As children it's just an imaginary friend

[Sweet~T]

And he isn't very friendly.

So what is the cause for our global mental illness?

[cnorman18]

We're having two separate discussions about two different topics, so lets make sure not to conflate the two. First, we are discussing your belief in a God that manifests itself. Second we are discussing the moral value of the Bible irrespective of the fact it wasn't wasn't actually written by God.

Let's tackle the question of your belief in God first. I reject your analogy of belief vs non-belief in God to a preference for a mattress over a waterbed. This is not an issue of preference, this is a truth-statement. Your social security number either ends with the number 5 or it doesn't. God either manifests itself or it doesn't. If you believe it does, you're a theist, otherwise you're not.

There are countless numbers of worldviews and approaches to spirituality, probably as many as the total number of people who ever lived. But whatever your belief system is, if it does not involve the belief that a deity manifests itself, THEN YOU'RE NOT A THEIST.

If you believe that a deity manifests itself, you're a theist. Since the belief in a manifest deity is unwarranted, then the belief is wrong, or crazy, or deluded. Whatever word you want to use for it.

Okay. I'm not sure why you think I have to share your demand that "theism" requires belief in a god that "manifests itself," but let's go with that.

I do. Okay? I believe that God has "manifested himself" (you'll forgive me for using the theistically conventional pronoun) and does "manifest himself" in events in my own life. My incredibly happy late marriage; my escape from a dreadful first marriage; and various other close calls and strange and beneficial coincidences. Now, none of those are useful for proving anything about "the nature of God," and so don't help at all with any kind of "coherent" definition; and none of those are useful for proving anything to anyone else, either, of course -- but I don't have any interest in doing that anyway, and I also don't think that is or should be a requirement of "belief," either.

Okay?

I really don't see why I should have to jump through the hoops you hold up to define myself as a theist and my beliefs as theism, anyway. Who made YOU the "theism police"? I shall call myself what I want. If you don't agree, tough.

Now, about the teachings and value of the Torah as a morally inspiring work of literature. I COMPLETELY understand that you and most rational Jews don't believe that an actual entity called Moses spoke to an actual entity called God who said these words. Of course. But completely separate from the authorship, let's discuss the content.

No, let's not. If you can't be bothered to FIND OUT what the Jewish view of those passages is, and why it is what it is, and take a look at the centuries of debate and discussion that gave rise to them, I don't have any interest in pursuing that discussion at all. That is PRECISELY the same as taking stereotypes of "Darwinism" as described by fundamentalist science-haters and asking me to justify my belief in them.

For example: You pretty clearly don't even understand the concept of "commandment" in Jewish belief. The Hebrew word is mitzvah, which translated loosely as "a good thing to do." We don't speak in terms of "prohibitions" and "SINS" and punishments and all that so much, as in terms of what is GOOD to do. Even eating pork is not a "sin" in the Christian sense, something forbidden and for which act there will be condemnation and punishment; on the contrary, NOT eating pork is a "good thing to do." That's all.

So the literal sense of the text is troubling to you? That's too bad. It doesn't bother us at all. Something my converting rabbi said in a Torah study a long time ago has stayed with me: "If you see something in the Torah that you KNOW to be immoral, unethical or factually untrue, there are two possibilities: Either you are not reading the Torah properly, or the Torah is wrong."

Notice that the third possibility -- overruling our own rational and moral sense in favor of religious dogmatism -- is not available to us. We are not ALLOWED to stop thinking and obey some set of dogmas like good little automatons. Sorry about that.

So the primitives thought that disobedient children should be stoned to death? Yeah, we know that, and we joke about it a lot; but it's not taken seriously as a "COMMANDMENT," and as far as the history and heritage that has been passed down to us tells, it never was. Here's another saying; "God has a vote, but not a veto." WE have to decide the meaning of the Torah and change the laws as necessary. That's been true from the beginning. So you think parts of the Bible are brutal and wrong? So do we -- so we ignore them. Something wrong with that?

Wait, wait, don't tell me -- we shouldn't be allowed to do that, right? Louses up your whole argument. Too bad. That's what we do.

Others want to insist that since there are evil things and immoral "laws" in the Bible, we must accept them as good and binding, or are otherwise ipso facto contemptible hypocrites, because "theists" HAVE TO BE dogmatic literalists or we're "not REALLY religious."

We greet that sort of pontification with a shrug.

Learn something about this tradition, and then perhaps we can talk. I stand by my observation that you have not, so far, demonstrated any interest in doing that.

[no evidence no belief]

We're having two separate discussions about two different topics, so lets make sure not to conflate the two. First, we are discussing your belief in a God that manifests itself. Second we are discussing the moral value of the Bible irrespective of the fact it wasn't wasn't actually written by God.

Let's tackle the question of your belief in God first. I reject your analogy of belief vs non-belief in God to a preference for a mattress over a waterbed. This is not an issue of preference, this is a truth-statement. Your social security number either ends with the number 5 or it doesn't. God either manifests itself or it doesn't. If you believe it does, you're a theist, otherwise you're not.

There are countless numbers of worldviews and approaches to spirituality, probably as many as the total number of people who ever lived. But whatever your belief system is, if it does not involve the belief that a deity manifests itself, THEN YOU'RE NOT A THEIST.

If you believe that a deity manifests itself, you're a theist. Since the belief in a manifest deity is unwarranted, then the belief is wrong, or crazy, or deluded. Whatever word you want to use for it.

Okay. I'm not sure why you think I have to share your demand that "theism" requires belief in a god that "manifests itself," but let's go with that.

