Freethought & Rationalism Archive

JEST2ASK · 09-21-2004, 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ten to the eleventh

LP675, thanks for responding.

Yes, I would agree. It seems a heck of a reach.

<< Skip >>

As far as J. being "a great man of faith," I think the more important idea is not necessarily that he was so great, but that there is no condemnation (such as yours) of him to be found, as we would expect. I suggest this to say that the author of Judges did not perceive any crime on J.'s part. Typically, condemnations of bible characters are explicit, and nowhere is J. condemned for the "immoral act" of killing his daughter.

These are all lesser points, however. My main point, I don't think you addressed well. In my analogy, was my landlord character at least partially responsible for the death of the innocent dog? Is my analogy fair?

<< Skip>>
Try to understand. I don't believe in God. I don't believe that this story occurred. What I do believe is that the story was written as an etiology for a tradition (that of mourning the daughter) based on a long-existing legendary anecdote. The story has, a bit too pointedly, the extremely popular theme of tragic irony. Think of all the Twilight Zone episodes with the same theme. It is, too me, and to many biblical scholars, a popular folktale, the kind of fable that is good for telling around campfires, with the moral being that one should be careful what kind of vows one makes with God.

The story does not in any way attempt to judge the culpability of God. God is simply a character with well-known characteristics used to make the story happen, like a genie is in SO many other stories. God is just the genie in this story, and the focus is not on the genie, but on the main character's (J.) foolish bargain and subsequent ironic tragedy.

I think you view the story through the eyes of a modern apologist, seeking to make the bible morally perfect, but failing to recognize that "God" was not the same entity to the writers of the story then as he is to you and most modern Christians now. God's culpability in this story is simply not an issue. God was a character with no moral responsibility, He was an absolute and unquestionable authority. There was no question then as to whether God acted rightly or wrongly. He just did what he wanted, and he was to be feared and obey.

<< Skip>>
What you and other apologists seem to forget is that, to the author of Judges, God's moral responsibility was not an issue, and he wrote the story without considering it. It is in retrospective analysis, where we assume God MUST have behaved ethically that we must go to great lengths to argue for God's innocence.

Again, thank you for your response, and I hope that you will respond again.

ten to the eleventh

:notworthy :notworthy :notworthy

Thank You for putting into such clear words my thoughts on what I see as the biggest problem with Christians modern or otherwise .... In an effort to harmonize the stories with the current doctrine there is (IMO) a disregard for the orginal authors / culture context .... this retro-fitting (IMO) by modern apoligists or writers of the New Testament is not supported .... by the texts ... In fact studying the texts only highlights the artifical unity ... (IMO

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ten to the eleventh · 09-21-2004, 08:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JEST2ASK

:notworthy :notworthy :notworthy

Thank You for putting into such clear words my thoughts on what I see as the biggest problem with Christians modern or otherwise .... In an effort to harmonize the stories with the current doctrine there is (IMO) a disregard for the orginal authors / culture context .... this retro-fitting (IMO) by modern apoligists or writers of the New Testament is not supported .... by the texts ... In fact studying the texts only highlights the artifical unity ... (IMO

)

Thank you for the praise. Kind of picked up a lackluster evening for me! I don't think that all or necessarily even a majority of modern Christians take the stance of the literal apologist. Educated, liberal Christians view the story as I do, as a fable, but they retain what they consider the essence of their religion. They view all of Genesis the same way. Of course, many self-identified Christians (especially Catholics, who don't consider the bible as absolutely central to their beliefs) don't even know of such stories as the one of Japtheth, and don't give much thought to the well-known "Charlton Heston" stories of Genesis.

The literalist is an interesting study. They can be quite intelligent, and often are well-educated (though usually in areas that don't offer any potential for critical review of their religion). It is fascinating to witness what should be overwhelming cognitive dissonance that results from a determination to avoid the obvious. Consider my analogy of the landlord and the dog. To us, it is a natural analogy, and a rather unnecessary one, at that, because the moral culpability of God as a character in the story of J. is so obvious. But LP675 can't even seem to acknowledge it because of the implications.

There were essentially two routes to avoid judging God's actions negatively, and both routes look impossible to us, because we have no desperate need to protect our religion. But when we watch those impossible roads taken, we are left with our jaws slack, amazed at the ability of apparently educated people to avoid the simplest conclusion like they are playing intellectual dodgeball.

