Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Please Read OP)

lazygal

philologos wrote: »

lazygal: I'll give you the answer I see fit. I don't promise that you'll agree with what I say or that you will like my answer but genuinely I'm trying as best as I can to answer.

Being an atheist doesn't give you the right to be rude. Genuinely I'd rather if we had a proper discussion without this childish attitude. There's no point in discussing if you genuinely aren't interested in listening.

The passage doesn't speak about rape. It deals with premarital sex. Therefore I don't magically assume rape in there as that's bad reading irrespective of what I'm reading if I don't have sufficient license from the author I don't imagine stuff in that's simply not there.

That's disappointing. I'm not being childish, by the by, I think that's a dishonest representation of my position. How can sex with women who've been 'seized' be consensual, even if they are married? Is marital rape a crime in your opinion? I'm genuinely interested in your response.




By the by, I don't call myself atheist, you're reading something into my belief system that isn't there, which is quite dangerous and rude. Being a Christian doesn't mean you can make assumptions.

philologos

I've shown you the passages that clearly show that rape was clearly condemned in the Old Testament. It isn't my fault if you don't want to listen.

And yes it is childish and rude to continue goading when you've got an answer.

marienbad

philologos wrote: »

I've shown you the passages that clearly show that rape was clearly condemned in the Old Testament. It isn't my fault if you don't want to listen.

Talking about listening Philologos, can I have an answer to my earlier posts. thanks

lazygal

philologos wrote: »

I've shown you the passages that clearly show that rape was clearly condemned in the Old Testament. It isn't my fault if you don't want to listen.

Can you repost the passages now please? It isn't my fault if I missed your testimony on rape. Is marital rape a crime?

lazygal

philologos wrote: »

I've shown you the passages that clearly show that rape was clearly condemned in the Old Testament. It isn't my fault if you don't want to listen.

And yes it is childish and rude to continue goading when you've got an answer.

I'm not being childish or goading. I'm asking you to provide scripture.
Did Jesus accuse people who asked questions of being childish or goading? Or did he repeat his testimony?

philologos

I already referenced this on thread. Please look back. It's not reasonable for you to ignore what I've posted and it is rude.

marienbad

philologos wrote: »

I already referenced this on thread. Please look back. It's not reasonable for you to ignore what I've posted and it is rude.

Please stop lecturing people on what you deem proper behaviour. Thank you.

You did not reply to the specific post and questtions I asked , would you like me to restate them ?

lazygal

philologos wrote: »

I already referenced this on thread. Please look back. It's not reasonable for you to ignore what I've posted and it is rude.

It's not reasonable to call me rude and smacks of backseat moderation. Report my posts if you think I'm being rude.

philologos

marienbad wrote: »

Please stop lecturing people on what you deem proper behaviour. Thank you.

You did not reply to the specific post and questtions I asked , would you like me to restate them ?

Which part of your question did I not answer in these posts:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=83777302&postcount=6356
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=83772980&postcount=6341

Not getting the specific answer you may want is not the same thing as answering the question. I don't guarantee 1) that you will like my answer, or even 2) that you will be convinced by my answer.

Plowman

This post has been deleted.

marienbad

marienbad wrote: »

It does say go take women captive and makes them your wives ? correct ?

This post Philogos , can I have an answer please .

philologos

marienbad wrote: »

This post Philogos , can I have an answer please .

The passage says that it is permissible for marriage to occur in these cases. That's what we can conclude from it.

Just to give a heads up. If we are doing to discuss, it should be a discussion rather than an interrogation session. I'm happy to discuss, but that's a two-way thing.

marienbad

philologos wrote: »

The passage says that it is permissible for marriage to occur in these cases. That's what we can conclude from it.

Just to give a heads up. If we are doing to discuss, it should be a discussion rather than an interrogation session. I'm happy to discuss, but that's a two-way thing.

Just to give you a heads up , it should be a discussion rather than a hide and seek session. And it is not for you to lecture and set the frame for any conversation - and you are beginning to do a lot of that lately.

If your belief is as strong as you make out then have faith that it can withstand anything I can throw at it. .

Now back to Deut. lets not get ahead of ourselves and rush into marriage just yet- we agree then it says take women ( specificaly - virgins) captive ?

philologos

No I'm sorry if you aren't going to allow for a two-sided discussion, or if you're going to continue treating any question I ask in the rude manner that you did before then I won't.

The charter of this forum is quite clear on this.

The passage says that in the specific situation of Israel in war that marriage between an Israelite and a captive is permissible.

This stage in Israel's history has long passed and Christians are under a new covenant with Jews and Gentiles. Its important for a Christian to read the Bible in the light of Christ.

Morbert

Peregrinus wrote: »

I suspect it probably doesn’t imply rape in the sense that the woman’s consent is the issue.