I do. Okay? I believe that God has "manifested himself" (you'll forgive me for using the theistically conventional pronoun) and does "manifest himself" in events in my own life. My incredibly happy late marriage; my escape from a dreadful first marriage; and various other close calls and strange and beneficial coincidences. Now, none of those are useful for proving anything about "the nature of God," and so don't help at all with any kind of "coherent" definition; and none of those are useful for proving anything to anyone else, either, of course -- but I don't have any interest in doing that anyway, and I also don't think that is or should be a requirement of "belief," either.

Okay?

I really don't see why I should have to jump through the hoops you hold up to define myself as a theist and my beliefs as theism, anyway. Who made YOU the "theism police"? I shall call myself what I want. If you don't agree, tough.

Absolutely. You can call yourself whatever you want. It's just that if you deviate too much from the definitions of words that the rest of humanity has agreed on, it will be hard for you to communicate with the rest of us.

For example, you have every right to use the word "sandwich" when what you mean is that which most of us call "bus", and you can use totally the word "gigantic" when you mean that which most of us call "downtown". Of course if you do that, if you ask somebody "Where can I catch the gigantic sandwich", don't expect us to understand that you're trying to catch the downtown bus.

So, in your head, feel free to label yourself however you wish, but please understand that if you believe in a manifest deity, then the rest of humanity will refer to you as a theist.

That having been cleared up, let's discuss your belief. You believe in a manifest deity because you, just like billions of others, got married, got divorced, got remarried.

The observable universe has a radius of 46 billion light years. We know that, taking dark matter and dark energy into account, that 46 billion light year radius accounts for 5% of the actual universe. All the hundreds of billions of galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars, with the statistically inevitable countless life forms and civilizations in them, are 5% of that which exists. To believe that the entity which created this, also meddles with the mundane and banal social and romantic interactions of homo sapiens, which only showed up in the last few moments on a cosmic timescale and will become extinct in a few moments more, is ABSURD. It's laughable. To believe that, without the slightest shred of evidence, is madness. To believe in the existence and manifest interactivity of a deity, when such a proposition is utterly and completely indistinguishable from the non-existence and non-manifest non-interactivity, is the definition of insanity. Please give me an example of anything at all that it is more absurd to believe than that!

Now, about the teachings and value of the Torah as a morally inspiring work of literature. I COMPLETELY understand that you and most rational Jews don't believe that an actual entity called Moses spoke to an actual entity called God who said these words. Of course. But completely separate from the authorship, let's discuss the content.

No, let's not. If you can't be bothered to FIND OUT what the Jewish view of those passages is, and why it is what it is, and take a look at the centuries of debate and discussion that gave rise to them, I don't have any interest in pursuing that discussion at all. That is PRECISELY the same as taking stereotypes of "Darwinism" as described by fundamentalist science-haters and asking me to justify my belief in them.

That's not even remotely the same. There isn't a scientist in the world who would fail to unequivocally state that Darwin was wrong in some things. There isn't a single scientist in the world, albeit Newton is every scientist's idol, who will give Newton a free pass for his beliefs in alchemy, for example. Every single scientist in the world will say Newton is great for calculus and Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, and whatnot, BUT WAS WRONG ABOUT ALCHEMY!

So why can't you say "I love the fairy tales about the talking snake and whatnot, but the Torah is WRONG ABOUT KILLING GAYS. Why can't you just go ahead and say that?

For example: You pretty clearly don't even understand the concept of "commandment" in Jewish belief. The Hebrew word is mitzvah, which translated loosely as "a good thing to do." We don't speak in terms of "prohibitions" and "SINS" and punishments and all that so much, as in terms of what is GOOD to do. Even eating pork is not a "sin" in the Christian sense, something forbidden and for which act there will be condemnation and punishment; on the contrary, NOT eating pork is a "good thing to do." That's all.

I see, so killing a gay person, or beating your slaves, or stoning a woman to death for getting raped, is just a "good thing to do"?

So the literal sense of the text is troubling to you? That's too bad. It doesn't bother us at all. Something my converting rabbi said in a Torah study a long time ago has stayed with me: "If you see something in the Torah that you KNOW to be immoral, unethical or factually untrue, there are two possibilities: Either you are not reading the Torah properly, or the Torah is wrong."

Perfect. Can you agree that the Torah is wrong in a LOT of ways?

Notice that the third possibility -- overruling our own rational and moral sense in favor of religious dogmatism -- is not available to us. We are not ALLOWED to stop thinking and obey some set of dogmas like good little automatons. Sorry about that.

Great. That's not all jews, by the way. Right?

I've seen Jews here in New York give up on a $400,000 deal because they couldn't pick up the phone on a saturday. Seems to me like overruling rationality in favor of religious dogmatism. Not to mention that whole "slicing a piece of your children's penis off without their consent. That seems rather dogmatic to me.

So the primitives thought that disobedient children should be stoned to death? Yeah, we know that, and we joke about it a lot; but it's not taken seriously as a "COMMANDMENT," and as far as the history and heritage that has been passed down to us tells, it never was. Here's another saying; "God has a vote, but not a veto." WE have to decide the meaning of the Torah and change the laws as necessary. That's been true from the beginning. So you think parts of the Bible are brutal and wrong? So do we -- so we ignore them. Something wrong with that?

No, nothing wrong with that. That's great. You absolutely HAVE TO ignore the parts that are brutal and wrong. Don't just ignore them, though, publicly denounce and reject them. It's the moral imperative of all human beings to denounce and reject immorality and evil.