What is particularly illustrative about this case, are the two independent routes of evasion chosen by commonly interested, but disconnected parties. Tektonics, seeing the route of denying the death of J.'s daughter as easier than demonstrating that God was not implicated in the murder, chose to deny what LP675, and any uninterested party would say was undeniably obvious. They thought that was the easier route. LP675 cannot admit that their conclusion that if J.'s daughter was sacrificed, God was implicated was obvious, because he sees that as the easier route around the problem. They both would insist that the other's contention is absurd, yet they are arguing for the same end. Meanwhile, all uninterested parties would find both arguments absurd. Fascinating!

Notice that LP675 did not respond to my analogy. He cannot because even he cannot deny the guilt of the landlord, and the analogy is entirely fair. This is where freethought stands out in such stark contrast to dogmatic thinking. I did my level best to respond to every question and argument that LP675 had, because I did not fear the implications. My world will not be shaken if there is a way of proving God's innocence. I would actually be quite eager to know if there was a way, because it would mean that I had realized something that I couldn't even imagine previously. I would be HAPPY!

I would be smarter!

I actually still hope that I may be shown how what is so apparent and obvious is not the case. I hope that LP675 will do me that favor, but I don't think it will be done.

ten to the eleventh

LP675 · 09-23-2004, 02:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ten to the eleventh

I actually still hope that I may be shown how what is so apparent and obvious is not the case. I hope that LP675 will do me that favor, but I don't think it will be done.

ten to the eleventh

They say “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink�?. Never having owned a horse I wouldn’t know

, but enough with the irrelevant rambling.

I will have a go as soon as I have a spare moment.

SkepticalIdealist · 09-23-2004, 07:08 AM

Quote:

Welcome!

Thanks for the welcome, LP.

We sometimes forget the ameneties when we get obsessed with trying to prove ourselves right and others wrong.

I've been on vacation, and am just now getting back to your reply to my post.

First off, I want to say that I think "Ten to the Eleventh" has articulated the truth on this subject better than I can, and I agree with him whole-heartedly. Anything after his excellent posts will seem anticlimactical.

But, there are a few things I'd like to reply to, and one "new thought" to add to this dialogue...

Quote:

The spirit comes upon him and then he decides to advance against the enemy after he had failed in his negotiations. Then he makes the deal, who knows how long after (in terms of days or hours). If it read “the spirit came upon Jephthah and he declared ‘I will sacrifice my daughter’�?, then you might have a more compelling case.

I think it's compelling enough. If I say, "The spirit of the LORD came upon LP, and then he did A and then he did B." I think it would be safe to assume that I meant LP did B while the spirit of the LORD was upon him. Otherwise the writer should've told us that the spirit of the LORD left J. in the middle of his tale. "The spirit of the LORD came upon LP and he did A. But then, after the spirit of the LORD departed from LP, he did B."

Quote:

We in effect have laws which say thou shalt not kill. But we can also kill in self defense, war, execute criminals (if your in the USA) etc. So there are exceptions to prohibitions on killing, that’s not to say they are contradictory.

The main point I was trying to make was not that they're contradictory (which, btw, I think they are), but rather that the law against burning your children is irrelevant to J's sacrificing his daughter. The examples you give just bolster my point: you can have a very strongly worded law on the books (like "Thou Shalt Not Kill") and yet you can't say that this rules out killing (when those who make such laws later order killing). So, your argument that God was against J's killing of his daughter (due to the law against burning your children) doesn't hold.

Quote:

I don’t think you have a grasp of the levitical laws.

On the contrary, as an animal rights advocate I am painfully aware of those laws (and I will be quoting from Leviticus in a moment). But I'm sure you are aware that other Bible writers stated that God never ordered, never wanted, and hated those sacrifices? (Is. 1:11-17 for example.) Too bad J. didn't read those "prophets" instead of Leviticus!

It gets back to what I said in my original post: if you're going to defend the Bible as literally true you have to explain away the parts that contradict the parts you like, because the people who wrote these various writings had very different ideas about what God wanted. Trying to reconcile them all is an exercise in futility (as I long ago discovered).

Quote:

Judges 8: 27 “Gideon made the gold into an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his town. All Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family.�?

Here we have Gideon leading Israel into Idol worship, and yet the same passage in Hebrews you spoke of “By faith …etc… And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised…�?

So despite Gideon being praised, it doesn’t mean he made no foolish mistakes. There are in fact great parallels between Jephthah and Gideon. There are not many perfect ‘heroes of the faith’ besides Jesus.

