Timothy Ciboro and his son, Esten Ciboro, both of Toledo, are living proof that extremism is not confined to any one religion. The two men are accused of a horrific series of crimes that involved the confinement of a teenage girl and repeatedly raping her. The girl, who was kept shackled in the basement is Timothy Ciboro’s stepdaughter. She managed to unshackle herself and flee. With the trial about to begin, the two men have refused counsel and demanded that they be able to introduce the Bible as the only authority that they recognize.
The men told the court that they intended to defend their action according to Biblical law and that the Bible is the only law that they recognize. Esten Ciboro said that”There’s a great deal of strategy in Scripture and I use those strategies in everything I do. It’s a vital part of everything I do.” According to prosecutors, that includes serial rape and imprisonment. They are charged with three counts of rape, endangering children and kidnapping. Timothy Ciboro also faces two additional rape counts for allegedly sexually assaulting the girl’s younger sibling.
Juris,
I’ll respond to your question in a moment. Before I do, I have a question for you, what creeps you out about a Catholic mass? I obviously prefer a Protestant service (being not quite Methodist), but I am not “creeped out” when attending mass with friends or family.
Mespo, I love that Paine quote. When asked, I have always responded that my religion is to be a good person. I messed around and married into a wonderful Irish Catholic family. Years ago, prior to meeting the priest that would marry us, my grandmother-in-law actually suggested I lie to the priest and tell him I am Catholic! The irony! Don’t worry, I didn’t – and it turned out fine.
He was a great guy and didn’t hold it against me.
Prairie Rose, if you ever start a religion let me know so I can consider joining! I am curious, what didn’t you like about the Unitarians? I actually tried to get my wife to go with me to a local chapter here as a compromise to attend something resembling a church, but she never agreed. I don’t know much about it other than reading briefly a few years ago. I refuse to sit through a Catholic mass, they creep me out a bit as a non-religious person. No offense to any Catholics out there.
Mespo,
The box became too small to effectively type in, so I am replying here regarding:
“Most do not but the official position is intentionally vague.”
Is your main disagreement with official positions? Would you prefer a Jeffersonian take on theology?
Absolutely, I would prefer most anything Jefferson and I do disagree with official positions. I think like Thomas Paine that, “my church is my own mind and my religion is to do good.”
Then we are much in agreement. I am not quite Methodist, though I regularly attend and am quite involved in my church. My church is my own mind, too. My husband and I keep saying we ought to start our own church because we do not fit in anywhere, not even with the Unitarians. 🙂
That’s priceless about the Unitarians and I’m sure you’d fit in just fine wherever you go.
Thank you for your kind words. I meant theologically-speaking, though. 🙂
If you had to settle somewhere, where would/did you settle?
Or, would you prefer a religious text/Bible study group (attendees would include the eminent Mr. Jefferson, of course)?
What is “to do good?” If everyone’s own mind is their highest religious authority, then this father and son duo did good. And you’ve eliminated any and every basis to gainsay them.
That does presume you have a rational mind. Sorry I didn’t point that out for you.
No, to a rational mind you’ve eliminated any reason to engage in what might be called moral behavior. Sorry, I thought I pointed that out. It is entirely rational to behave in abominable ways if you believe you will materially benefit. And it would be stupid to forgo the material benefit for the promise of, nothing.
Atheists have killed hundreds of millions in the last century because it was entirely and coldly rational to do so. And since they had nothing else to consider, why shouldn’t they have?
Fidel Castro, Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, died of disease due to overindulgence or of old age in their beds. Well over 100 million of their collective victims didn’t. The problem was, it was entirely rational for them to behave as they did. Tell me one consequence any of them suffered in this life, which they like you believed is all their is, for being mass murdering tyrants?
Like a Bible verse about Yahweh telling the Isrealites, “Go ahead, rape your captives, you can’t do it.”
Steve57 – they were all paranoid.
Steve57:
Hey, you forgot that Catholic Hitler. He was a pretty accomplished genocidal maniac who doesn’t fit your narrative, and he was never excommunicated for his sins. The others were simply secular cultists who share much of the attributes of the religious crowd who demanded unflinching loyalty and, like those fire tenders of the auto de’ fe, killed when they didn’t get it. Let’s not even mention the army of child rapists unleashed by the Vatican on the flock. Religion has a lot to answer for, Steve, and you don’t even acknowledge the questions.
Mespo,
Is it religion that has to answer or the wicked people abusing religion for their own purposes?
It seems akin to presidents twisting the Constitution to achieve clearly unconstitutional ends.
Religion, most religions, have nothing to answer for. People have a lot to answer for. And to respond to Mespo’s question:
“Religion has a lot to answer for, Steve, and you don’t even acknowledge the questions.”
Who is anyone to answer to, if there is no God?
Church Heirarchy covers up for raping priests and the religion is still off the hook? Man, what is your favorite flavor of Koolade?
You don’t need God for law and that is who they answer to.