The previous passage, Deut 22:23-27, dealing with the case of sex with a woman betrothed to someone else, attempts to differentiate between cases in which the woman appears to have consented, on the one hand (in which case both die) and cases where she did not or where it cannot be known whether she did or not on the other (in which case only the man dies).

Deut 22:28-29 deals with sex with a woman who is not betrothed, and the same consequences flow in all cases – i.e. consent is not an issue. Thus while the rule would apply to cases of rape, it would apply also to cases which were certainly not rape. If consent or the lack of it were an issue, that would be made clear, as it is in the immediately preceding passage. So, while the rule covers cases of rape, it’s not directed at cases of rape. I suspect “seize” (or the Hebrew word translated as “seize” here) basically means “take”, and it reflects a sexist assumption that an act of intercourse is normatively initiated by the man.

A modern analogy would be our laws concerned sex with a person under 17 (“unlawful carnal knowledge”). Consent is not an issue. The rule is the same whether the young person is actually raped, or whether he or she is an enthusiastic participant, or something in between. The maximum penalty for u.c.k. is less than the penalty for rape, but nobody objects that having a law against u.c.k. “condones rape”. (Of course, if a young person is raped, then the perpetrator can be charged both with u.c.k. and with rape, but that just illustrates that u.c.k. is not the same as rape.)

I also don’t think it’s fair to say that the rule in Deut 22:27-28 “condones” anything, whether it be sex with an unbetrothed woman, or rape. It takes its place in a long list of rules which prescribe penalties and consequences for acts which are clearly not condoned; if they were condoned, they wouldn’t attract penalties. You might object that it fails to treat the act as seriously as it should, or that it is sexist in its operation, or whatever, but imposing penalties on the perpetrator of an act is pretty much the opposite of condoning it.

I'm not arguing that the authors of those lines were condoning rape. Instead, it seems to me that the lines were reflecting societal norms at the time (oppression of women, a more relaxed attitude towards violence against women, a patriarchy, etc).

marienbad

philologos wrote: »

No I'm sorry if you aren't going to allow for a two-sided discussion, or if you're going to continue treating any question I ask in the rude manner that you did before then I won't.

The charter of this forum is quite clear on this.

The passage says that in the specific situation of Israel in war that marriage between an Israelite and a captive is permissible.

This stage in Israel's history has long passed and Christians are under a new covenant with Jews and Gentiles. Its important for a Christian to read the Bible in the light of Christ.

Phil, you are the one being continually rude and condescending, so once again can I ask that you stop with the lecturing. Thank you.

So the passage says it is ok to take enemy virgins captive and then marry them- we are agreed on that then.

By todays standards that would be classed as rape and a war crime , is that correct ?

philologos

Are you going to discuss or interrogate? Unless this is a two sided discussion I haven't got the slightest interest to be honest.

I've got more productive things I can do.

marienbad

philologos wrote: »

Are you going to discuss or interrogate? Unless this is a two sided discussion I haven't got the slightest interest to be honest.

I've got more productive things I can do.

We are discussing ! I am giving my interpretation and asking if your agree or disagree ? So please answer the question

By todays standards would it be a war crime ?

Worztron

Why is it that those who believe in a god say the universe could not have come from nothing yet they have no problem is thinking that their "god" came from nothing?

Brian Shanahan

nagirrac wrote: »

Masteroid, if God exists outside space and time, surely he can do whatever he wants. He created space and time, so why would he be subject to the laws of nature that he put in place himself?

If god exists outside space or time, then he exists outside of reality, as reality is the sum total of spacetime.

If that is the case, then I don't give two shakes of a lamb's tail what it does, because its actions cannot effect me, because they are imaginary.

Brian Shanahan

Zombrex wrote: »

And the Bible never condones rape if you assume that everything that could be rape isn't.

No, the bible does not condone rape only if the definition of rape is not: "the forcible commission of a sexual act upon a person who is unwilling, or incapabe of agreeing to, such a sexual act."

No amount of mealy-mouthed weasel words will deny this fact.

nagirrac

Worztron wrote: »

Why is it that those who believe in a god say the universe could not have come from nothing yet they have no problem is thinking that their "god" came from nothing?

According to our physical laws the universe cannot come from nothing in a material sense (energy and matter), unless you redefine nothing as some cosmologists have done and argue that the quantum vacuum is nothing. Krauss' book on this subject is a proposal of how the universe went from one state to another, and provides no answer as to where the quantum vacuum came from or where the material that banged into exitance at the time of the big bang came from.

There are many possibilities. Our universe could be a subset of a much larger multiverse that has nothing like the laws of our universe, there could be a nearby universe that gave rise to our universe, this could be a recurring universe, a very smart entity in another universe could have programmed our universe. I suppose we could call the latter God compared to us.