Could you do me a favor? There must be thousands of hours of recorded speeches, sermons, ramblings by rabbis and jewish thinkers on youtube. Could you find me one in which a person in authority within judaism says "the Torah is wrong in many ways, I denounce it, I reject it, I am not ashamed of it because we all have violent, amoral and savage ancestors, but i certainly am not proud of it either."

Wait, wait, don't tell me -- we shouldn't be allowed to do that, right? Louses up your whole argument. Too bad. That's what we do.

Others want to insist that since there are evil things and immoral "laws" in the Bible, we must accept them as good and binding, or are otherwise ipso facto contemptible hypocrites, because "theists" HAVE TO BE dogmatic literalists or we're "not REALLY religious."

We greet that sort of pontification with a shrug.

Dude, you completely misunderstand me. I agree with you 100% that you are only bound by the principle of consistency to accept and abide by all the teachings of the Bible, if you claim it's the inerrant word of God. If you don't make that claim, and you clearly don't, then clearly you are free to ignore whichever segments you want.

I just have two points to make. First, how many evil and perverted portions of a book must you ignore, before you realize that the whole book might be an interesting historical novelty, but is not really worth making a significant part of your life?

By analogy, imagine you're taking your kids to the movies, and you know it's a nice movie, but there is a violent and sexually explicit scene, and you plan on covering up your kids eyes. That's fine if it's only one scene. What if 30% of the movie is violent, scary, explicit or otherwise unsuitable for kids? What if 50% is? 80%? At what point do you say "forget it, this movie is too violent/scary/explicit, let's just go see Toy Story 3"?

At what point do you say "forget it, the Torah is too immoral, too evil, too twisted, too perverted, too savage, too barbaric, let's just read about Socrates"?

It's just a horrible book, isn't it?

If I asked you to open a page of the Torah at random and read forward until you find some kind of commandment or Mitzvah, a direct instruction to do something, and once you read it... DO IT, would you be willing to play that game? How much of a minefield of horrible immorality can a book be, before you just chuck it all out and move on to Lao-Tzu?


Second point: Why don't moderate theists (Jews and otherwise) do MORE to publicize their opinion that the majority of the directives, teachings and commandments in the Bible are evil? Is ignoring them enough? I say it isn't. Not while 800 women a year are killed in Pakistan in honor killings which are rooted in the Abrahamic tradition you embrace. Draw a line in the sand. Yell it from the rooftops. "We, the Jews, renounce and reject the immoral and evil teachings of the Torah. The incitations to genocide, homophobia, sexism and slavery of the Torah, are no more a part of a modern Jew's life, than the incitations to antisemitism and hatred of Mein Kampf are a part of a modern German's life."

[cnorman18]

[no evidence no belief]

[cnorman18]

[Replying to post 33 by cnorman18]

Perhaps you didn't understand my expectation -- nay, demand -- of you in your response.

You said:

... the majority of the directives, teachings and commandments in the Bible are evil...

To which I responded:

Up to now, you’ve merely been expressing your opinion — as contemptuous and extreme and filled with hatred and revulsion as it is. But you have now made a factual claim, and I challenge you to PROVE IT.

...If you post an attempt to prove the hateful baloney you posted above as a factual, quantitative claim, I’ll respond. Otherwise, I have nothing further to say. Deal with THAT first; prove it or retract it. If you try to go on without doing one of those two things first, you’ll get no response from me.

You have also rather obviously ducked replying to several other points I made in my last; but those are irrelevant till you back down on the above referenced blatantly, hatefully, and objectively false factual and quantitative claim, or retract it.

Retract your statement or prove it. We don't go on till then.

[no evidence no belief]

[Replying to post 33 by cnorman18]

Perhaps you didn't understand my expectation -- nay, demand -- of you in your response.

You said:

... the majority of the directives, teachings and commandments in the Bible are evil...

To which I responded:

Up to now, you’ve merely been expressing your opinion — as contemptuous and extreme and filled with hatred and revulsion as it is. But you have now made a factual claim, and I challenge you to PROVE IT.

...If you post an attempt to prove the hateful baloney you posted above as a factual, quantitative claim, I’ll respond. Otherwise, I have nothing further to say. Deal with THAT first; prove it or retract it. If you try to go on without doing one of those two things first, you’ll get no response from me.

You have also rather obviously ducked replying to several other points I made in my last; but those are irrelevant till you back down on the above referenced blatantly, hatefully, and objectively false factual and quantitative claim, or retract it.

Retract your statement or prove it. We don't go on till then.

Hi Cnorman. I retract that claim. I've never actually counted and tabulated all the commandments, incitements, ideas of the Bible, so I can't say yet that the majority of them is evil.

What I can say is that all commandments, punishments, reported activities of the deity, incitements, endorsements, ideas, etc in the Bible fall into three categories:

1) Evil

2) Irrelevant

3) Good but obvious and unnecessary.


1) Evil ones are self explanatory. Evil commandments, punishments, endorsements, incitements, are ones which "the world would be a better place if everybody did the exact opposite". For example "Kill gay people". If everybody made it a point in their life to do the exact opposite of that, the world would be a better place.

2) Irrelevant. These are things that relate specifically to bronze age stuff or to campestrian living. Like "don't pee in a river upstream of your village". I'm glad that the bronze age barbarians were able to figure this out for themselves, but it doesn't relate to us. In the irrelevant categories I would also place ritualistic laws such as "dont create graven images" or "boil the blood of a goat", which are just the result of superstition and nonsense. Lastly, in this category I would place commandments and ideas that are not evil per se, but which are technically wrong.

