koresh from the cult Brach Davidians, agreeing with his own doctrine, but having no outside corroboration.

I posted this February 4, about a consensus endorsed by "...5 or 10 archeologists..." publishing their conclusions in major archaelogical journals, and endorsed by thousands of archaeologists working in the system:
I think that what dk needs to produce, is evidence not tainted by religion, that Exodus did happen, submit it to major archaology journals with high scientific standards, have it accepted, and then dk can talk to me that Exodus happened.
Right now, dk is a religious nobody, flaunting religious information.

dk

o

• dk: Israel is unique because they prospered by “The Word of the One True God” across the millennium, across every continent on earth. No other people have so persevered and prospered. Nobody’s obliged to believe in “The One True God” if they don’t believe it suits them, still the Jews did and were preserved. The Jews have been a blessing to the world precisely because they put their Faith in the law, and were well served. The history and worth of the Jewish people is an objective fact of history, not some unreliable philosophical speculation like psychology, sociology, economics and political science.
  Ion:
  You are wrongly obsessed with Jews and the Bible speaking in the name of "The One True God", dk.
  dk: I have argued that the foundation of Universal Human Rights rests upon principles that subject all people to Law, all people meaning kings and slaves, conquerors and vanquished, strong and weak, courageous and cowardly, prophets and assassins. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David were all subject to the Covenants made with God, and the laws derived from the Covenants. It was on the basis of these laws that the social constructs of universal human rights evolve. My argument is logical, coherent, verifiable and consistent. You on the other hand have offered no viable alternative, and have offered only ad hominem attacks upon religion.
  o
• Ion:
  I was born and grew up in Romania, and I can tell you that I am impressed with Romanian courageous history of 2000 years.
  Similarly, when one studies world history, one finds courageous people in many cultures, over millenniums.
  Consider the Italians for example, descendants from Romans.
  The Dutch, descendants from Flemish.
  The Finns.
  And so on: the list of people to consider is long.
  dk: I’m sure Romanians, Romans, Dutch and Fins have many courageous ancestors, but the lineage follows from geography, totally immaterial to Human Law. Universal Human Rights require a basis that transcends geography and culture.
  o
• Ion:
  There is no reason to consider the Jewish history and people superior to others just because there is a religious book -The Bible- falsely claiming divinity, thus to develop racist views and religious fanaticism favoring the Jewish.
  dk: I agree, and the Bible doesn’t call the Jews superior, but a blessing to the world. History hasn’t been kind to Jews.
  o
• dk: Man does not live by bread alone, so the spirit of the Law warrants careful reflection and thought by everyone, and that’s exactly what’s happening. We are either united or divide by the Law because it forms the basis upon which people understand one another, and human nature.
  Ion:
  The "...spirit of the Law..." here being the law written in the Bible, I repeatedly point out to you that the Bible has no corroboration from the outside (think of my posts about archaeology), and has no justification when it is compared to the secular law (think Exodus 21:4 compared to Article 4 in the UN Code of Human Rights).
  dk: The existence of archeological evidence to support Exodus is immaterial, but the Jews certainly exist as material evidence. The farther back in time Archeology goes, the more unreliable its grip on reality, and the more open to errors stemming from sparse evidence, context and misinterpretation. For example, “Strangely, even recent publications seem not to know of the major work of Bryant G. Wood, in Biblical Archaeology Review of March-April 1990 where he shows that K. Kenyon was in error in not finding walls there of a suitable date for Joshua's exploit (that even the great Kenyon could make such a mistake is supported by a report in BAR of March-April, 1988 by Yigal Shiloh who found remains in Jerusalem which Kenyon had said could not be found). ----- source ” I would be remiss to conclude the source of these mistakes is Satin, you are remiss to dismiss the bias many prominent scholars bring to their work.
  - Since Spinoza there has been a great deal of speculation about the author and sources used in the Pentateuch. In Exodus 17:14 24:4 34:7 we are told Moses wrote it, and the Ten Commandments is referenced in the NT as “The Book of Moses” or Mosaic Law in several places. But what does it mean to say “Moses wrote Exodus”? The Bible holds that Jesus Christ delivered the Sermon on the Mount, but we also know Jesus never wrote it. So did Moses deliver the book of Exodus in an oral tradition later written down by scribes, or was it pieced together from fragmented scripts left behind and piece together when the Ark was lost. Where is the Ark and what did it contain? From an archeological perspective each question spawns dozens of possible hypothesis pieced together, then mixed and matched with the fragments of physical evidence dug up from adjacent independent sources. I don’t know what to tell you Ion except that archeology is not a hard science, but a medley pieced together for future reflection. In another 5,000 years future archeologists may dig up car bone yard, and finding several Atlas conclude people in the 20th Century believed the world was flat. They would technically be wrong because they interpreted the evidence out of context, but they would be negligent not to posit the hypothetical for future reflection. The universality of human rights stems from monotheism, and the relativity of secular law follow from polytheistic roots.

Ion

Your argument rests on fiction:
Adam, Noah, Moses, etc, have zero historicity.

Nobody and nothing corroborates the religious Bible regarding these people's (Adam's, Noah's, Moses') existence and their feats:

1) independent accounts from the Bible (like independent accounts of a flood submerging the earth, like independent accounts by Egyptians of a Jewish Exodus) and fossils of this kind of humanoids (fossils of Adam-like people living many hundreds of years) don't exist;

2) however, events of that time are recorded contrary to what the Bible claims, and don't have a clue that the Bible alleges events of the kind of a flood submerging the earth, or that Jesus was to appear to all people on earth;
see how the Chinese history was undisturbed by the Biblical flood submerging the entire earth.

The Law in the Bible is antagonist to the UN Code of Human Rights.
Exodus 21:4 and the UN Code of Human Rights Article 4 are antagonist.
There are many more examples of antagonism, brought up in this thread.

Therefore, there is no "It was on the basis of these laws that the social constructs of universal human rights evolve.", but there is an in spite of the Bible that the UN Code of Human Rights gives universal human rights.