Mystics do not say or believe that God came from nothing. They say that linear time as we experience it is the incorrect way to think about this question. According to their beliefs, God exists in eternity, which does not mean time that goes on forever, it means there is no time.

philologos

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

No, the bible does not condone rape only if the definition of rape is not: "the forcible commission of a sexual act upon a person who is unwilling, or incapabe of agreeing to, such a sexual act."

No amount of mealy-mouthed weasel words will deny this fact.

None of the passages actually endorse, condone or encourage rape - that is forced sexual acts.

That's the point.

robp

Worztron wrote: »

Why is it that those who believe in a god say the universe could not have come from nothing yet they have no problem is thinking that their "god" came from nothing?

Yes, you can't prove the existence of God that way but arguing that the universe came form nothing is equally non logical. Many would describe this problem as arational instead of irrational.

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

If god exists outside space or time, then he exists outside of reality, as reality is the sum total of spacetime.

If that is the case, then I don't give two shakes of a lamb's tail what it does, because its actions cannot effect me, because they are imaginary.

Physicists are quite confident that time did not always exist. It is a very difficult as language is structured and limited to describing things with time. Yet the 'time before time' period was in no way imaginary. Long before physicists realised this God was viewed as existing outside of time. There is a clear intellectual continuity there.

Masteroid

nagirrac wrote: »

Masteroid, if God exists outside space and time, surely he can do whatever he wants. He created space and time, so why would he be subject to the laws of nature that he put in place himself?

That is precisely the point I was making to FISMA.

Not only is Yahweh not subject to natural law, the Hebrew God of War can subvert it.

marienbad

philologos wrote: »

None of the passages actually endorse, condone or encourage rape - that is forced sexual acts.

That's the point.

would they be classed as forced sexual act by today's standards ?

Kiwi in IE

marienbad wrote: »

would they be classed as forced sexual act by today's standards ?

No of course not! The bible is not outdated and completely relevant as a guide on how to live 2000 years later!

Zombrex

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

No, the bible does not condone rape only if the definition of rape is not: "the forcible commission of a sexual act upon a person who is unwilling, or incapabe of agreeing to, such a sexual act."

No amount of mealy-mouthed weasel words will deny this fact.

Oh don't worry, people will try.

The Bible describes the Israelite soldiers being instructed by God to take from the captured women wives, which they can do with as they wish.

And predictably the Christians will say that just because these women are taken as prisoners and then married off to the soldiers doesn't mean that the Bible is saying that they can be rape.

Which of course that is exactly what it is saying. But the Israelites wouldn't have viewed it as "rape", any more than they would have viewed the putting to death of all the non-virgins as "murder", because they wouldn't have considered either of these things crimes. After all in a lot of countries it wasn't considered a crime to rape your wife until last century.

So again this is why this discussion is rather pointless, because the Christians turn the discussion into a discussion of demanding to know where the Israelite admitted to their crimes, when of course they never admitted that what they were doing were crimes.

You can't discuss this subject with people who are not prepared to be honest with what they are reading. You can though simply denounce them for this. After all theses are hypothetical scenarios. The Israelite armies really did capture women, these are real women who really did suffer war marriages. I frankly find it disgusting that some of the Christians are prepared to gloss over these passages in the name of keeping their own personal belief systems on track at the expense of the memories of the actual people who suffered.

But then that is a feeling one gets used to on this forum, unfortunately.

Brian Shanahan

robp wrote: »

Physicists are quite confident that time did not always exist. It is a very difficult as language is structured and limited to describing things with time. Yet the 'time before time' period was in no way imaginary. Long before physicists realised this God was viewed as existing outside of time. There is a clear intellectual continuity there.

But the difference between physics and religion is that under physics nothing existed before time started (ignore nagirrac his physics is prouchy at best), whereas under religion god existed before time started.

So you've a big difference there, religion maintaining that a thing (god) existed in a "period" (for want of a better word) where nothing could exist, whereas physics rightly points out that before the big bang there was nothing for anything to exist in.

And again we've another example of having to decide between having a universe with god or one with fundamental principles of physics. And again we see which one has evidence and which one is make-believe.

nagirrac

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

But the difference between physics and religion is that under physics nothing existed before time started (ignore nagirrac his physics is prouchy at best), whereas under religion god existed before time started.

Way to go not understanding what robp actually said, or understanding time for that matter.

Let me try and explain time to you as I've tried to explain it on other forums. If a photon of light leaves a star 10 billion light years distant, from our perspective it will take 10 billion years to get to us. From the perspective of the photon, regardless of whether it is immediately absorbed back by its star or travels all the way to earth, time is the same. A photon is everywhere at once and does not experience time.

There is no "before time started". There is eternity which is the here and now, and there is a subset of that which is the thing that changes, the thing we think of as time.