People do not answer to the law for snitching envelopes from work or lying to their insurance that it wasn’t their teenager who dented a parked car but the parent or petty cruelties that are not technically against the law.
Sure they do and I have the files to prove it. I tried a case where a toll booth operator was charged criminally for pocketing $1.30 and substituting toll tokens. That was a felony charge.
I vote for Mespo, peltonrandy, and DesperatelySeekingSusan to continue the debate about religion. Some of the best, thoughtful, and worthwhile commenting I have seen here in a looooooong time.
Juris:
You’re very kind but it takes three to tango, apparently, and my partners have left the dance floor.
No clue why you think that. I’m a rank and file pewsitter, not a philosophical or theological sophisticate, and peltonrandy doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.
DSS,
Your replies are thoughtful and reflect a personal, considered philosophy, that’s why. No need to be a “sophisticate”.
Horrific. That poor girl and her sibling. Do they have any safe place to land or is their entire family cultists?
Where the hell was her mother and other family???
The Old Testament was written thousands of years ago, and replaced with the New Testament, which was still written in antiquity. Do these people seriously believe that Jesus condones the rape of his step daughter/step sister? Sick. Extremism ruins everything.
I suppose they can shriek that they don’t recognize prison walls. Pedophiles do not fare well in prison, I hear. What goes around, comes around.
“Where the hell was her mother and other family???”
Abandoned her. The linked article briefly noted it. Poor little girls!
“The Old Testament was written thousands of years ago, and replaced with the New Testament, which was still written in antiquity. Do these people seriously believe that Jesus condones the rape of his step daughter/step sister? ”
This is not extremism in the name of religion. If these two men who seem to be proud of what they have done had read further:
“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
Can’t wait to see how this one turns out. Maybe these two nut jobs can share a cell. Don’t know what bible they are using but mine doesn’t condone rape or kidnappiing!
You must have Jefferson’s Bible then because mine has all manner of prescribed mayhem in it as I noted above. Here’s one of the scores of passages that precisely okays both rape and kidnapping and throws in genocide for free: Numbers 31: 7-18 NLT
No, these passages describe incidents wherein these practices occur. Story is not creed, code or cult, and Sacred Scripture guides through interpretation. The exclusive use of literal interpretation is a hallmark of certain Baptist sects. Scriptural scholarship in the Catholic Church makes use of four mode of interpretation
I’ve heard these “interpretations makes it all better” arguments before. The problem is it’s bad catechism (even among Catholics where bets are hedged but the claim of divine truth and accuracy of the text remains, Part One, Section One Chapter Two) , and is traipsed out every time a bona fide logical or historical challenge is made. “Oh, no there weren’t talking snakes; that’s mere allegory.” Or “Jesus didn’t molecularly turn fermented grapes into human blood, that’s merely symbolism.” The problem is that it’s ever easy to rationalize away any absurd text as allegory or symbolism or poetry or whatever. The net of effect of everyone’s varying and tortured interpretations to fit the facts to the religion is that the dogma becomes unfalsifiable which of course suggests it’s false. There are lots of ways I could be convinced of parthenogenesis or flight without technology but there is no way to change the mind of the ever-pretzeling true believer who has no reasoning except the elliptical “it’s true because it says it’s true.” Or sometimes, “it’s true because momma says so.”
The problem is it’s bad catechism
That’s a nonsense statement.
Scripture is a canon, and it’s a source of truth, alongside Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium.
Problem is the Catholic Catechism I cited wants it both ways — literal and interpretative. It’s divine word and literally but the hedge is that’s interpreted by fallible humans so the Church feels strongly both ways.
Not all Christians view the Bible as literal. I am not Catholic, so I cannot comment on the official perspective. That said, my Catholic friends do not view the Bible as completely literal either.
Most do not but the official position is intentionally vague.
No, it does not ‘want it both ways’. That you’re not understanding how Sacred Scripture is read is not an indication that the reader is contradicting himself.
Again, the Old Testament contains codes, but it is primarily story – that of God’s relationship with His people.. Story is not didactic in an uncomplicated way in the realm of ordinary imaginative literature or Sacred Scripture.
My rule of thumb is that if a simpleton like me can’t understand, it’s intentionally vague which dovetails nicely with my unfalsifiable argument. Honest statements don’t need interpreters.
Unfalsifiable argument sounds like a refutation against a literal perspective. God’s relationship with us and of us with one another and our environment is not an argument, per se. You can read the plain meaning of books and poetry, as well as the figurative and metaphorical, not to mention the historical context’s effect on the narrative. Jews and others read the Bible with 4 considerations: peshat (plain or literal meaning), remez (veiled meaning), derash (homiletic/between the lines reading), and sod (esoteric or mystical meaning).
It is designed to make you think, wonder, wrestle, and consider.
I’m with you on that part but I step asunder when the organization in question denominates their tenets as unerring dogma.
I was raised Catholic. The catechism does not want it both ways.