The important difference here is that when Gideon did something wrong it was stated (in this case immediately!) that it was the wrong thing to do. In J's case it is not stated that he did anything wrong. The believer reading the Bible for "moral instruction" is left with the impression that a vow made to God is more important than the very life of their child. This makes it very close to that much better-known story of the intended sacrifice of Isaac (in which obedience to God is shown to be more important than the life of one's child.) These sorts of stories are what make the Bible so dangerous when it is believed to be "the Word of God".

And here is my new thought to add to this discussion...

It has been stated that God didn't want human sacrifice, and so was not culpable in the J. affair. However, the Law implied that human sacrifice was not only acceptable, but required on occasion:

Quote:

Lev:27:28: Notwithstanding no devoted thing, that a man shall devote unto the LORD of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed: every devoted thing is most holy unto the LORD.
Lev:27:29: None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed; but shall surely be put to death.

A God making such a law is just the type of god that would sit back and enjoy the sacrifice of J's daughter as his just due for having delivered the Ammonites into J's hands.

ten to the eleventh · 09-23-2004, 09:24 AM

SkepticalIdealist's post is excellent in two regards:
1) It shows that J. may not have actually committed any biblical crime, and that the responsibility for the daughter's death lays entirely with God. This is not too critical, though, b/c as has been pointed out, God can still be partially responsible/guilty (according to general ethical standards), and any guilt on God's part indicates His imperfection.

2) The more important idea: That any prohibition against J.'s murdering his daughter is at best highly ambiguous and disputable, as is evidenced here, and in the fact that the Jewish priests debate the law to this day. God, in a position of total knowledge, power, and authority would have been morally obligated to clarify His rules for J., who, if we claim misunderstood the refinements of Talmudic law, at least did so understandably. There are many repetitions of the law, many quite unnecessary, in the bible, and if we are to assume that the bible is God's word, then what trouble would it have been for God to leave a Post-it note on J.'s door saying:

"Yea, J., you have misunderstood my rather confusing law. Unto thee I wilt deliver this concise explanation of what I meant, verily. Don't kill your daughter."

Would it have been more trouble than the conversation before the battle? Would the world have been disrupted by the divine intervention of the Post-it note?

Besides, don't you think J., in a fit, would have at least asked the priests for their interpretation while his daughter was off in the wilderness for two months, getting her virginal groove on? What would they have told him?

"Oy vey, J., it looks like you gotta slaughter your daughter."

edit: And we can't doubt that the daughter would have had him take it up with the priests in her absence:

"Yeah, uh, Dad? Listen, while I'm out mourning an' stuff...would you mind asking the priests if I really have to, like, die an' stuff? K? Thanks, Daddy, see you in two months!"

SkepticalIdealist · 09-24-2004, 08:44 AM

I went back and re-read everything the Bible has to say about Jephthah (Judg. 11:1-12:11, 1Sam:12:11, Heb. 11:32-39), and two more thoughts occurred to me…

Quote:

One other important thing we can learn from the story itself (without yet looking at any other part of the Bible) is that at the start of the story, "the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah." (Jg. 11:29) I think one could safely assume that this phrase means that Jephthah was acting under the guidance and/or power of his god, and thus his actions would be in accord with his god's will.

Quote:

Yes, but which actions? The spirit comes upon him and then he decides to advance against the enemy after he had failed in his negotiations. Then he makes the deal, who knows how long after (in terms of days or hours). If it read “the spirit came upon Jephthah and he declared ‘I will sacrifice my daughter’�?, then you might have a more compelling case.

So, what LP is saying is that the spirit of the LORD came upon J, but then it left prior to his making the vow. But that would mean that it left before he ever engaged in combat with the Ammonites! The sequence given is:

1. The spirit of the LORD comes upon J. (Judg:11:29)
2. J. “passes over�? Gilead, and Manasseh, and Mizpeh, and arrives at the Ammonites encampment (Judg. 11:29)
3. J. makes the infamous vow (Judg. 11:30-31).
4. J. “passes over�? to the Ammonites (again), fights them, and “the LORD delivers them into his hands.�? (Judg:11:32)

If the spirit was no longer upon him when he made the vow, then it was just upon him when he “passed over�? (i.e. traveled across his home territory) en route to the Ammonites. (We are later told that Mizpeh is where his home is – Judg 11:34) Why did he need the LORD’s spirit just to travel?

If I told you this anecdote:

“Yesterday the spirit of the LORD came upon me, and I went to work and I fervently vowed I’d get that raise I’ve been wanting, then I went and pounded on my boss’s desk and… the LORD got me that raise!�?

