The Evil One

Sad then, that God working through a human is indistinguishable in any measurable way from that human just doing something on their own.



Why don't you google "hammurabi"? Or "solon"?



"Why would they create such laws if they were such bad people?" Um, because the Pentateuch is largely a fairy tale and the part dealing with the handing-out of laws exaggerates the Israelites' naughtiness for literary purposes?

diana

Ex 34: 27-28: And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

I can see why you'd think that, though, Magus: Deu 4:13 has Moses telling everybody that God wrote them: "And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, [even] ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone."

Easy mistake to make.

How much time and effort have you put into learning what laws the people of that time (and earlier) came up with? Look into Egyptian laws, as they have a traceable history at least to 10,000 B.C.E. The Chinese also have history and laws of incredible antiquity.

Additionally, you should consider the scholarly argument that the earliest books of the Jewish scriptures were written during the reign of King Josiah, most likely as a propaganda tool, in the 7th C. B.C.E.--not "from the foundation of the world," as Christians and Jews would have you believe. The Jewish 10C appear to have been drawn from Babylonian laws during their sojourn there.

Why would Americans who are practicing gay marriage, then create laws against it? Those who make the laws and control the masses have always had their own agenda, and often pass laws the grazing masses don't like. Israel, being patriarchal, was not democratic, my friend.

Because their economic system wasn't capitalist?

Maybe because it's just an obviously good idea if large people are to live in close proximity, in order to keep the peace.

If they didn't covet, what would be the point of making a law against it?

Kinda like all those people out there breaking laws in the good ol' USA, as well as in every other country in the world, as well as in every civilization ever known.

Again, if they didn't challenge human nature, there'd be no point in making the laws to begin with, huh? Laws that require you to pay your taxes even if you don't like where the government is spending your hard-earned money were made by men and definitely challenge human nature. Does this mean "sinful humans" couldn't have come up with the idea?

d

Weltall

Then I suppose that an even better God must have been inspiring the Greeks and Romans, seeing as they had some really good laws. Either that or they were less 'sinful' than the Hebrews, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean.

Malachi151

"I give you these fifteen *crack*... these TEN Commandments!"

Malachi151

Check it out:

The Code of the Assura, c. 1075 BCE

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancie...yriancode.html

If you are up on your Old Testament then you should recognize these laws as being almost identical to many in the OT.

lpetrich

The "Law of Moses" is not just the 10C's -- there are pages and pages of such laws, including the Fundies' favorite parts of Leviticus.

And as to the Sabbath, I wonder what Magus55 thinks about:

* Which day of our calendar's week is the Sabbath day
* Whether he counts it from the previous day's evening to that day's evening
* Whether he tries to avoid serious work on that day
* Whether he refuses to use electricity on that day, on the ground that using it is equivalent to lighting a fire, which is a Sabbath no-no

Al Kafirun

And that doesn't include the traditions. But of course, Jeeezus died to absolve us of those.. or at least the unfashionable ones. After all, he told Peter to... eat or something.

diana

Magus,

If you research the matter, you'll learn there's good reason to believe the "five books of Moses," in which your 10C are found (about three times, each listing different commandments) weren't known to the Hebrews until the reign of King Josiah. I believe that was around 622 B.C.E. A priest named Helkiah "found" them in the temple (II Chron 34).

A quick reading of the passage should clue you off that these writings he found were not authentic. One does not pick up something that was written 800 years previously--even in one's own tongue--and just read it. If you doubt me, take a gander at the original Canterbury Tales--not the rewritten ones.

But that's not all. The Pentateuch was "updated" by Ezra in 444 B.C.E. (ref: Pirke Aboth--Talmud)

First, the 10C aren't so old, really (no more than 7th C B.C.E.). Second, they're probably younger than that (5th C B.C.E.). Third, there's nothing special about the commands ("Don't kill." Really!?). Fourth, there is no fourth. Fifth, almost every nation around the nomadic hill-dwellers who "wrote" them had far more advanced codified laws and had managed to live in harmony amongst themselves for centuries/millenia without killing each other off.

The only thing that amazes me is that anyone can look at the 10C and think there's anything special about the list. I could have come up with a more comprehensive list of dos and don'ts by the fifth grade. (Honor your father and mother? But they beat me!)

d

Clutch

I always appreciate uses of one of my own contribution to the list of arguments for God's existence:

214. ARGUMENT FROM COUNTERFACTUAL EVIDENCE

In effect: the reason there's no evidence for a god is that, had there been any such evidence, you wouldn't have believed it anyhow.

Magus55

Actually, most of them don't sound very much alike, and the Mosaic Laws were written way before 1075 BC, so if anything, the Assyrians changed the Mosaic laws.