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/galileo/letterbellarmine.html
“Letter from Bellarmine to Father Foscarini
April 4, 1615
My Very Reverend Father,
It has been a pleasure for me to read the Italian letter and the Latin paper you sent me. I thank you for both the one and the other, and I may tell you that I found them replete with skill and learning. As you ask for m y opinion, I will give it as briefly as possible because, at the moment I have very little time for writing.
First, I say it seems to me that your Reverence and Signor Galileo act prudently when you content yourselves with speaking hypothetically and no absolutely, as I have always understood that Copernicus spoke. For to say that the assumptions that the Earth moves and the Sun stands still saves all the celestial appearances better than do eccentrics and epicycles is to speak with excellent good sense and to run the risk whatever. Such a manner of speaking suffices for a mathematician. But to want to affirm that the Sun, in very truth, is at the centre of the universe and only rotates on its axis without traveling from east to west, and that the Earth is situated in the third sphere and revolves very swiftly around the Sun, is a very dangerous attitude and one calculated not only to arouse all Scholastic philosophers and theologians but also to injure our hold faith by contradicting the Scriptures….
Third, I say that, if there were a real proof that the Sun is in the centre of the universe, that the Earth is in the third sphere, and that the Sun does not go round the Earth but the Earth round the Sun, then we should have to proceed with great circumspection in explaining passages of Scripture which appear to teach the contrary, and we should rather have to say that we did not understand them than declare an opinion to be false which is proved to be true. But I do not think there is any such proof since none has been shown to me. To demonstrate that the appearances are saved by assuming the sun at the centre and the earth in the heavens is not the same thing as to demonstrate that in fact the sun is in the centre and the earth is in the heavens. I believe that the first demonstration may exist, but I have very grave doubts about the second; and in case of doubt one may not abandon the Holy Scriptures as expounded by the hold Fathers…”
Cardinal Bellarmine was not a man of science, but he understood that if there was actual proof that the Earth revolved around the Sun then the text could not be taken literally. And although he wasn’t a scientist he was advised by priests who were. And in case you think the priests are stupid men, look up who is considered to be the father of modern genetics, and who is the father of of the Big Bang theory. They knew what would constitute proof that the Earth revolved around the Sun. Stellar parallax; that’s when two distant objects appear to change position relative to each other because the observer has changed positions. Anyone can observe this simply by walking through the woods. At times two trees appear to be lined up one behind the other. But as you walk along they appear to change positions relative to each other because you’ve change your viewpoint.
Cardinal Bellarmine was the chief theologian of the RCC. But he was prepared to reexamine the RCC’s understanding of scripture, certain passages such as Joshua 10:12-14, could not be understood literally but phenomenologically if Galileo had actual evidence to support his defense of Copernicus’ theory (the idea the Earth revolves around the Sun was not Galileo’s theory). They knew what they would constitute evidence; that the distant stars would appear to change position relative to each other if the Earth was in motion. And they were correct; it’s just that nobody involved at the time including Galileo had any concept of the distances involved and just how precise their instruments would have to be to observe stellar parallax. It wasn’t until the 19th century that it was first observed.
So Galileo argued that the tides prove the Earth was moving. He mocked the idea that the gravitational pull of the Moon (let alone the gravitational pull of the Sun, which he didn’t even consider to make fun of) had anything to do with it. He argued that the tides were like the sloshing of water in a barge bringing fresh water to Venice, hence proof the Earth was moving.
Albert Einstein, who was a great admirer of Galileo (and there is much to be admired), had to admit in a foreword he wrote for 1952 English translation of Galileo’s “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems” that if Galileo hadn’t been so emotionally involved even he would have recognized his proposed proof as complete garbage.
I was never taught in Catholic school that I should or could take Joshua 10 or Genesis literally. It’s not divine word. It’s divinely inspired. There’s a difference. It’s not like the Quran, which is supposed to be an exact copy of the eternal, uncreated word of Allah that has existed for all time in heaven on the tablets that are Umm-Ul-Kittab, the mother of the book, dictated word for word by the angel Gabriel (Jibril) to Muhammad.
Steve57 – I do not know about anyone else, but my Baltimore catechism did not have one whit of science in it. When you get to how the earth does or does not revolve around the sun, that is at a much higher theological level.
I was taught the Bible isn’t a science book. So of course my west coast catechism had no science in it. I did have many other subjects in which science was taught, but not that. Earlier I referenced Mendel and Lemaitre. I can’t speak for Mendel, but I am passing familiar with what Father Lemaitre had to say on the subject and he saw absolutely no conflict between his religion and his science. They were two separate things.
It’s funny. Christians, or anyone who holds to religion, are called names by atheists. But Lemaitre’s theory of an expanding universe was derisively named the Big Bang theory, meant to be an insult, by an atheist astronomer, Fred Hoyle. He saw that if the universe was expanding that implied if you went back in time there was a moment of creation. So he spent his life railing against Lemaitre’s theory. He never could accept it because it threatened his core beliefs. If there was a moment of creation that implies a creator. It turns out the one ruled by fear, rigid dogma, and superstition was the self-declared atheist, and not the Catholic priest.