Would you assume that I meant that the spirit of the LORD was only upon me during my journey to work? Wouldn’t you assume that I meant this spirit (being an unusual thing to have upon one) would cause me to do something dramatic and out of the ordinary (like make the vow and act upon it)?

Quote:

No killing means no killing off of a nation whose land you had stolen and who had made previous overtures of peace to you (Jg. 11:13).

Quote:

I am not sure you it could be said it was stolen, (Jephthah doesn’t seem to agree with the Ammonite King’s take on the situation), but I would hardly call “get out or we will kill you�? ‘overtures of peace’.

So, for the correct moral viewpoint of the situation, we should consult a man who murdered his own daughter?

Since LP has said that all we need to do to find out what God wants is to read the Bible, and since he has opted to look at the J. story in the context of the whole Bible instead of in isolation, let’s do just that.

I have a dilemma, and I want to follow LP’s advice and go to the Bible to learn what God would want me to do.

My dilemma is this: I am a “settler�? in the Western U.S. in the 1800’s. When I arrived on my homestead there were “Indians�? living there. I shot a few, and scared the rest away. The survivors have been living in the nearby mountains ever since. But recently they’ve been causing a ruckus, and the townsfolk asked me to intervene.

So I rode up to their encampment and asked them why they were bothering us. They said they wanted their land back! They said that if we would peacefully leave there would be no further problems! The gall of these people! I remember that some Indians wouldn’t even let us pass through their land, and some attacked our wagon-train on our way out here to claim their land as our own!

I'm a man of deep faith, so I'm going to consult my “moral instruction book�?: God’s Holy Bible, to find out what to do in this situation.

Let’s see… the book of Hebrews praises Jephthah as a great man of faith. I remember he encountered a similar problem (Judges 11:12-13), let’s see what he did…

First he set his enemies straight: he told them:

Quote:

Judg:11:23: So now the LORD God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldest thou possess it?
Judg:11:24: Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? So whomsoever the LORD our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess.

In other words, since we were able to “drive out�? the Indians “from before us�?, then obviously our God is stronger than their God, and all is as it should be. If we do something and God doesn’t prevent our success, then clearly he approves of our actions and we have his favor.

Quote:

Judg:11:29: Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead, and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over unto the children of Ammon.
Judg:11:30: And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands,
Judg:11:31: Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.
Judg:11:32: So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the LORD delivered them into his hands.
Judg:11:33: And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.

So, when the spirit of the LORD was upon him, he made a vow, and then God delivered his enemies unto him. Great! I’ll make that same vow, and then set off to kill the Indians…

Quote:

Judg:11:34: And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.
Judg:11:35: And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the LORD, and I cannot go back.
Judg:11:36: And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the LORD, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the LORD hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon.

Oops! I guess I should’ve read that part first. Now, as soon as I got back from killing all the Indians, who should come out of my house to greet me but my own sweet daughter! Well, since Jephthah was praised for his faith, and Jephthah kept his vow by killing his daughter, I know what the Bible is telling me to do: have faith and kill my daughter. After all, God kept his part of the bargain: the Indians are all dead. I’m sure my daughter will see the righteousness of it, just as Jephthah’s daughter did. Besides, if God disapproves, he will stop the sacrifice just as he did in the case of Abraham and Isaac... Anybody got a match?

What do you think: is my Indian killer and child killer a “hero of great faith�? like Jephthah? Or should he be locked away and the key thrown away? Remember: all he did was follow the Bible literally. There can’t possibly be anything wrong with that… can there?

ten to the eleventh · 09-24-2004, 10:24 AM

That's the danger of lower-order thinking. Children cannot recognize sarcasm or satire until at least the age of seven, generally. They are stuck in literal thought. Metaphor and contextual analysis escapes them. Kids don't get most jokes, and what they find humorous is, well, stupid.

Christian literalists, like LP675, are not necessarily stupid, and I think LP is probably pretty intelligent. However, biblical literalism/fundamentalism essentially codifies lower-order thought. So, and I hope LP will forgive me for my speculation, I see an otherwise intelligent person such as LP intellectually hamstrung by the mandates of his religion. He has two conflicting rules here. One, he must read the bible literally (and SkepticalIdealist has shown where that can lead) and two, he must "interpret" what it says in such a fashion as to yield a god that is morally perfect. The justifications of the story that attempt to preserve those two conditions must be absurd. No degree of intelligence can help that.

