Rousseau_CHN

Let's change the title to "The Serious Problems of Starboy and ED"

Sounds better!

Butters

How can you "practically" guarantee" this? Have any stats? Jimmy Swagert went to church regularly.
Catholic preists go to church regularly. Bill Clinton goes to church regularly. The largest number of people in prison are Catholics, followed by Protestants. Their number as a percentage (around 70%) reflects the percentage found in the general population. Atheists on the other hand make up something like 10% of the population, but the percentage in prison is .209%
Should make you think, although it won't.
Also people that come from money are less likly to be in prison. The more education someone has the less likly they are to be in prison.

I also noted that the study you cite(excuse me, you didn't cite it, you just alluded to it) only compares Christians that attend church regularly, with those that don't. It says nothing about the behavior of the rest of us.

I could "practically guarantee" that atheists as a whole are more law abiding than Christians as a whole. (OOPS, I think I already did)

NOGO

Yes it does but that has nothing to do with the subject at hand.

What we are talking about is "TRANSFER OF RESPONSIBILITY" not a "consequence of" which does not have any transfer of responsiblity and guilt. You cannot confuse the two.

When Jesus says
"Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers." Mt:23:23

He is talking about transferring of responsibility and guilt from the actual people who committed the crime to their children.

The same is true for the Amalekites. 1 Samuel 15 says
"I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt."

Note the "I will punish".
This is in direct contradiction with Deut 24:16
Deuteronomy 24:16
... neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

And is a TRANSFER OF RESPONSIBLITY and guilt.

What I do today may have an impact on my children however no one will pretend that there is a transfer of responsiblity and that my children should feel guilty and assume some kind of punishment for what I did. These are completely different issues.

All this is also completely contrary to the stated reason which is a trasnfer of guilt to the children as I have shown above.

Comment 1
The underlying reason applies to everyone according to your way of thinking so any murder can be justified this way. If this had anything to do with 1Sam15 the Bible would have said so. Instead the Bible gives a reason which constitutes a TRANSFER OF RESPONSIBLITY to the children and therefore unjust punishment. The bible gives an IMMORAL REASON which contradicts Deut 24:16. This makes a mockery of your underlying reason.

Comment 2
If the Amalekite commemorated their victory over the Israelites we do not know and the bible does not say. This is just something that you, Ed, have invented in an attempt to salvage your case. But for the sake of arguementation let's say that they did. If so, then they commemorated this victory from generation to generation for 400 years. This is 20 generations. Why then has the original people who committed the crime escaped punishment and all other generations escaped punishment and all of a sudden this particular generation must bear all the burden?

Fortunately the Bible give us an answer to this question.
Dt 25:19
When the LORD your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!

So, Yahweh had to wait till the Israelites defeated all their other enemies and had some time on their hands in order to avenge the defeat against the Amalekites. This mythological God cannot punish anybody until humans are good and ready to be His butchers. He cannot even punish them in the afterlife since the Israelites did not believe in the aftelife back then. It has to be in this life and since the poeple responsible died then the only alternatlive is to punish their children.

Deut 25:19 also shows that the particular generation of Amalekites does not matter. Any will do whenever the Israelites were good and ready to do the job.

"Do not forget"
This also shows that it was not the Amalekites who commemorated the event but the Israelites. This text has the word "revenge" all over it.

"you shall blot out the memory of Amalek"
Unfortunately, this was not to be since we are still talking about them today.

I am totally right and you know it.
The issue of the timing has been dealt with above.
It is ammazing how you can reach a conclusion which is so in direct contradiction with the facts.

"I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt."

This is not clear enough for you, Ed?

Ed

The mature Christian obeys God out of love for Him.

I am not saying that Christians can not have emotional reasons for obeying God. I am saying that for Christians such emotions have a rational and objective foundation. Whereas atheists do not have such a foundation.

Yes, atheists have emotional reasons but those reasons are not based on anything rational or objective. How does evolution do that? Many social animals dependent upon cooperation don't have emotions.

No, since we are made in his image we know that therefore he probably has something similar to emotions. And in fact it points to our cause being a personal being with something like emotions. God made us to glorify him and enjoy him and his wonderful creations forever.

Starboy

Ed. I feel like I am trapped in an old episode of the Twilight zone. You keep repeating the same answers to posts I made long ago. It takes you a month to respond to the post before last. Are you OK? Your behavior is very mechanical.

Starboy

Ed

Up to a point that is true.

Absurd. God plainly condemned human sacrifice, read Deuteronomy 12:31. The women were given to the Levites as possible wives but if found unsuitable were sent on their way.
End of part I of my response.

Jack the Bodiless

That is not a RATIONAL reason. That is an EMOTIONAL reason.

Metaphysical naturalism and evolution are superior to the Christian worldview because they provide an entirely rational explanation for WHY humans possess emotions which promote the welfare of the group.
Evolution. Evolution. E V O L U T I O N.

What you're doing is equivalent to sticking your fingers in your ears and singing "Lalala, I can't hear you".

EVOLUTION won't magically go away just because you don't want to accept it. You may not LIKE our foundation, but continuing to claim that we don't HAVE a foundation is blatant lying.
Yes, they do. Even ants and termites have behavioral compulsions to respond "angrily" and risk their own lives in defense of their queen, for instance. All social animals have emotional responses appropriate to their level of sentience.
There is no rational Christian explanation for WHY God should have emotions.
Deuteronomy 12:31 refers to people sacrificing their own sons and daughters to their gods. The Israelites sacrificed captives from other tribes to their god. There are <a href="http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/human_sacrifice.html" target="_blank">numerous examples</a> in the Bible.