I attended there too. There were always two sets of books on the Bible. Literal when convenient (wine into blood) and figurative when required.
Not true. Explain Bellarmine’s letter, which clearly demonstrates that the chief theologian of the RCC circa 1600 knew he couldn’t have it both ways. The matter has been settled now for only 400 years. When are you going to catch on? The church can’t have it both ways.
“…if there were a real proof that the Sun is in the centre of the universe, that the Earth is in the third sphere, and that the Sun does not go round the Earth but the Earth round the Sun, then we should have to proceed with great circumspection in explaining passages of Scripture which appear to teach the contrary, and we should rather have to say that we did not understand them than declare an opinion to be false which is proved to be true.”
Too bad the good Cardinal Bellarmine couldn’t convince the head of the Catholic Church, Paul V, not to place Galileo under house arrest. I guess he didn’t get your memo that the Bible wasn’t to be taken literally. Cardinal Bellarmine ordered Galileo “… to abandon completely… the opinion that the sun stands still at the center of the world and the earth moves, and henceforth not to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatever, either orally or in writing.”
One of the failings of the Catholic church was that the Pope was a temporal prince, not only a spiritual leader. And Galileo chose to insult the Pope by naming the advocate of the Geocentrism Simplicio in his treatise. Some people have tried to excuse him, but there’s no way that Galileo didn’t know that Simplicio means simpleton in Italian. No prince or king in Europe would have stood for the insult. Neither would have any prince, king or chief in the rest of the world. To merely cough in the presence of chief of the Amandabele Zulu meant you’d have your skull crushed in with knobkerries (clubs). The Shogun would have executed not only Galileo but his wife and children.
Excuse me for not joining you in your dishonest revisionism. The Pope confined Galileo to a luxurious Tuscan Villa and its grounds. By the standards of the times that was lenient. He was even allowed to visit his daughters at a nearby convent, and receive visitors. Perhaps you can explain your mania for for holding people who lived several centuries ago for not living up to your 21st century standards, but I doubt it.
Religion is below garbage. It is the feces one finds at the bottom of the outhouse.
sorry for you on judgement day!
Mary — Can’t imagine why you feel sorry for him, since judgement day is as much a fiction and a delusion as the existence of God and all the other baggage that goes with religious belief systems. I feel sorry for you for all the time you have wasted and keep wasting thinking about God, heaven, hell, judgement day, etc. Can’t help but wonder what marvelous discovery you might have made by now if the time you directed toward thinking about your religion had instead been directed toward some more fruitful enterprise.
There is no more fruitful enterprise.
“DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.”
— Richard Dawkins
River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life(1995), 133.
If we’re all just dancing to the music of our DNA, as atheists insist, then building rockets to fly to the moon is no more fruitful, or admirable, then hijacking an airplane and flying it into a building.
“Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”
Case in point.
If that tactic doesn’t work there’s always the new trump defense of ‘locker room talk’. It’s already being used. Americans elected a man they want to emulate and they are putting that newfound incivility to work quickly!
Only about 30% of eligible voters voted for Trump and fewer agree with him (many voted against Hillary).
That’s true of any election. There’s a core electorate (about 37% of the total) and a peripheral electorate (about 18% of the total). The views of people completely disengaged from civic life should be of interest just why?
Because whether they vote or not, they are still U.S. citizens to whom their government owes the same considerations as it does to those who vote. That means the opinion of a person who votes has no right to any greater a consideration under our system of law than the views of those who do not vote. Not voting does not disentitle you to all the same rights, constitutional protections and guarantees, privileges,etc. as those who choose to cast a ballot. Even complete disengagement from the political process does not mean that you are entitled to any less than any other citizen. Our elected officials have as much obligation to represent those who don’t vote and don’t express their opinions as those who do. If you think otherwise then you have a misguided understanding of representative government. Donald Trump keeps saying he intends to be the president of all Americans. If he is serious then this includes those whom you so casually dismiss because they don’t vote and don’t speak out.
They have no opinions to which a public official might pay his respects, just like I have no opinions about contemporary pop music or ice hockey.
The bit of gamesmanship PrarieRose is playing is drearily familiar (a fallacy I first heard 35 years ago) and if anyone took it seriously, no public official would have a mandate to do anything at all. Give it a rest.
DSS,
You mistake me.
Lloyd B wrote; “Americans elected a man they want to emulate” as though a majority of Americans elected Trump because they like his crass style. I hear this perception frequently –that Americans have suddenly become all the epithets with which Trump is labeled (nevermind President Obama was elected twice to office by probably many of the same people who voted again in this election). I was pointing out that only about a third of voters voted for Trump (definitely a percentage not worthy of a blanket statement) and fewer still support him wholeheartedly (many just abhorred the idea of Hillary entering office), so his assertion that Americans in large proportions want to emulate Trump’s incivility is faulty.