3) "Don't kill", "don't steal", etc. There isn't a single society of primates (gorillas, chimps, orangutans, neanderthals, humans, etc) that wasn't able to figure this out for themselves. Innuit eskimos, native americans, chinese, japanese, australian natives, the Greekes, Hindus, all of these civilizations which were in no way influenced by Israelites and the Torah, were all able to figure out for themselves and verbalize these most basic of innate instincts of primate solidarity. The Israelites don't get a cookie for figuring out that murder is wrong, and then proceeding to murdering all their neighbors.

So, I can't go through the whole book, but why don't I go through the first few pages of commandments, and see how that works out.

“You shall have no other gods before[a] me." Irrelevant. superstitious nonsense.

"You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below". Irrelevant. Superstitious nonsense.

"You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God" Irrelevant superstitious nonsense.

"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy" Irrelevant superstitious nonsense.

"Honor your father and your mother". Category 2. Honor and respect should be earned, not automatic. Just because some violent alcoholic knocked your mother up doesn't mean he is deserving of any respect. Besides, EVERYBODY loves their parents. This commandment is totally unnecessary.

"You shall not murder". Obvious and unnecessary. Category 3. Remarkable that this is the 6th most important commandment according to "God".

"You shall not commit adultery". I don't know that having sex with as many people as you want is immoral. Is an "open marriage" intrinsically immoral, for example? What is immoral is lying about it, but that's already represented later. Sexual promiscuity is not immoral. In my opinion. I'm open to talking about it.

"You shall not steal". Well, duh! Category 3. Obvious.

"You shall not give false testimony". Well, duh! Category 3. Obvious.

"You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." Immoral. Category 1. Evil. thought crime. There is absolutely nothing wrong with seeing your neighbors success, and being inspired by that to seek a better life for yourself. NOTHING wrong with saying "I hope I'll get married soon just like my best friend Ashley". Thought crime. Bad.

"Do not make any gods to be alongside me; do not make for yourselves gods of silver or gods of gold". Irrelevant and repetitious.

"Make an altar of earth for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, your sheep and goats and your cattle. Wherever I cause my name to be honored, I will come to you and bless you. 25 If you make an altar of stones for me, do not build it with dressed stones, for you will defile it if you use a tool on it. " Irrelevant and repetitious

"And do not go up to my altar on steps, or your private parts may be exposed" Seriously? On the same page where "God" admonishes against murder, theft and perjury, he finds it necessary to tell people not to go up steps otherwise others might see your junk? Really?

"If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. 3 If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free" Slavery. Implicit and explicit endorsement of the concept of ownership of fellow humans. Evil. If everybody in the world strove to do the exact opposite of this, the world would be a better place.

"But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,’ 6 then his master must take him before the judges.[a] He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life." More twisted, perverted abominations about the institutionalized degradation of the human spirit. Evil.

"If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do". Slavery + female intrinsic inferiority. Two forms of ultimate immorality for the price of one.

"Anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put to death" Legitimate defense? Hello?

"Anyone who attacks[c] their father or mother is to be put to death." Murder of unruly children. Evil.

"Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death". If slavery is ok, why is kidnapping wrong? Is it because it implies the theft of somebody else's slave? Or because it implies profiteering by the slave trade, without government authorization?

"Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death" Murder of unruly children. Evil.

"If people quarrel and one person hits another with a stone or with their fist[d] and the victim does not die but is confined to bed, 19 the one who struck the blow will not be held liable if the other can get up and walk around outside with a staff; however, the guilty party must pay the injured person for any loss of time and see that the victim is completely healed." Obvious. Innate human compassion. If you do something and to somebody you must make amends. WHO NEEDS THIS TO BE WRITTEN DOWN?

“Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, 21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property". Evil. Pure and simple.

"If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely[e] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise." Seems pretty stupid to me. Who would say that? DON'T HIT PREGNANT WOMEN. DUH! What's this nonsense about eye for an eye?

"An owner who hits a male or female slave in the eye and destroys it must let the slave go free to compensate for the eye. 27 And an owner who knocks out the tooth of a male or female slave must let the slave go free to compensate for the tooth." Evil. Slavery is wrong. If any person hurts another he must be held responsible for it. To say that a slave's only recourse in the case of maiming, is the restoration of the freedom he should have never been deprived of in the first place, is evil and immoral.

"If a bull gores a man or woman to death, the bull is to be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten". Are you kidding me? You're living in the desert, on the edge of starvation, a famine or plague or drought away from extinction, and you let an entire bull go to waste? Plus, what's up with STONING a bull to death? Inhumane and absurd. How many stones does it take to kill a bull? Stupid.

Anyway, there is a bunch of boring stuff about bulls and chicken for a while, but it does get interesting after Exodus 22:16

"If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife. 17 If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must still pay the bride-price for virgins." What? If the father absolutely refuses? what if the woman refuses? What's this about buying wives? EVIL. Objectification of women.

“Do not allow a sorceress to live." Yey. Kill women for imaginary crimes. Way to go Israelites!

"Anyone who has sexual relations with an animal is to be put to death." Death penalty seems a little harsh to me, especially when having sex with a woman against her will seems to be punishable with just a fine. Is the violation of the will of an animal worse than that of a woman? Absurd.

"Whoever sacrifices to any god other than the Lord must be destroyed". Open incitement to genocide. Evil beyond anything else. Nothing could precipitate the total extinction of the human race more efficiently than obedience to this commandment. Evil.

"Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt" Riiiiight. Don't mistreat foreigners. Except if they worship a different God, in which case, DESTROY THEM.


