Theists, Some Vexing Follow-up Questions?.?.?

[POI]

In a recent topic ---- > here (viewtopic.php?t=38559&start=60), I posed the following question:

"when one reads this Verse, was the punishment commanded by the consensus of humans, or, god himself?"

Placing this into context, the interlocutor argues that God's moral don't change, but the assigned punishment does --- for whatever reason (undefined).... The above question has yet to be answered or addressed by my debate opponent. So I thought I would offer it here.

For debate:

1) Let's suppose God's morals do not change. Okay, great... Then why in the heck does god command that a priest's daughter is to be burned to death, if she loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father, with NO caveats?

2) If there exists caveats, why are they not mentioned?

3) Was this command ultimately issued/inspired by God, or humans? And how do you know?

4) Exactly when and WHY does this command no longer apply? Or is it still applied by God?

5) How can you distinguish if any passages, at all, are inspired by any god?

[POI]

(VM) "Theists often bring up the "moral argument". Laughable. Is not the question for debate of this thread is "..

(POI) It's "laughable", because theists bring it up when a verse is mentioned, and the theist is asked if they agree that it does appear 'bad'.

(VM) 1) Let's suppose God's morals do not change. Okay, great... Then why in the heck does god command that a priest's daughter is to be burned to death, if she loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father, with NO caveats?

Is not the question for debate of the thread relates to God's moral character???

(POI) Nice redirect. This conversation has already branched off... I'm following the branches where ever they lead....

(VM) Straw man. I am not presupposing God's commands to be "bad". That is your job, not mines.

(POI) Great, then this must mean, that even though you have not offered your opinion yet, you can provide a "Venom approved" / morally good circumstance as to why a fornicating priest's daughter must ever be burned alive?

(VM) Funny, you claim that you do not believe any external agency gave you a moral standard...yet, you just admitted that your standard comes from external sources outside of yourself. An external source is a external source, no matter how you slice it.

(POI) This is why I said external agency. By <agency>, I mean a mindful unworldly "conscious Being" who provides me with my 'moral compass' is unlikely, due to the many alternative reasons I gave; which grounds a rational being with no need for a 'god'.

(VM) I call my external source God...and you call yours whatever it is you call it. Either way, it is external...so my question remains, how is your external sources more superior than mines when it comes to what we ought/ought not do.

(POI) You are asking the wrong question. Without demonstrating 'might makes right' alone, please justify why your god's command, to burn fornicating daughters, is a morally 'good' thing?

(VM) Yeah but rape is good for the rapist. Catch my drift?

(POI) Right, and burning alive the priest's daughter is good for your god. Catch my drift?

(VM) We do agree...I am willing to bet we agree that things like rape, murder, stealing is wrong.

The difference is, I believe that I am held accountable to a Holy God for my actions, you don't.

And there lies the contention.

(POI) We may agree, yes.... I do not think there exists a circumstance where such an ordered punishment fits the crime. I would suspect that you do not either, being you have not yet offered one, and instead want me to explain how we get our morals

(VM) I let God do what he do with the creation that he made.

(POI) Right, so you ignore it... And when asked, point/blank, you redirect skeptics to the rabbit trails. Got it....

[AquinasForGod]

However, because she is the daughter of a priest and her action of being a whore makes the priest look bad, her death will be by fire.

Makes me wonder what the claimed god would think about priests, who themselves commit child rape. Death by fire because of who your father is... What kind of death should a child raping priest get from this god I wonder? Would this god approve of the Catholic church and how it has handled such things? Makes me wonder why it seems to be inactive in this regard. Any thoughts?

I have some thoughts, yes. The church handled it poorly but is doing better. The church is a living church with flawed human beings doing their best to share the light of God. Evil does its best to corrupt whom they can, especially those in the church.

As to what God should do about it. That is up to him. Hell or purgatory I am sure will be far worse for them if they never repented than just burning by human fire which kills you very quickly.

[We_Are_VENOM]

(VM) "Theists often bring up the "moral argument". Laughable. Is not the question for debate of this thread is "..

(POI) It's "laughable", because theists bring it up when a verse is mentioned, and the theist is asked if they agree that it does appear 'bad'.

Yeah, the theist was asked if they agree that it does appear bad...and the theist answered "no".

(VM) 1) Let's suppose God's morals do not change. Okay, great... Then why in the heck does god command that a priest's daughter is to be burned to death, if she loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father, with NO caveats?

Is not the question for debate of the thread relates to God's moral character???

(POI) Nice redirect. This conversation has already branched off... I'm following the branches where ever they lead....

It still there, from what I can tell.

(VM) Straw man. I am not presupposing God's commands to be "bad". That is your job, not mines.

(POI) Great, then this must mean, that even though you have not offered your opinion yet, you can provide a "Venom approved" / morally good circumstance as to why a fornicating priest's daughter must ever be burned alive?

When God renders his judgement, his judgement is righteous. Feel free to disagree.

(VM) Funny, you claim that you do not believe any external agency gave you a moral standard...yet, you just admitted that your standard comes from external sources outside of yourself. An external source is a external source, no matter how you slice it.