When will we move past the garbage that is religion, which has always been based on alternative facts — as if we wouldn’t or couldn’t know right from wrong without them.
Hopefully these two face the full force of man’s law, which they’ll soon see outranks their version of nonsense. Maybe stone them with bibles instead.
And the bible-swinging taking place on the House floor lately is increasing in intensity and its usual stupidity, by the way. I’m sure the next two to four to six to eight years will be rabidly menacing for those of us who prefer that our representatives stick to the Constitution as their only legal authority, and who prefer that our representatives save their preaching for their own warped churches.
Religion is far from garbage. It was a unifying force and tended to structure positive social mores among homogeneous cultures. It inculcated virtues and set up the scaffolding for internal moral systems. That it’s tenets are sometimes preposterous doesn’t change the historical record nor deprecate its utility in fashioning society or preserving societies as during the Enlightenment. Certainly it caused internal strife among its followers and external friction with competing cultures but doesn’t every human convention or invention?
Yes, religions helped humanity move forward early on — just as alchemy eventually led to chemistry.
But is it true. Is any religion the keeper and conveyer of truth. Of course not. Functionality and validity aren’t equivalent.
We’ve abandoned alchemy for obvious reasons and should abandon religion (via argument and persuasion) the same, in favor of discourse and those Enlightenment principles.
Religion was our first attempt at morality, and as Arthur C Clarke said, “One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion.”
Dave:
The power of myth is a basic human motivator. The Abrahamic Religions have their well-documented flaws but they do reveal some higher truths like piety, humility and sacrifice for others. Some religions can also serve, as Richard Dawkins notes, as an antidote to other more virulent forms of religion. To my mind, it’s more like Niebauer says, religion is good for good people and bad for bad people.
I wish these formatted responses didn’t narrow, but I’ll simply say that harnessing virtues, assuming that’s what they really are, can occur without adherence to superstition and petty rituals. The myths reflect our morality, they are not the source of that morality.
Sure they can, but rarely do.
can occur without adherence to superstition and petty rituals.
For about one generation. Two if you’re lucky.
Well said Mespo. See Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth.
And we did move past religion. Look at Stalin and Mao.
They’re a religion of sorts, too.
mespo – the cults of Stalin, Mao, etc really are religions.
Yep. People seem to make their own if one isn’t around, or has been eliminated. Isn’t that what we’ve just witnessed with this election? The religion of the progressives? Explains the extreme behavior. They have just removed the Judeo-Christian tradition and inserted their own.
“Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer”
~Voltaire
https://www.freetranslation.com/en/translate-english-french
Sure they are. They meet most of the 12 tests of the “hero’s journey” so eloquently described by Joseph Campbell as was mentioned. They did miss out on resurrection and return to earth though. Still hitting 10 out of 12 will get you into everybody’s Hall of Fame.
“…religion is good for good people and bad for bad people” There it is. Since religion is “us” who gets to decide who are good people and who are bad people? Civil laws, societal norms I’m guessing aren’t enough to keep us strait. Religious hubris, unfortunately for Religions own sake, seems a self inflicted, nagging chronic infection.
Otherwise the depth of many of your other articulate points/posts were enjoyed and duely respected.
As a catalyst then, religion is moral neutral. And thanks for the kind comments.
OK, we’ve heard from vulgarian village atheists whose self-image is constructed around the illusion that they’re smart.
I infinitely prefer them to the “believe it with no or bad evidence” crowd. They tend to insult when they can’t rebut.
The only ones of that description I ever encounter are traders in conspiracy theories (birthers, Jew-obsessives, 9/11 truthers). There are a couple who frequent this site, who never say anything that isn’t a function of their delusions. Leaving aside James Fetzer, these types are seldom anywhere near culture-generating institutions.
Did you purposely leave out UFOs?
Yes, I did. They’re mostly hobbyists (or they were, 40 years ago; haven’t kept track of them since about 1979). The votaries of Roswell might be analogous to these others, but that’s it. The purveyors of tall tales about alien abduction are fantasists and liars, for the most part. The Roswell aficionadoes remind me of the old party game of Rumors where ‘Uncle John has a limp, pass it on” turns into “Uncle John is a pimp, pass it on”. There was a great deal of junk published about that sort of thing (starting with Erich von Daniken), but also some intriguing arguments and reportage (e.g. Robert Temple’s work, Allen Hynek’s, and fragments of the Condon Report – though Condom himself never subscribed to the idea that there was anything odd about the phenomena his task force studies).
By the same token, Kennedy assassination aficionadoes run the gamut. Some are serious students of the event (Josiah Thompson) and some are frauds and / or fantasists (Jim Garrison, James Fetzer).
DesperatelySeekingSusan – if you have ever seen the pictographs in Horseshoe Canyon, Utah close-up, it will make you think differently about von Daniken. There are also some petroglyphs in the same area that will raise your eyebrows.
No, van Daniken was a con man, and not just in the realm of this sort of literature. There are serious students of this sort of thing. He’s not one.