So it looks like out of this sample of 30 commandments, only 14 are completely and utterly evil and monstrous. Only 14 out of 30 are beyond redemption, inexcusable, perverted and immoral in ANY context. Slightly less than 50% of the commandments are perverted, twisted, horrible, mind boggling in their perversion, unsalvageable in the depth of their immorality. You are right. It's not the majority. I take that back.

The rest is irrelevant stuff about chicken and bulls, and obvious stuff that everybody with a higher brain has known for the last few million years and does not need to be written down.

so I ask you again: Why bother with this stupid book in the first place?

[cnorman18]

[Replying to post 36 by no evidence no belief]

"Samples," my hind foot. After the Ten, those are carefully cherrypicked to prove your "point." How about these? Just off the top of my head, without bothering to look them up:

"Do not oppress the stranger among you, for you were strangers in Egypt." Unheard of in the ancient world, where "stranger" meant either "enemy" or "prey," and surrounding tribes were invariably regarded with suspicion. Such an attitude was forbidden to the Hebrews; the above quote appears no less than four times in the Torah. Obvious in OUR day, maybe, but not in the Bronze Age.

"Do not slaughter a lamb in the presence of its mother." First recorded instance of concern for animals' pain and "feelings" -- and indeed, the Hebrews were the first to consider "animal cruelty" as an actual subject of concern.

The daughters of Zelophehad, in Numbers -- women have the right to inherit as heirs in their own right: first recorded instance of "legal personhood" for females.

By modern standards (again), the Bible is not particularly egalitarian -- but in the Bronze Age, it was a radical departure from the norm. Wives had rights, husbands had responsibilities; in other societies of the time, it only worked the other way.

Equality under the law: murder is murder and the penalty remains the same, whatever the class of the victim or the perpetrator. Other legal codes of the time, e.g. that of Hammurabi, specified punishments according to class -- death for the murder of noble, a small fine for the murder of a slave (or nothing, if the slave was one's own).

Indeed, even the authority of the King was limited; his will was NOT law, as in other societies. Again, not obvious in the ancient world, and not even obvious as late as 1215 in the West, before the signing of the Magna Carta which limited the "divine right of kings."

The Sabbath, a day of rest, was to be extended to one's slaves and even one's animals -- and let's not get all wrapped around the axle about slavery being condoned in the Bible; grinding poverty and inequality are condoned in our own day. Further, we're not talking about these being commandments of God, remember?

For the matter of that, the treatment of slaves was restricted, and a slave that was injured was allowed to go free. Also unheard of in the ancient world, where slaves were mere livestock, not humans.

Widows and orphans are to be cared for by the society in general; obvious in OUR day, perhaps, but not in the Bronze Age, where such people were regularly allowed to starve or die of exposure (and in some places, still are).

Even the property of one's enemies was to be respected; if you see your enemy's ox fallen into a ditch, you are to help free it -- even on the Sabbath day. You are not to burn the fruit trees surrounding a town you are besieging. Indeed, the first "rules of war" appear in the Hebrew Bible.

Standards of evidence for criminal trials were introduced in the Torah; a person could be convicted of murder only on the testimony of two witnesses. Extension of that principle eventually led to a system where the standards were so strict that virtually no one was ever executed for murder -- or anything else.

Fair standards for trade were among the laws; one was not to use two sets of weights (in trade, for the scales that weighed out payment) -- one for one's kinsmen, and one for those outside the tribe. Another application of the prohibition of "oppressing the stranger," and again, unheard of in the ancient world, where "strangers" were to be cheated whenever possible.

(Re "honor thy parents": For the record, if a parent was so despicable that the child could NOT honor him -- the PARENT was adjudged to be in violation of the Commandment, not the child, because he prevented its being kept. Apparently you didn't even know that rather basic fact. Your knowledge of the meaning of the rest of the Ten -- even discounting your knee-jerk contempt of all things "religious" as displayed in your comments on the first few -- is similarly lacking.)

Enough of this. Your complaint that even the GOOD laws of the Bible are "obvious and irrelevant" is rather silly, since that judgment comes out of the context of the morality of the present day -- much of which was FOUNDED on the teachings of the Bible and Judaism as well as Christianity.

It is very plain to me, and I suspect to all, that your vehement criticism of the Bible has more to do with your general hostility and hatred of religion than with anything remotely resambling the Bible's actual literary nature. The Bible isn't only made uo of "laws," you know; it contains lyric poetry, hero tales (some of which are truly inspiring), love stories, teaching tales (Ruth, Joseph, Esther, many more), discourses on justice and morality from the prophets, ecstatic visions, and even philosophical speculation and debate.

One of the earliest of that last -- in its sources, perhaps the oldest book in the Bible -- can be found in the book of Job, which is essentially a debate with God -- which Job won The "comforters" insisted that Job must somehow be at fault for his suffering; Job refused to concede that -- and God finally had to admit that it was HIS fault, even while thundering that Job was not God and could not possibly understand his reasons. Job was perfectly willing to concede that -- because God had admitted that the cause of the suffering of the righteous -- the "Problem of Evil" -- was with God, not with humans.

Worthless? I think not. Nor are the myriad other examples of human thought and learning that are displayed in this ancient collection. But more than that, I'd like to take a look at a few bizarre ideas that you seem to have, beyond the blatant fallacy of composition to which you are falling victim when you say that because a few -- yes, I said a FEW -- verses in the Bible are evil, and some of those by modern standards only and not those of the time it was written, the whole book must be evil. "If it is true of a part, it must be true of the whole" was one of Aristotle's original 13 fallacies, and it's just as fallacious now as it was then.