The ONLY Biblical verses which condemn human sacrifice refer to sacrificing people to the "wrong" gods.

Of course, your assertion that the thirty-two virgins specifically selected as part of "the LORD's tribute" and "the LORD's heave offering", and handed to the priests (for sacrifice), were then given back to the soldiers, is pure fantasy. You have again abandoned the Bible. Why don't you simply invent your own religion, Ed?

The notion that God would disapprove of human sacrifice is obviously absurd. Not only does the Bible say otherwise, but such disapproval would be entirely out of character. God LIKES blood sacrifices: burning animals make "a sweet savor unto the Lord". And God also commands the total extermination of unwanted captives. So why shouldn't the Israelites choose to exterminate some of their captives by tossing them onto altars and slitting their throats and burning their bodies as they did to goats?

Ed

It was normal to rape captured women in other societies of the time but not Israel. Not to mistreat plainly includes rape. And actually she did have an indirect way to terminate the relationship, by purposely not "pleasing" the man.


Again they were not raped, see above about mistreating. And also given the dangerousness of being a single woman without a tribe and husband she would probably change her mind about marrying an Israelite.

Exactly, though primarily the danger comes from other tribes and nations not Israel given its greater sense of justice and higher moral standards. But yes there were rapists even in Israel. Also, they were in danger of being forced into prostitution by other nations and tribes that used prostitution in their religious ceremonies.

No, human sacrifice was condemned in Deut. 12:31 where they were specifically commanded not to mimic surrounding nations in sacrificing humans, contrary to your post above the hebrew emphasizes the mimicking of pagan nations in using human sacrifice, not necessarily whether they were your children or not. Of course, that was considered to be even worse. Actually in some situations women could inherit property in ancient Israel but this was not true in the societies you mention. But otherwise Mosaic law was very similar to the ones you mention above.

Sexual relations between half brothers and half sisters was forbidden by Mosaic law but we can see that it was not enforced by this time in Israel's history by Tamar's comments that David would allow them to marry rather than him raping her(verse 13). Therefore this shows that the more serious sin was the rape not the incest.


These are more absurd comments. Ask any woman, rape and sex are NOT equivalent. No normal man would want to be attacked in a violent sexual manner against their will by someone much stronger than they are. And he doesnt violently attack his own body. I explained the reasons for the Amalekite massacre above.

Jack the Bodiless

This was already dealt with by NOGO. Please try to keep up, Ed! Why are you still dredging up old posts and trying to repeat arguments you have already lost?

The word translated as "humbled" means "raped". "Because you have humbled her" means "because you have raped her". Rape is NOT considered "mistreating", because it is considered NORMAL TREATMENT of captured women. The Bible plainly states that rape is OK, but mistreatment is not.

And if the man likes to rape his captive wife, how can she terminate the relationship?
Again, there WAS NO DANGER except from other (Israelite) men. And how can she "change her mind" if the alternative was death? If she hadn't been selected, she would have been killed! So she isn't going to wish that her husband had not chosen her, is she?
Her tribe has just been wiped out by the Israelites. Her tribal lands have just been seized by the Israelites. She is in Israelite territory now. Other tribes can't affect her unless they conquer the land back from the Israelites.
No, Ed. THEY PERFORMED HUMAN SACRIFICES. THE BIBLE SAYS SO.
Tamar herself SAYS what the more serious sin is: being abandoned by her rapist. NOT the rape itself.
The rapist will use violence only if she resists. She is not "supposed" to resist, if the golden rule applies here.

But the Israelites didn't care about the "wants" of women. That's the point! It's certainly true that women don't like being raped, and it's clear that Tamar didn't like being raped. The Bible does not portray rape as desirable for the woman. But it refuses to recognize rape as illegal unless it infringes on the rights of a man (usually the husband of the victim).

Women don't matter.

NOGO

Ed, Ed, Ed ...

What are we to do with you.
You repeat the same arguement which you could not defend. Here is where we have left it, Ed.

Try and answer the question raised, Ed?


NOGO:
you shall let her go wherever she wishes"
It does not say that you can divorce her.
"let her go wherever she wishes" means free from slavery. That is why the very next thing it says is the issue of not selling her for money.
Ed: Terms like "let her go" meant divorce in OT times read also Deut. 24:1,where it says "send her out".

You are taking things out of context.
IT IS NOT JUST "let her go" it is "let her go wherever she wishes"
Followed by
"you shall certainly not sell her for money"


Again you ignore evidence which does not suit your purpose, Ed.
"wherever she wishes" and " you shall certainly not sell her for money"
is CLEAR PROOF that we are talking about slavery and NOT marriage. [1]


You have also failed to answer the rest, Ed.

Namely ...

[2] Deut 21:14 does not say anything about indecency and Deut 24:1 does not say anything about selling his wife.

[3] Most important however is that Deut 21:14- does not talk about a certificate of divorce like Deut 24.

[4] Substitutiing ... you claim that humbled = dealt harshly with

14 "It shall be, if you are not pleased with her, then you shall let her go wherever she wishes; but you shall certainly not sell her for money, ¸you shall not mistreat her, because you have dealt harshly with her.

The meaning of "humbled her" is not what you say it is. If you understand [1] then it is clear that humbled means raped.

I have numbered the four points here that you have not addressed.

What you are comparing is
Let he go because she has comitted some indecency and with a divorce certificate
TO
Let he go wherever she wishes and not sell her for money because you have humbled her.

These are not the same at all.