DesperatelySeekingSusan – von Daniken never said that he had proof of anything, only that these things might be. There is no con in that. Do put a trip to Horseshoe Canyon, Utah on your list. It will clarify your mind. 🙂
Paul — Anyone with a fully informed understanding and appreciation of the scale of cosmic distances and the challenges involved in interstellar travel ought quickly come to the conclusion that van Daniken’s wildly absurd speculations should be dismissed, given no serious consideration. It’s a shame that someone with your apparent level of intelligence has not informed himself enough about the physical and physics challenges of space travel to have long ago dismissed van Daniken as the intellectual fool that he was.
peltonrandy – von Daniken raises some questions that cannot or at least have not been answered to this date. I will keep an open mind.
“peltonrandy – von Daniken raises some questions that cannot or at least have not been answered to this date. I will keep an open mind.”
Paul — I favor the idea of keeping an open mind on a subject also, but only until the evidence becomes persuasive enough to make a choice about whether a conclusion should be accepted or rejected. We long ago reached that point with van Daniken’s speculations. I’m sure you’ve heard before the skeptic’s maxim popularized by Carl Sagan about keeping an open mind. “Keeping an open mind is a virtue—but, as the space engineer James Oberg once said, not so open that your brains fall out.” — Carl Sagan, 1996, The Demon Haunted World. Anthropologists have presented several far more probable explanations than the speculations proposed by van Daniken. Time you let go of the van Daniken absurdities.
peltonrandy – this is not Sagan’s area of expertise. I have no reason to listen to him. I have not forgiven him for his uncalled for attack on Velikovsky.
Paul — Just how obtuse are you capable of being? This has nothing to do with Sagan’s credibility or expertise. He is only one of a number of people who have referenced the maxim to which I referred. This has everything to do with the point of the maxim itself, regardless of who has repeated it in the past. van Daniken has no credibility. van Daniken had no expertise in the fields of anthropology, archeology or history. van Daniken was a notorious fraud.
There were a host of logical fallacies and factual errors in Daniken’s work. They are detailed to some degree at the wikipedia site about Daniken (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_von_Däniken). You dismiss Sagan for lacking credibility and expertise yet give serious consideration to an individual whose credibility and expertise in the same areas is virtually non-existent by any rational or logical measure, not to mention that virtually the entire scientific community has rejected van Daniken’s speculations. I am aware that you are a fairly well educated person. But I am forced to question what good this education has done in the development of your critical thinking skills, based not only on your continued defense of van Daniken, but also many other things you’ve said at this site over time.
peltonrandy – I do not agree with everything von Daniken speculated about, however, having seen some of it with my own eyes, I like to keep an open mind.
Just to keep things interesting:
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/video/nasa-cuts-live-feed-from-international-space-station-after-mysterious-object-appears-on-camera-35400275.html
There is a lot of stuff out there that does defy explanation. My guess is that if the Library of Alexandria wasn’t destroyed by Christian mobs, we would understand a lot of these things. Still don’t understand the Cerne Abbas Giant hill figure–the “Rude Guy” (the naked guy in a good mood…). Maybe aliens have a sense of humor.
UFO’s have made some of the best TV though. At least they’re fun…
Dave, Buddhism is most definitely not based on “alternative facts.”
While the 4 Noble Truths are foundational, Ignorance is first among many things addressed…
Here’s hoping the jury are Old Testament, eye-for-an-eye kinda folks.
“Timothy Ciboro and his son, Esten Ciboro, both of Toledo, are living proof that extremism is not confined to any one religion.”
You are mistaken, sir. While it is true that people often do violence in opposition to one’s religion, it is rarely the case they do violence in accordance with it.
Man, do you need a copy of the Quran and Hadith.
I have copies of both, thanks. Not the entire hadith, just a representative sample, as I don’t want to spend thousands of dollars.
But to be clear, it is true that if one’s religion commands violence then it is more common. But most religions don’t command violence. Frankly, I can only think of one that makes committing violence in the name of their god a religious duty.
Surah 2:216 Al-Baqarah (The Cow)
“Fighting has been enjoined upon you while it is hateful to you. But perhaps you hate a thing and it is good for you; and perhaps you love a thing and it is bad for you. And Allah Knows, while you know not.”
But most people who do violence do so in violation of their purported religion. Including Muslims. As the verse says, fighting is hateful to them. So most Muslims don’t wage jihad in the cause of Allah. I’d be willing to bet there are more Muslims who commit ordinary crimes of violence that Islam does not condone then become mujahideen, and then go on to commit violence that their religion does condone.
