IamJoseph

The marraige laws constitute a legally recorded witnessed contract.

IamJoseph

When's the last time you checked?

You can take me to court for unwarranted assault - I cannot take you to court for not turning the other cheek. :wave:

rhettboy

They should be binding. The Bible says so in multiple places. The problem is Christians like to pick and choose what they obey and what they denounce.

QuestionMark

I can agree with that.

Homosexuality vs eating shrimp.

Why do Christians eat shrimp while condemning homosexuality?

Both are called abominations; homosexuality once, eating shrimp three times.

I find the Christian distinction queerly fascinating.

How do Christians justify their acceptance of one 'abomination'
and their strong condemnation of the other?

QM?

dog-on

In your mind, maybe...

Roger Pearse

This must represent some kind of nadir of atheist criticism of Christianity, tho.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

show_no_mercy

Yeah. The only rights women have according to the Hebrew bible are that they're property. If I rape a virgin, the only "rights" she has is to marry me. Actually, the law regarding rape is more of a "you break it you buy it" sort of deal, much like comic books. If I bend a comic book / rape a virgin, then I have to pay the comic book store owner for the comic / pay the owner of the virgin (her father) for the now worthless woman.

Anything else is unlawful.

Nice Squirrel

It has to do with literalism and the "feeling" that one law must be still valid while another is of little importance. There is no concrete logic why one is preferred over another. It often tends to boil down to an emotional issue about maintaining the status quo rather than risk a change.

QuestionMark

"It has to do with literalism" NOT!

Read the text.


It "literally' spells out three times, that eating shrimp is an abomination.

You cannot miss it.

Black and white.

QM?

Equinox

The laws that apologists consider binding are those reaffirmed in the new testament as well as the OT. In practice, this process is strongly influenced by if the Christian doing the interpreting likes or dislikes the law. For instance, most Christians will argue that the laws against homosexuality are still in force, because Paul (in Romans) speaks against homosexuality (even though in that passage Paul doesn't say that homosexuality itself was the problem, but rather that homosexuality was a punishment for idolatry).

However, when it comes to slavery, Christians won't use new testament reaffirmations to confirm most slavery laws. For instance, Jesus himself says that disobedient slaves will be beaten severely, apparently confirming Ex 21:21, or in II Peter, "peter" tells slaves to submit even to cruel masters, again apparently confirming the slave laws (or at least those that allow harsh treatment of slaves). Yet in those cases Christians still class the slavery laws as abolished laws. Another example is Paul in Philemon, where he returns a slave to the slave owner, even though he wants the slave to be freed. This breaks the OT law NOT to return slaves, thus removing that OT law, yet Christians will often point to that OT law as evidence that Bible doesn't support slavery.

The vast majority of OT laws are not explicitly dispelled (as in the case of the runaway slave law), and also are not explicitly confirmed (as in the case of Jesus confirming the first commandment to love god). In those many cases, Christians usually take the default of saying the law is removed if they don't like the law, and find some somewhat similar instance in the NT to confirm it if they do like the law.

Have fun-

Equinox