(POI) This is why I said external agency. By <agency>, I mean a mindful unworldly "conscious Being" who provides me with my 'moral compass' is unlikely, due to the many alternative reasons I gave; which grounds a rational being with no need for a 'god'.

And my point; how are you able to determine if the source of your moral standards are any more objectively "good" than the source of mines?

And you are unable to answer that question, because there can be no answer.

(VM) I call my external source God...and you call yours whatever it is you call it. Either way, it is external...so my question remains, how is your external sources more superior than mines when it comes to what we ought/ought not do.

(POI) You are asking the wrong question. Without demonstrating 'might makes right' alone, please justify why your god's command, to burn fornicating daughters, is a morally 'good' thing?

Umm, that is the right question to be asked...and you unable to answer it...plain and simple.

And I can just as easily ask you why is god's command a morally "bad" thing. As a matter of fact, I will.

Why is God's command a morally "bad" thing? And once you attempt to justify why it is bad, I will ask you how can you justify why your moral standard more superior than that of God's (or anyones's, for that my matter)....and I don't think you can answer that...objectively.

(VM) Yeah but rape is good for the rapist. Catch my drift?

(POI) Right, and burning alive the priest's daughter is good for your god. Catch my drift?

What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

(VM) We do agree...I am willing to bet we agree that things like rape, murder, stealing is wrong.

The difference is, I believe that I am held accountable to a Holy God for my actions, you don't.

And there lies the contention.

(POI) We may agree, yes.... I do not think there exists a circumstance where such an ordered punishment fits the crime. I would suspect that you do not either, being you have not yet offered one, and instead want me to explain how we get our morals

"The punishment doesn't fit the crime". That in itself is subjective....which takes us right back to square one.

(VM) I let God do what he do with the creation that he made.

(POI) Right, so you ignore it... And when asked, point/blank, you redirect skeptics to the rabbit trails. Got it....

The one with the gold makes the rules. God is the one with the gold. He makes the rules.

[Clownboat]

However, because she is the daughter of a priest and her action of being a whore makes the priest look bad, her death will be by fire.

Makes me wonder what the claimed god would think about priests, who themselves commit child rape. Death by fire because of who your father is... What kind of death should a child raping priest get from this god I wonder? Would this god approve of the Catholic church and how it has handled such things? Makes me wonder why it seems to be inactive in this regard. Any thoughts?

I have some thoughts, yes. The church handled it poorly but is doing better. The church is a living church with flawed human beings doing their best to share the light of God. Evil does its best to corrupt whom they can, especially those in the church.

As to what God should do about it. That is up to him. Hell or purgatory I am sure will be far worse for them if they never repented than just burning by human fire which kills you very quickly.

I'm worried about the victims and would seek a solution that would produce less of them. A hell or purgatory does nothing to protect our children. We fail our children if we leave it up to a god to get them later as it has no effect on the hear and now.

Surely a god would realize this, no?

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to Clownboat in post #54]

God knows all, so yes. But God also lets us humans rule this world as we see fit.

The problem with children being molested extends to many places, including schools. It is a strange evil that exists in the world. Why do you think it exists at all? It doesn't seem to be a result of evolution, for we have no need to be attracted to undeveloped children. In fact, evolution drives us to be attracted to women with developed hips and breasts, wide hips for child baring and breasts for feeding.

[Hawkins]

In a recent topic ---- > here (viewtopic.php?t=38559&start=60), I posed the following question:

"when one reads this Verse, was the punishment commanded by the consensus of humans, or, god himself?"

Placing this into context, the interlocutor argues that God's moral don't change, but the assigned punishment does --- for whatever reason (undefined).... The above question has yet to be answered or addressed by my debate opponent. So I thought I would offer it here.

For debate:

1) Let's suppose God's morals do not change. Okay, great... Then why in the heck does god command that a priest's daughter is to be burned to death, if she loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father, with NO caveats?

2) If there exists caveats, why are they not mentioned?

3) Was this command ultimately issued/inspired by God, or humans? And how do you know?

4) Exactly when and WHY does this command no longer apply? Or is it still applied by God?

5) How can you distinguish if any passages, at all, are inspired by any god?

Generally speaking, God is often harsh to His own chosen people. It is so because God would like His message to be conveyed through the Jews while they are just another branch of humans with weakness. It's not always about morality as the OP tried to portray.

And you can't question God in that perspective, unless you know better how such a message conveys through the Jews!

I guess God's answer to a lot of human questions is, "Why the heck humans have to ask stupid questions." Lol.

[Purple Knight]

When the child cries that his parents are torturing him because they authorize a life saving medical procedure, the child is wrong. His limited experience and knowledge have lead him to mislabel his parents actions. The parents are not renaming waterboarding, they are not ignoring the distress but if torture is inflicting pain for some nefarious reason, they know that is not what they are doing.

The reality of this situation is so very dependent on knowledge, and not just knowledge, but the top-level knowledge, that it's hard to say whether it's torture or not. We can define torture as having a nefarious reason, and then anything but intent doesn't seem to matter, but for the fact that there could be a nefarious reason (had by someone else) and the parents could be participating in it, unknowingly inflicting torture. If big pharma is really using vaccines to permanently disable people so they forever need lots and lots of pills for example, which is an insane conspiracy theory but I won't go so far as to say they wouldn't do it.