Beyond even that -- we have this, from your last post before this one:

Why not go with a better tradition than Judaism?

And HERE we see your real agenda. Not even abandoning the Bible -- you advocate abandoning the Jewish religion itself.

Well, here are a few things to consider:

First, the "bad parts" of the Bible are not the whole Bible, and have no authority or relevance to the present day (to Jews, at least; that some Christians still cite the "clobber passages" to show that God opposes LGBT rights -- while ignoring the many, many other passages condemning things that they LIKE -- isn't either the Jews' or the Bible's fault).

Second, as I've posted many, MANY times: The teachings of the Jewish religion cannot be found through an unaided surface reading of the Hebrew Bible.

Third, and perhaps most important in the present context -- The Bible is not Judaism, and Judaism is not the Bible.

Just last night, I attended a concert at my synagogue, where our cantor and her twin sister sang songs from the Jewish heritage -- some from the liturgy, some from Ashkenazic tradition, some from the Sephardic (Spanish) tradition, and some from modern Jewish songwriters like George and Ira Gershwin and Irving Berlin ("Sisters," from that fine Jewish motion picture, White Christmas). It was a celebration of Jewish history and culture, and the audience was clapping and sometimes singing along, filled with joy and appreciation for the whole experience -- the Jewish heritage, the astonishing skill and artistry of the two women, the pleasure of being part of it all -- and how deeply ingrained in that experience were the passages that obsess YOU?

Not. At. All.

Yes, those are a part of our history; one reason we study those passages today (which we occasionally still do; we haven't forgotten them) is to learn from our ancestors' mistakes. The idea that their very EXISTENCE is a good reason to toss out the whole Bible, never mind Judaism itself -- well, that makes about as much sense as abandoning the Constitution and dismantling the American Republic because SLAVERY is not only MENTIONED in our founding document, but its very SYSTEM is set up to take it into account! A slave counts as 3/5 of a person for the purpose of determining representation, and so on.

Oh, so slavery was abolished and is no longer of any account in American law? So were all the passages you hate, in Jewish law. We don't DELETE them any more than those passages in the Constitution were deleted. That makes no sense; you can't erase history -- if you do, how can you learn from it?

I'll leave aside the other points of mine which you ignored -- your claim was that you "got tired of responding" to them, I believe -- including the FACT that you EXPLICITLY BLAMED Jews, and by implication ME, for the Muslim "tradition" of "HONOR KILLINGS" by your claim that we "EMBRACE" them as a part of the "Abrahamic tradition." That is a GROSS insult and a BLATANTLY FALSE and INDEFENSIBLE accusation; but then, that sort of take-no-prisoners, you-are-100%-wrong-on-every-point tone is more or less your general approach to "debate" here.

And, for me, that puts this entire conversation to an end. You have no conception, nor any understanding whatever, of what an actual "religion" IS or CAN BE; it's NOT all about "belief," nor about a flawlessly perfect tradition of ethics and morals (find me one of those, please -- even Buddhists have committed mass murders in the name of their religion). Especially Judaism, which is much more than a "belief system" and always has been. You are so obviously focused on the EVILS of ALL religion, and so consumed by your virulent hatred of it, that your perceptions and ideas are influenced by nothing else. Therefore, I don't see any point in continuing this conversation.

There is, though, one way; if you would do what I said at the very beginning, and READ something about the basics of Judaism, perhaps we can resume this. I have recommended many books over the years, from Milton Steinberg's Basic Judaism to Judaism for Dummies, and those books are so EASY and CHEAP to obtain at any used bookstore or online, that there's really no excuse for willfully continuing to remain ignorant of something that you implicitly claim to understand, and which you so clearly DESPISE, without any actual knowledge of it.

LEARN something about Judaism, and if you're still interested, we can talk again. Otherwise, I'm done here. It's not my job to educate you; I've tried to teach things to people who were absolutely DETERMINED to learn nothing -- 7th grade summer school math students (and Holocaust deniers) come to mind -- and I don't care to attempt it again.

Your conception of Judaism is somewhere between a Julius Streicher cartoon and a fundamentalist's nightmare. Correct that, and we might have something to say to each other again. Till then -- be well, and no hard feelings.

[no evidence no belief]

[Replying to post 36 by no evidence no belief]

"Samples," my hind foot. After the Ten, those are carefully cherrypicked to prove your "point."

Ah! So you're saying that the commandments I selected PROVE MY POINT, but it doesn't count because I didn't select the commandments impartially, but instead I cherrypicked them for the purpose of proving my point.

In other words, you're saying that if those commandments had been selected totally randomly or if, say, they were just the first 30, then my point would have been successfully made, but because they were cherrypicked, then my point is not made.

Right? Is that what you're saying?

Well, I got news for you buddy. Those commandments were not cherrypicked with any kind of agenda in mind. THEY ARE THE FIRST THIRTY COMMANDMENTS. PERIOD.

They are just presented in order, from Exodus 20, up to Exodus 22.

Game over, buddy.

You have implicitly conceded, because you admitted that it's the cherrypicking (which didn't happen) which would make my point invalid, and that therefore my point IS valid, given the absence of cherrypicking.

Not only that, but you have betrayed an astounding ignorance of your own holy book. How could you possibly not know about this? This is one of the central passages of your religion, where God speaks to your patriarch and tells him how Jews are supposed to live their lives. And you've clearly never read past the first page! Moreover, how could you possibly have the nerve to tell me that I have to learn about your own culture, when you don't even know the first 30 commandments? Incredible. Absolutely incredible.

