God is Irrelevant!

mesquite wrote:

Momma, please explain this. With so much obvious obnoxious trash in the Bible, how can you use it for a moral guide. How do you decide which law is a good law and which law is unworthy. Slavery was acceptable by both Jehovah and Jesus. Does that make it acceptable to you?

Mesquite, the Bible doesn't pull any punches when it describes people/history. It doesn't sugar-coat what people did. That doesn't mean that God condoned or endorsed all the violence. On the contrary, that's why He gave the 10 Commandments (which are explained at full length, as it were, in DEUTERONOMY & LEVITICUS). There's TONS of useful material there.

.27 And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me;
28 Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.
.29 And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.[
30 And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.
.31 And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours.
32 And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it.

The 10 Commandments are not only a reflection of God's character, but they're the building blocks of civilization. I always tell my friends that if all were rubble (say, after a nuclear blast), one could rebuild civilization merely with D & L in hand.

You mentioned slavery: it is nowhere commanded in the Decalogue. Also, a lot of modern people don't understand that slavery in the ancient world wasn't always the kind of slavery practiced in the States against Blacks. Read up on slavery sometime; you'll be surprised. (I'm not endorsing or excusing slavery; I'm just telling you that it wasn't all like the type practiced in the South.)

Thy bond-men and thy bond-maids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you: of them shall ye buy bond-men and bond-maids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land. And they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession, they shall be your bond-man forever.

As for distinguishing between which laws to apply and which not: in a nutshell, the dietary & ceremonial ones are no longer spiritually binding

I do not have very much knowledge of slavery in the Bible, so, I can't give you an informed answer. Di seems to know more about slavery in those times so, I will defer to her.

And you wanted me to explain "With so much obvious obnoxious trash in the Bible, how can you use it for a moral guide? How do you decide which law is a good law and which law is unworthy? Well, let's take the Beatitudes for a second. These are all kind, loving, forgiving, good guides. So, of course, I would try to adapt these into my life.

And to be honest with you, I can't think of a law right now (I just woke up) that (I will use your word here) unworthy. So, if you could give me a law you have in mind, I would be happy to address it. The only way I could answer it now is to say that we have laws in our country I consider good laws and laws I consider unworthy. But, here in this country, we have the right to work to change those laws. So, if you give me an example maybe I can give you a better answer.

A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood [shall be] upon them.

Our own conversion came at last. We began to stir against slavery. Hearts grew soft, here, there, and yonder. There was no place in the land where the seeker could not find some small budding sign of pity for the slave. No place in all the land but one -- the pulpit. It yielded at last; it always does. It fought a strong and stubborn fight, and then did what it always does, joined the procession -- at the tail end. Slavery fell. The slavery text remained; the practice changed, that was all.

During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after doing its duty in but a lazy and indolent way for eight hundred years, gathered up its halters, thumbscrews, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood.

Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry. Who discovered that there was no such thing as a witch -- the priest, the parson? No, these never discover anything. At Salem, the parson clung pathetically to his witch text after the laity had abandoned it in remorse and tears for the crimes and cruelties it has persuaded them to do. The parson wanted more blood, more shame, more brutalities; it was the unconsecrated laity that stayed his hand. In Scotland the parson killed the witch after the magistrate had pronounced her innocent; and when the merciful legislature proposed to sweep the hideous laws against witches from the statute book, it was the parson who came imploring, with tears and imprecations, that they be suffered to stand.

There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed. Hell fire is gone, but the text remains. Infant damnation is gone, but the text remains. More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the texts that authorized them remain.

It is not well worthy of note that of all the multitude of texts through which man has driven his annihilating pen he has never once made the mistake of obliterating a good and useful one? It does certainly seem to suggest that if man continues in the direction of enlightenment, his religious practice may, in the end, attain some semblance of human decency.

I think you are attracted to the Beatitudes because of your character and who you are. I suspect you would gravitate in that direction even without your religion. The problem lies in that not everyone has your strength of character.

I love Mark Twain! This was definitely one of his best and most intriguing writings in my opinion.

I just want to say this. Morality is just what is "right" and what is "wrong." Why can't people decide what is right or wrong?

Momma Angel wrote:

I love Mark Twain! This was definitely one of his best and most intriguing writings in my opinion.

Did you read the link to the whole piece, or just the part I quoted?

If you liked that one you might also like this one.

Little Bessie by Mark Twain[/u]

fredjones wrote:

I just want to say this. Morality is just what is "right" and what is "wrong." Why can't people decide what is right or wrong?

That is what is known as anarchy, because everyone will define it to suit themselves.

Thoughts of God
How often we are moved to admit the intelligence exhibited in both the designing and the execution of some of His works. Take the fly, for instance. The planning of the fly was an application of pure intelligence, morals not being concerned. Not one of us could have planned the fly, not one of us could have constructed him; and no one would have considered it wise to try, except under an assumed name. It is believed by some that the fly was introduced to meet a long-felt want. In the course of ages, for some reason or other, there have been millions of these persons, but out of this vast multitude there has not been one who has been willing to explain what the want was. At least satisfactorily. A few have explained that there was need of a creature to remove disease-breeding garbage; but these being then asked to explain what long-felt want the disease-breeding garbage was introduced to supply, they have not been willing to undertake the contract.

There is much inconsistency concerning the fly. In all the ages he has not had a friend, there has never been a person in the earth who could have been persuaded to intervene between him and extermination; yet billions of persons have excused the Hand that made him -- and this without a blush. Would they have excused a Man in the same circumstances, a man positively known to have invented the fly? On the contrary. For the credit of the race let us believe it would have been all day with that man. Would persons consider it just to reprobate in a child, with its undeveloped morals, a scandal which they would overlook in the Pope?