So, where it should be obvious that the J. story is a fable, he must see it literally, and two, he must somehow adapt this literal reading not to imply what it so apparently does. I think it's an impossible task, and I don't envy LP for it. As a matter of fact, I applaud his willingness to continue trying.

Back to the subject of the stories apparently fictional nature:

How believable is it that J. would have made the vow that he did? It is quite believable if one views the vow as a device in a fictional story used to set up a very unlikely ironic tragedy at its conclusion. But how realistic is it? If J. meant to say that he would sacrifice any one of animals, regardless of its value to him, why didn't he just think of his most valuable animal and offer it to God? Was he trying to fool God and get off on the cheap, thinking that it would probably be one of his hens that would walk out of the door? How would God have responded to this sly effort? I suspect by either not winning the battle for J. (which was won) or by punishing J. in that classicly ironic "you can't outfox the fox" kind of way, and sending the daughter out the door. Now, God will not be mocked, nor will he cause the death of an innocent, so, J. must not have been trying to be cheap with God.

So, from our two conditions of literalism and god-perfection, J. was not trying to fool God. So, if he meant that he was willing to offer his best, why didn't he just say so? If he meant that he would let God choose what He wanted, then God would have heard the vow that way, and made his decision of the daughter. That just leaves us with J. intending to say that he would give his best. So why didn't he just say so? Clearly, because the author needed the tragically ironic conclusion, and this was an available device.

Honestly, the story reads like truly sophomoric literature, of the "duh, aren't I clever" category. J.'s vow is not "foolish" as many describe it; it is unbelievable. It makes sense only in light of the story being a primitively fabricated etiology. See how easily it reads that way? Even without the prescriptive conditional of god-perfection, I read the story and say "HUH? What the hell kind of vow is that?" unless I read it as a quaint fable, and then it makes sense, like Little Red Riding Hood.

Literal thought, for the intelligent, is suffocating. I pity those that suffer beneath it.

ten to the eleventh · 09-24-2004, 05:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SkepticalIdealist

If I told you this anecdote:

“Yesterday the spirit of the LORD came upon me, and I went to work and I fervently vowed I’d get that raise I’ve been wanting, then I went and pounded on my boss’s desk and… the LORD got me that raise!�?

Would you assume that I meant that the spirit of the LORD was only upon me during my journey to work? Wouldn’t you assume that I meant this spirit (being an unusual thing to have upon one) would cause me to do something dramatic and out of the ordinary (like make the vow and act upon it)?

I would think you were making it up, not just because of the God speaking to you bit, but because of the lack of specifics. I understand that is a way to tell if someone is lying: lack of detail in their account.

Crucifiction · 09-24-2004, 09:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ten to the eleventh

I would think you were making it up, not just because of the God speaking to you bit, but because of the lack of specifics. I understand that is a way to tell if someone is lying: lack of detail in their account.

This is unrelated to the topic at hand, but I couldn't help but post it:

So you think the Bible is lying? There's not very many specifics therein; it says, for example, God created the universe by speaking it into existance, without going into the details of how and why this works; and that's just one of many events that are completely general and vague. Also, in the Bible, many examples are given of God "speaking" to people without any specifics given about how he talked to whomever {In a real voice? Through an angel? In the persons mind? In a vision or dream?}. Really, it's not much different at all than what SkepticalIdealist said.

ten to the eleventh · 09-25-2004, 07:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crucifiction

This is unrelated to the topic at hand, but I couldn't help but post it:

So you think the Bible is lying? There's not very many specifics therein; it says, for example, God created the universe by speaking it into existance, without going into the details of how and why this works; and that's just one of many events that are completely general and vague. Also, in the Bible, many examples are given of God "speaking" to people without any specifics given about how he talked to whomever {In a real voice? Through an angel? In the persons mind? In a vision or dream?}. Really, it's not much different at all than what SkepticalIdealist said.

Well, I think "lying" is a little strong. I would go with "myth-making," or "fable-creating," or "legend-writing." "Lying" implies a deliberate effort to deceive, and I think the early bible writers were just making up stories, or just formulating the legends that had been passed around orally for a long time (such as the story of Japtheth). There are probably instances of real lying, done to serve the "greater good," (notably in the gospels, and in the accounts of various kings), but I think most of the early bible stuff is just fireside fabrication.

Still, though, I think the bible is an invaluable historical reference and starting point for archeology. I just wish that was all it was.