Those commandments are not cherrypicked. THEY ARE THE FIRST THIRTY THINGS GOD SAYS TO THE JEWS. AND THEY ARE HORRIBLE.

How about these? Just off the top of my head, without bothering to look them up:

"Do not oppress the stranger among you, for you were strangers in Egypt."

I included that in my list, man! It appears back to back with the commandment to destroy any person who worships a different God from you.

Look, I really appreciate the second half of your post, so please see my final response below, which hopefully will redeem me a little bit in your eyes. But honestly, can you blame me for being put off by a book which contradicts itself so blatantly? A book which says "be nice to strangers" and "kill strangers" back to back? And it's not even the only portion. It says "don't murder" in exodus 20 and "murder your children" in Exodus 21! How can you expect me to study this as anything other than a historical example of humanity's intellectual and moral failures?

Listen, you have me half convinced that there is some value in a Jew familiarizing himself with his heritage, learning of the details of his ancestors' mistakes, learning from them, etc. But put yourself in my shoes. Imagine you are seeing the Book, not embedded in your tradition, not through the lens of your heritage, but with fresh eyes. Imagine yourself, without any preparation or setup, looking at those first 30 commandments for the very first time as an adult. Almost half of them are irredeemably and unforgivably, objectively and eternally, evil. Of the other half, a good chunk are hogwash, and the few good ones are often directly contradicted by the evil ones on the same or the next page.

Am I really to blame for looking at this book and saying "Meh, Socrates, Lao-Tzu, Confucius, or Buddha are better"?

Enough of this. Your complaint that even the GOOD laws of the Bible are "obvious and irrelevant" is rather silly, since that judgment comes out of the context of the morality of the present day -- much of which was FOUNDED on the teachings of the Bible and Judaism as well as Christianity.

Patently false. I respect the conviction and dignity that comes across in your words, but I cannot let you get away with this.

Countless civilizations that had NOTHING to do with Judaism or Christianity (Chinese, native Americans, Eskimos, Australian natives, and many more) arrived to the same moral conclusions that we did. My morality, and the morality of the present day, is NOT founded in Judaism. Modern morality is the inevitable result of any civilization that gets as far as we have. If the Torah had never been written, if the Amalekites had exterminated the Israelites instead of the other way around, WE WOULD STILL KNOW MURDER IS WRONG.

You don't get to pat yourself on the back for eventually figuring out that which we all already knew.

It is very plain to me, and I suspect to all, that your vehement criticism of the Bible has more to do with your general hostility and hatred of religion than with anything remotely resambling the Bible's actual literary nature. The Bible isn't only made uo of "laws," you know; it contains lyric poetry, hero tales (some of which are truly inspiring), love stories, teaching tales (Ruth, Joseph, Esther, many more), discourses on justice and morality from the prophets, ecstatic visions, and even philosophical speculation and debate.

That's fine.

One of the earliest of that last -- in its sources, perhaps the oldest book in the Bible -- can be found in the book of Job, which is essentially a debate with God -- which Job won The "comforters" insisted that Job must somehow be at fault for his suffering; Job refused to concede that -- and God finally had to admit that it was HIS fault, even while thundering that Job was not God and could not possibly understand his reasons. Job was perfectly willing to concede that -- because God had admitted that the cause of the suffering of the righteous -- the "Problem of Evil" -- was with God, not with humans.

Right. God is horrible. He tortures an innocent guy on a dare from the Devil. Aren't you glad it's fiction? Aren't you glad that you don't live in a world where you could be next? I understand it's all metaphor, and all that. But what a horrible metaphor!

Worthless? I think not. Nor are the myriad other examples of human thought and learning that are displayed in this ancient collection. But more than that, I'd like to take a look at a few bizarre ideas that you seem to have, beyond the blatant fallacy of composition to which you are falling victim when you say that because a few -- yes, I said a FEW -- verses in the Bible are evil, and some of those by modern standards only and not those of the time it was written, the whole book must be evil. "If it is true of a part, it must be true of the whole" was one of Aristotle's original 13 fallacies, and it's just as fallacious now as it was then.

You misunderstand me. I'm not saying that "because a portion of the Bible is evil, therefore the whole of it is evil". That would be as absurd as saying that because a portion of Hitler's actions were evil, then all of Hitler's actions were evil. I'm sure some of Hitler's actions were not evil.

My point is that a sufficient portion of the Bible is evil, to make me lose interest in it, and to make it difficult for me to draw any kind of spiritual inspiration from it.

Hey, a girl may be extremely attractive, may not have herpes, may not have Chlamydia, may not have HPV, may not have Syphylis, may not have Gonorrhea. But if she has HIV, I'm not going to sleep with her. I'm going to sleep with a girl who as well as being attractive and not having all those other STDs, ALSO DOESN'T HAVE HIV!

Hey, the Bible may be very interesting and poetic, it might not advocate evil things such as... (dang, I can't think of any evil thing the Bible doesn't advocate).... I can't complete my analogy. Anyway, the Bible may be very interesting and poetic, and may have some good things (I can't think of any, but respect the fact that you can), but if it advocates the murder of homosexuals, the murder of unruly children, the murder of non-virgin wives, etc, then I'm not going to waste too much time seeking inspiration from it. I'm going to read socrates instead.

Why not go with a better tradition than Judaism?

And HERE we see your real agenda. Not even abandoning the Bible -- you advocate abandoning the Jewish religion itself.

Well, here are a few things to consider:

First, the "bad parts" of the Bible are not the whole Bible, and have no authority or relevance to the present day (to Jews, at least; that some Christians still cite the "clobber passages" to show that God opposes LGBT rights -- while ignoring the many, many other passages condemning things that they LIKE -- isn't either the Jews' or the Bible's fault).