When we reflect that the fly was as not invented for pastime, but in the way of business; that he was not flung off in a heedless moment and with no object in view but to pass the time, but was the fruit of long and pains-taking labor and calculation, and with a definite and far-reaching, purpose in view; that his character and conduct were planned out with cold deliberation, that his career was foreseen and fore-ordered, and that there was no want which he could supply, we are hopelessly puzzled, we cannot understand the moral lapse that was able to render possible the conceiving and the consummation of this squalid and malevolent creature.

Let us try to think the unthinkable: let us try to imagine a Man of a sort willing to invent the fly; that is to say, a man destitute of feeling; a man willing to wantonly torture and harass and persecute myriads of creatures who had never done him any harm and could not if they wanted to, and -- the majority of them -- poor dumb things not even aware of his existence. In a word, let us try to imagine a man with so singular and so lumbering a code of morals as this: that it is fair and right to send afflictions upon the just -- upon the unoffending as well as upon the offending, without discrimination.

If we can imagine such a man, that is the man that could invent the fly, and send him out on his mission and furnish him his orders: "Depart into the uttermost corners of the earth, and diligently do your appointed work. Persecute the sick child; settle upon its eyes, its face, its hands, and gnaw and pester and sting; worry and fret and madden the worn and tired mother who watches by the child, and who humbly prays for mercy and relief with the pathetic faith of the deceived and the unteachable. Settle upon the soldier's festering wounds in field and hospital and drive him frantic while he also prays, and betweentimes curses, with none to listen but you, Fly, who get all the petting and all the protection, without even praying for it. Harry and persecute the forlorn and forsaken wretch who is perishing of the plague, and in his terror and despair praying; bite, sting, feed upon his ulcers, dabble your feet in his rotten blood, gum them thick with plague-germs -- feet cunningly designed and perfected for this function ages ago in the beginning -- carry this freight to a hundred tables, among the just and the unjust. the high and the low, and walk over the food and gaum it with filth and death. Visit all; allow no man peace till he get it in the grave; visit and afflict the hard-worked and unoffending horse, mule, ox, ass, pester the patient cow, and all the kindly animals that labor without fair reward here and perish without hope of it hereafter; spare no creature, wild or tame; but wheresoever you find one, make his life a misery, treat him as the innocent deserve; and so please Me and increase My glory Who made the fly.

We hear much about His patience and forbearance and long-suffering; we hear nothing about our own, which much exceeds it. We hear much about His mercy and kindness and goodness -- in words -- the words of His Book and of His pulpit -- and the meek multitude is content with this evidence, such as it is, seeking no further; but whoso searcheth after a concreted sample of it will in time acquire fatigue. There being no instances of it. For what are gilded as mercies are not in any recorded case more than mere common justices, and due -- due without thanks or compliment. To rescue without personal risk a cripple from a burning house is not a mercy, it is a mere commonplace duty; anybody would do it that could. And not by proxy, either -- delegating the work but confiscating the credit for it. If men neglected "God's poor" and "God's stricken and helpless ones" as He does, what would become of them? The answer is to be found in those dark lands where man follows His example and turns his indifferent back upon them: they get no help at all; they cry, and plead and pray in vain, they linger and suffer, and miserably die. If you will look at the matter rationally and without prejudice, the proper place to hunt for the facts of His mercy, is not where man does the mercies and He collects the praise, but in those regions where He has the field to Himself.

It is plain that there is one moral law for heaven and another for the earth. The pulpit assures us that wherever we see suffering and sorrow which we can relieve and do not do it, we sin, heavily. There was never yet a case of suffering or sorrow which God could not relieve. Does He sin, then? If He is the Source of Morals He does -- certainly nothing can be plainer than that, you will admit. Surely the Source of law cannot violate law and stand unsmirched; surely the judge upon the bench cannot forbid crime and then revel in it himself unreproached. Nevertheless we have this curious spectacle: daily the trained parrot in the pulpit gravely delivers himself of these ironies, which he has acquired at second-hand and adopted without examination, to a trained congregation which accepts them without examination, and neither the speaker nor the hearer laughs at himself. It does seem as if we ought to be humble when we are at a bench-show, and not put on airs of intellectual superiority there.

(early 1900s)

People in the United States have decided what's right or wrong just fine. The country defines right and wrong based on the good of society.

Religion is a group that defines right and wrong to suit its own needs.

maporche Wrote:

Quote:

People in the United States have decided what's right or wrong just fine. The country defines right and wrong based on the good of society.

Religion is a group that defines right and wrong to suit its own needs.

Please, please do not tell me you actually believe this. People deciding what is right or wrong is what got us where we are today.

People change right to wrong to accommodate their own wants. What is right in the Bible has never changed.

Please, please do not tell me you actually believe this. People deciding what is right or wrong is what got us where we are today.

There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed. Hell fire is gone, but the text remains. Infant damnation is gone, but the text remains. More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the texts that authorized them remain.

It is not well worthy of note that of all the multitude of texts through which man has driven his annihilating pen he has never once made the mistake of obliterating a good and useful one? It does certainly seem to suggest that if man continues in the direction of enlightenment, his religious practice may, in the end, attain some semblance of human decency.

People change right to wrong to accommodate their own wants. What is right in the Bible has never changed.

And where exactly is that. America is arguably one of the best countries in the world.

The bible's inflexibility to changing times will be it's downfall (thankfully). Some of us are able to live in a world where rights and wrongs are able to change with the times. Slavery used to be "right", times changed and now it's "wrong" (unless you follow the bible, then it's still "right"). Even you god changed from OT "**** you humans" god to NT "Everything's going to be ok" god.

Religion keeps right and wrong from changing, not god.