darth_ender said:
This whole disussion will not accomplish much I’m sure, but I will say that it takes as much intelligence to blindly discard an entire religion based on some passages of scripture written in an ancient context as it does to blidnly accept those same scriptures as the inerrant and uncorrupted word of God through the centuries. God was speaking to ancient prophets in an ancient culture, and the fact of the matter is that the ideals in Old Testament were quite progressive compared to the norms of neighboring civilizations at the time. It is literally idiotic to judge the morals of ancient Israel (or any other ancient culture) with modern day morals.
And your final sentence here confirms what I just stated, that your judgment is idiotic. Let’s get philosophical and assume there is no God. With that assumption in place, you must then recognize that morals are as arbitrary as words: they are literally nothing more than culturally-accepted norms among humans interacting in a complex system. And since human understanding changes, so do morals. I guarantee you, if you wrote a book ennumerating what you believe to be the perfect moral system, and this book were to be read in 3,000 years, you would in fact be viewed as barbaric and backwards, particularly by the ignoramuses of that time who would expect your views to align with theirs.
I am glad you have morals. But your morals are what you feel is right, based on cultural norms and your own experience. You cannot measure ancient cultures by your own yard stick any more than you can judge a Muslim woman for wearing a burqa.
There are many other outlets that preach similar things that the good passages in the Bible teach and has none of the repugnant shit that the Bible has as well. So why not dismiss it? Also my book wouldn’t be seen as barbaric and backwards because I wouldn’t be chastising people for being different than me and I wouldn’t be calling for these people to die. So don’t even because I don’t want to hear that stupid shit.