Whether humans are right or God is right, whoever is declaring reality something other than what it is, is a liar or mistaken , even if they are God.

The way I read this, even a being with infinite power can't call a tree a kangaroo. If he's doing it and explaining it, then it's just nomenclature. However, if he's doing it to somebody who has an understanding of what trees and kangaroos are, he well knows what that understanding is, and he violates that, and that is the very essence of a lie. (And then we have to add "mistake" in case that understanding was not violated deliberately.)

Am I correct that when someone who uses a common usage in a way that has parity with reality, and someone else finds some technical usage and declares them wrong because he is more correct, you would side with the first person?

[JehovahsWitness]

The way I read this, even a being with infinite power can't call a tree a kangaroo.

He can do it (who's to stop him?) ...but he would be a liar. The God of the bible does not lie. He will not mislabel reality. So again, no, he will not call torture tenderness, because it is not. If we perceive otherwise biblically He is happy to set us straight. He sets us straight not simply mislabeling reality, it is by (when he so condesends) explaining the aspects of that reality that we cannot see.

So to come back to the point, God does not torture (if by torture we are talking about inflicting pain for selfish or nefarious reasons). And he does not call inflicting pain for selfish or nefarious reasons, "good" nor does He declare it acceptable because he does it. He submits himself to the same moral principles he expects of his children.


JW

[POI]

(VM) When God renders his judgement, his judgement is righteous. Feel free to disagree.

(POI) I'm still chasing the rabbit trails.

Now I place the question right back to you.... By 'what standard' did you use to determine such a god's judgement is 'righteous'? Thus far, your response is basically "might makes right".

(VM) And my point; how are you able to determine if the source of your moral standards are any more objectively "good" than the source of mines?

And you are unable to answer that question, because there can be no answer.

(POI) Great, so we agree that having some all powerful agency, gets us no closer to 'objective morality'.

This is why I stated prior, that it's funny when theists bring up the 'moral argument' at all. But only when confronted with 'vexing' or "uncomfortable" questions in defense of their invisible agency's commands....

(VM) Umm, that is the right question to be asked...and you unable to answer it...plain and simple.

(POI) Nah, I have no problem answering your "redirecting" question(s). But I find it funny that these types of questions are only posed from theists, in 'defending' some of their god's decisions. Prior to debating a theist about some of these commands, I exchanged with plenty about 'good/bad' topics, and never once was this type of ploy introduced.

It would be like you and I debating about who is considered rich and poor, and you bringing up the "Monopoly board game guy, on the box" to settle the score.

(VM)And I can just as easily ask you why is god's command a morally "bad" thing. As a matter of fact, I will.

Why is God's command a morally "bad" thing? And once you attempt to justify why it is bad, I will ask you how can you justify why your moral standard more superior than that of God's (or anyones's, for that my matter)....and I don't think you can answer that...objectively.

(POI) Repeated from above... Great, so we agree that having some all powerful agency, gets us no closer 'objective morality'. And like I also stated prior... Without demonstrating 'might makes right' alone, please justify why your god's command, to (burn fornicating daughters), is a morally 'good' thing?

(VM) The one with the gold makes the rules. God is the one with the gold. He makes the rules.

(POI) Already explained above.

[POI]

Generally speaking, God is often harsh to His own chosen people.

Interesting.... Sounds like human thinking, and not a claimed Being which has complete love for all. Sounds like hyper-focusing on "your own", something humans would do, based upon bloodline or close friendship. But God is not tied to humans by bloodline or specific friendships. He apparently loves all. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? It sounds like this is a made up Jewish thing, and nothing more.... They invented their own "covenant" with this 'god'. And 'god' hangs with them through many 'mighty adventures'. Some of which likely never even happened. Cough cough, an "Exodus" for example...

It's more likely to assume such a law was written by someone who really has a hankering to burn any daughter who 'dishonors' their dad's priesthood. And any other assumption, which does not involve the commands of a claimed invisible deity, is more likely than that of the one issued from the Bible itself. Why? The same reason you doubt any god inspired any other 'holy text', outside your own.

It is so because God would like His message to be conveyed through the Jews while they are just another branch of humans with weakness.

See my answer above.

It's not always about morality

Commanding a Priest's daughter to be burned alive, for fornication, is not worthy of any 'moral judgement'? Says who?

And you can't question God in that perspective,

Yes I can. I just did....

unless you know better how such a message conveys through the Jews!

How does that works exactly? Do we ask ALL these dead Jews, and when they give differing answers, take a vote? Or, do we ask the invisible agent what He thinks?

I guess God's answer to a lot of human questions is, "Why the heck humans have to ask stupid questions." Lol.

Could you blame us? If God gives no justification, aside from 'might makes right', then aren't we allowed to inquire further? And when I ask theists these types of questions, I get differing answers. Which is odd... This either means theists are inventing their own answers, or, this claimed god is giving differing answers to differing theists for explanation?.?.?.