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09-23-2004, 09:24 AM	#95
ten to the eleventh Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Dallas, Texas Posts: 1,682	SkepticalIdealist's post is excellent in two regards: 1) It shows that J. may not have actually committed any biblical crime, and that the responsibility for the daughter's death lays entirely with God. This is not too critical, though, b/c as has been pointed out, God can still be partially responsible/guilty (according to general ethical standards), and any guilt on God's part indicates His imperfection. 2) The more important idea: That any prohibition against J.'s murdering his daughter is at best highly ambiguous and disputable, as is evidenced here, and in the fact that the Jewish priests debate the law to this day. God, in a position of total knowledge, power, and authority would have been morally obligated to clarify His rules for J., who, if we claim misunderstood the refinements of Talmudic law, at least did so understandably. There are many repetitions of the law, many quite unnecessary, in the bible, and if we are to assume that the bible is God's word, then what trouble would it have been for God to leave a Post-it note on J.'s door saying: "Yea, J., you have misunderstood my rather confusing law. Unto thee I wilt deliver this concise explanation of what I meant, verily. Don't kill your daughter." Would it have been more trouble than the conversation before the battle? Would the world have been disrupted by the divine intervention of the Post-it note? Besides, don't you think J., in a fit, would have at least asked the priests for their interpretation while his daughter was off in the wilderness for two months, getting her virginal groove on? What would they have told him? "Oy vey, J., it looks like you gotta slaughter your daughter." edit: And we can't doubt that the daughter would have had him take it up with the priests in her absence: "Yeah, uh, Dad? Listen, while I'm out mourning an' stuff...would you mind asking the priests if I really have to, like, die an' stuff? K? Thanks, Daddy, see you in two months!"

09-24-2004, 10:24 AM	#97
ten to the eleventh Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Dallas, Texas Posts: 1,682	That's the danger of lower-order thinking. Children cannot recognize sarcasm or satire until at least the age of seven, generally. They are stuck in literal thought. Metaphor and contextual analysis escapes them. Kids don't get most jokes, and what they find humorous is, well, stupid. Christian literalists, like LP675, are not necessarily stupid, and I think LP is probably pretty intelligent. However, biblical literalism/fundamentalism essentially codifies lower-order thought. So, and I hope LP will forgive me for my speculation, I see an otherwise intelligent person such as LP intellectually hamstrung by the mandates of his religion. He has two conflicting rules here. One, he must read the bible literally (and SkepticalIdealist has shown where that can lead) and two, he must "interpret" what it says in such a fashion as to yield a god that is morally perfect. The justifications of the story that attempt to preserve those two conditions must be absurd. No degree of intelligence can help that. So, where it should be obvious that the J. story is a fable, he must see it literally, and two, he must somehow adapt this literal reading not to imply what it so apparently does. I think it's an impossible task, and I don't envy LP for it. As a matter of fact, I applaud his willingness to continue trying. Back to the subject of the stories apparently fictional nature: How believable is it that J. would have made the vow that he did? It is quite believable if one views the vow as a device in a fictional story used to set up a very unlikely ironic tragedy at its conclusion. But how realistic is it? If J. meant to say that he would sacrifice any one of animals, regardless of its value to him, why didn't he just think of his most valuable animal and offer it to God? Was he trying to fool God and get off on the cheap, thinking that it would probably be one of his hens that would walk out of the door? How would God have responded to this sly effort? I suspect by either not winning the battle for J. (which was won) or by punishing J. in that classicly ironic "you can't outfox the fox" kind of way, and sending the daughter out the door. Now, God will not be mocked, nor will he cause the death of an innocent, so, J. must not have been trying to be cheap with God. So, from our two conditions of literalism and god-perfection, J. was not trying to fool God. So, if he meant that he was willing to offer his best, why didn't he just say so? If he meant that he would let God choose what He wanted, then God would have heard the vow that way, and made his decision of the daughter. That just leaves us with J. intending to say that he would give his best. So why didn't he just say so? Clearly, because the author needed the tragically ironic conclusion, and this was an available device. Honestly, the story reads like truly sophomoric literature, of the "duh, aren't I clever" category. J.'s vow is not "foolish" as many describe it; it is unbelievable. It makes sense only in light of the story being a primitively fabricated etiology. See how easily it reads that way? Even without the prescriptive conditional of god-perfection, I read the story and say "HUH? What the hell kind of vow is that?" unless I read it as a quaint fable, and then it makes sense, like Little Red Riding Hood. Literal thought, for the intelligent, is suffocating. I pity those that suffer beneath it.

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