Islam still has the death penalty for apostasy so I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Islam still has the death penalty for apostasy, but very few Muslim countries even make it a crime let along punish it with death. Most Muslim countries make blasphemy a crime, usually punishable with death. While apostasy in Islam consists of violating or even contesting any major tenet of Islam such as the obligation to pray five times a day, the obligation to go on Hajj, and the obligation to wage jihad, and don’t merely confine apostasy to renouncing Islam to turn to either atheism or another religion, no Muslim country enforces that standard. Not Iran; there isn’t even a law against apostasy. But while it’s not in there penal code, their constitution does say that the courts can enforce Sharia, so people have been prosecuted for apostasy. But while apostates, even practicing Muslims who merely have heterodox beliefs, can be sentenced to death normally they get long prison sentences. So Islam has a death penalty for apostasy but Iran, not so much. Saudi Arabia has no penal code; it uses Sharia (Hanbali) as its only legal system. And they don’t even enforce all the tenets that, should they be violated, result in apostasy.
Do you realize how much alcohol is available in the Kingdom. I’m not talking the home made wine and beer in the expat compounds. The Saudis know perfectly well what’s going on there, and as long as you don’t drive around with it in your car they don’t really want to deal with it. If they find it in your car outside the compound they assume you’re selling it and will deal with you harshly; prison and a whipping.
No, I’m talking about the real stuff, smuggled in by the truckload by Saudis for Saudis. And it’s not especially dangerous for the Saudis, whether a smuggler with a truckload or just an ordinary Saudi bringing a bottle or two in his car to a party. Because the Saudis, unlike expats, can bribe the police.
Naturally smuggling alcohol to sell to other Muslims is apostasy. Drinking alcohol once or twice doesn’t amount to apostasy, but multiple offenders are certainly apostates. Not in the Sharia law state of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, though.
Outside of the Islamic State most Muslims not only don’t want to wage jihad, they can even deny it’s their obligation to wage jihad, and in the vast majority of Muslim majority countries they won’t suffer any consequences. It’s simply not that important to them. Consequently most violence committed by Muslims worldwide are crimes unrelated to their religion. Just as nearly 100% of crimes committed by nominal Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc., are unrelated to their religions (and can’t be justified by their religions, even in the case of these two whackjobs).
You’re dreaming Steve if you don’t think the religious beliefs of mainstream Muslims don’t radicalize and lead to atrocities we’ve seen. You’re just apologizing for murder and as the election showed, much of our country is on to that scam. They aren’t temporarily banned because the psychos are an insignificant subgroup.
I’m the last one to be dreaming about this. What you call radicalized I call orthodox. Of course it’s mainstream; what do you think I’ve been saying. The jihadist understanding of Islam is not some fringe belief system. Most Muslims only know what they are told about Islam. Because Allah only accepts prayers in Arabic. The vast majority of Muslims (Indonesians, Pakistanis, etc.) don’t speak Arabic. And even the small percentage of Muslims who are native Arabic speakers and readers, maybe 15% of all Muslims, don’t read mid 7th century classical Arabic. Ever try to read Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales?” Yeah, that’s from the late 13th century at least. Much later than the Quran, and still even an English speaker and reader needs a translation of Chaucer into modern English to make sense out of it.
Consequently, most Muslims don’t have a clue as to what their religion demands of them. It’s actually easier for a non-Muslim to learn about Islam than a Muslim, because non-Muslims don’t have to worry about committing sins such as shirq (assigning partners to Allah) or bid’ah (innovation). For those reasons, self-study is actively discouraged. I know an ex-Muslim whose Imam/Sheikh told him, when he asked too many questions, that in the old country if he had asked that many questions he would have already been killed.
So when I say most Muslims don’t commit religiously motivated violence, that doesn’t mean I’m dismissing those who do commit religiously motivated violence as an insignificant group. The psychos are far less than a majority. But still significant. Most Muslims, though, have no idea their religion actually preaches what the psychos understand that it does, and have a very hard time believing it. Many are truly shocked when they find out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuV1MBNoAYA
“THE MASKED ARAB!”
A gentleman who became an atheist after deciding as a devout Muslim he needed to learn more about his religion.
Regardless of how you personally may interpret your bible, the idea of an imaginary god ordering people to commit atrocities is a frequent justification for heinous carnage and destruction.
Frequent? When and where?
You mean like women supposedly suffering from post partum depression who kill their children because they think God is telling them to?
One of the main take aways from the story of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22:1-19) is that God would never demand that. The angel stops Abraham from sacrificing Isaac. The point is that the pagans around the Israelites sacrifice their children to their gods.
Leviticus 19:
“1 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Say to the Israelites: ‘Any Israelite or any foreigner residing in Israel who sacrifices any of his children to Molek is to be put to death. The members of the community are to stone him. 3 I myself will set my face against him and will cut him off from his people; for by sacrificing his children to Molek, he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name. 4 If the members of the community close their eyes when that man sacrifices one of his children to Molek and if they fail to put him to death, 5 I myself will set my face against him and his family and will cut them off from their people together with all who follow him in prostituting themselves to Molek.”
It’s not a matter of interpretation.
I’m curious. Have you noticed how few Christians and Jews, or Jains, or Buddhists for that matter, are such misinterpreters and hijackers of their scripture that they believe their “imaginary god” is ordering them to commit atrocities?