Second, as I've posted many, MANY times: The teachings of the Jewish religion cannot be found through an unaided surface reading of the Hebrew Bible.

Third, and perhaps most important in the present context -- The Bible is not Judaism, and Judaism is not the Bible.

I understand that. That's fine.

I'm from Rome. My ancestors were ancient Romans. But you don't see me studying the speeches of Julius Caesar, and wearing togas and eating from one of those sideways sofa-beds rather than sitting normally. I don't celebrate the day in which the romans invaded England or whatever.

Why do you have to carry this baggage?

Just last night, I attended a concert at my synagogue, where our cantor and her twin sister sang songs from the Jewish heritage -- some from the liturgy, some from Ashkenazic tradition, some from the Sephardic (Spanish) tradition, and some from modern Jewish songwriters like George and Ira Gershwin and Irving Berlin ("Sisters," from that fine Jewish motion picture, White Christmas). It was a celebration of Jewish history and culture, and the audience was clapping and sometimes singing along, filled with joy and appreciation for the whole experience -- the Jewish heritage, the astonishing skill and artistry of the two women, the pleasure of being part of it all -- and how deeply ingrained in that experience were the passages that obsess YOU?

Not. At. All.

Fine. Explain to me how seeing some other concert with a bunch of friends at a concert hall, is less valuable of an experience than seeing a Jewish concert with a bunch of Jewish friends, at a synagogue.

Yes, those are a part of our history; one reason we study those passages today (which we occasionally still do; we haven't forgotten them) is to learn from our ancestors' mistakes. The idea that their very EXISTENCE is a good reason to toss out the whole Bible, never mind Judaism itself -- well, that makes about as much sense as abandoning the Constitution and dismantling the American Republic because SLAVERY is not only MENTIONED in our founding document, but its very SYSTEM is set up to take it into account! A slave counts as 3/5 of a person for the purpose of determining representation, and so on.

Oh, so slavery was abolished and is no longer of any account in American law? So were all the passages you hate, in Jewish law. We don't DELETE them any more than those passages in the Constitution were deleted. That makes no sense; you can't erase history -- if you do, how can you learn from it?

I am 100% in favor of studying history for the purpose of studying our mistakes. Implicit in that, is the admission that those early documents which advocate slavery, genocide, subjugation of women, rape, etc WERE WRONG IN ADVOCATING THOSE THINGS.

Now, can you link me a speech by a Rabbi admitting that of the first 30 commandments, at least half are evil?

I'll leave aside the other points of mine which you ignored -- your claim was that you "got tired of responding" to them, I believe -- including the FACT that you EXPLICITLY BLAMED Jews, and by implication ME, for the Muslim "tradition" of "HONOR KILLINGS" by your claim that we "EMBRACE" them as a part of the "Abrahamic tradition." That is a GROSS insult and a BLATANTLY FALSE and INDEFENSIBLE accusation; but then, that sort of take-no-prisoners, you-are-100%-wrong-on-every-point tone is more or less your general approach to "debate" here.

I strongly believe that religious moderates create shelter and credibility to the extremists. Because they value the same books as you, worship the same God as you, have the same rituals as you, the extremists can say you belong to the same class.

The belief that those ancient books which incite those horrible immoral actions are somehow special, worthy of veneration and attentive study to a greater degree than any ancient historic text, slows down the emancipation of people from the immorality of those books.

I am absolutely in favor of studying any and all ancient books and tradition for the purpose of learning from their mistakes. But the belief that a few of those books are somehow more special than any other, is dangerous in my opinion.

I'm not saying that Judaism causes muslim honor killings. I'm just saying that judaism is a mild and harmless manifestation of the same phenomenon as extremist islam, extremist stalinism, extremist hinduism.

And that remains true in my mind until you show me a reputable Rabbi unequivocally and clearly condemning at least half of the first 30 commandments as fundamentally and irredeemably evil.

And, for me, that puts this entire conversation to an end. You have no conception, nor any understanding whatever, of what an actual "religion" IS or CAN BE; it's NOT all about "belief," nor about a flawlessly perfect tradition of ethics and morals (find me one of those, please -- even Buddhists have committed mass murders in the name of their religion). Especially Judaism, which is much more than a "belief system" and always has been. You are so obviously focused on the EVILS of ALL religion, and so consumed by your virulent hatred of it, that your perceptions and ideas are influenced by nothing else. Therefore, I don't see any point in continuing this conversation.

There is, though, one way; if you would do what I said at the very beginning, and READ something about the basics of Judaism, perhaps we can resume this. I have recommended many books over the years, from Milton Steinberg's Basic Judaism to Judaism for Dummies, and those books are so EASY and CHEAP to obtain at any used bookstore or online, that there's really no excuse for willfully continuing to remain ignorant of something that you implicitly claim to understand, and which you so clearly DESPISE, without any actual knowledge of it.

LEARN something about Judaism, and if you're still interested, we can talk again. Otherwise, I'm done here. It's not my job to educate you; I've tried to teach things to people who were absolutely DETERMINED to learn nothing -- 7th grade summer school math students (and Holocaust deniers) come to mind -- and I don't care to attempt it again.

Your conception of Judaism is somewhere between a Julius Streicher cartoon and a fundamentalist's nightmare. Correct that, and we might have something to say to each other again. Till then -- be well, and no hard feelings.

Same here. And I'll agree to read Milton Steinberg's book, if you agree to read Exodus 21 and 22. Deal?

[cnorman18]

[no evidence no belief]