It’s because scripture is actually very clear, and doesn’t leave room for much in the way of misinterpretation. Despite what EvilBible.com would want you to otherwise believe. It’s a drive toward false moral equivalency. Different religions simply don’t preach the same thing. They are not all equally violent. Or equally peaceful.
Oddly enough, I believe the same thing about Islam.
Surah 6:114 Al-Anam (The Cattle)
“[Say], “Then is it other than Allah I should seek as judge while it is He who has revealed to you the Book explained in detail?” And those to whom We [previously] gave the Scripture know that it is sent down from your Lord in truth, so never be among the doubters.”
Surah 16:89 An-Nahl (The Bee)
“And [mention] the Day when We will resurrect among every nation a witness over them from themselves. And We will bring you, [O Muhammad], as a witness over your nation. And We have sent down to you the Book as clarification for all things and as guidance and mercy and good tidings for the Muslims.”
Surah 41:3 Fussilat (Explained in Detail)
“A Book whose verses have been detailed, an Arabic Qur’an for a people who know,”
I read Nidal Hassan’s PowerPoint presentation detailing jihad an how he’d have to wage jihad against his own nation if they tried to force him to fight other Muslims, and I watched Michael Adebolajo’s Manifesto after he and his friends ran down Drummer Rigby in their car, then chopped him up. And countless other confessions where Muslims cite chapter and verse, and I have to say the Quran is pretty clear and explained in detail, just as it says it is. Because the message they got, is the same one I got. It really is hard to get the wrong message from scripture; you have to work at it. No matter how much anti-intellectual atheists insist that all religion is the same.
This is an every day occurrence in the Muslim world.
Maybe he’s reading a different book.
Your first sentence is Faux Neuz.
No, it isn’t. It’s a reasonable wager it’s not very common in a sociological sense, but done from time to time. One of the story lines here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084934/
incorporated a bride being chained to a post in her basement while her husband frequented prostitutes.
Extremism? What are you smoking, JT? You cite this as a case of religious extremism, as if there is any basis for this behavior in Judeo-Christian teachings? There are very definite and irrefutable prohibitions, in Judeo-Christian texts, which, unequivocally, condemn rape. These are just two, garden-variety loony tunes, who happen to CLAIM that they abide by the Bible and its dictates. I doubt that either of these zoned-out meth heads, with a total of three teeth between them, can even read or write, let alone comprehend the Bible. No, JT. This is not a case of religious extremism, where these two hillbillies have attended religious school, and said religious instruction dictated that their revered and unmistakable prophet raped a nine year old child and condoned the rape and murder of infidels. I’d say, nice try, but it’s a miserable attempt at equating all religions and painting all religious doctrines with the same brush. These two probably think that the earth is flat and claim that the Bible tells them that, as well. It simply doesn’t make it so. The frequency of child brides, however, across the Muslim world, is not a coincidence and is far from infrequent, merely because IT IS supported and justified by reading Islamic texts. Don’t you get it? Big difference, which you, as I have come to expect, choose to ignore in your quest to equalize all religious doctrines.
Bam bam:
Numbers 31: 7-18 NLT Bible:
“They attacked Midian just as the LORD had commanded Moses, and they killed all the men. All five of the Midianite kings – Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba – died in the battle. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. Then the Israelite army captured the Midianite women and children and seized their cattle and flocks and all their wealth as plunder. They burned all the towns and villages where the Midianites had lived. After they had gathered the plunder and captives, both people and animals, they brought them all to Moses and Eleazar the priest, and to the whole community of Israel, which was camped on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho.
Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the people went to meet them outside the camp. But Moses was furious with all the military commanders who had returned from the battle. “Why have you let all the women live?” he demanded. “These are the very ones who followed Balaam’s advice and caused the people of Israel to rebel against the LORD at Mount Peor. They are the ones who caused the plague to strike the LORD’s people. Now kill all the boys and all the women who have slept with a man. Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves.”
Lots more Bible citations approving rape and murder available. And the Midianites, don’t get me started. You really need to read this book, bam.
mespo – you are right. The Old Testament is an invitation to murder, rape and plunder.
They do like a lot of violence and mayhem in the Old Testament. That’s why I’m hoping for an Old Testament kind of jury for these guys.
So, you think these guys are practitioners of primitive Judaism?
No, I’m hoping the jury is.
They also practice primitive Christianity. Don’t lay all the blame at the feet of Judaism. The Catholic Church saw fit to include the old testament books in the Christian Bible. That they intentionally included them means that this primitive Judaism as you call it is also a part of Christianity.
peltron, In case no one has noticed, Jesus didn’t come to add to or extend Judaism. He came to fulfill it & then set the rules & regulations aside. He condensed the whole of Judaism’s Old Covenant Law into two commands: We should love the Creator, His Father Elohim, the I AM, with all our heart, mind & strength, and we should love our neighbor as ourselves. He gave a brand New Covenant based on Himself. He fulfilled the Old Covenant & as a religion He set it aside. Jesus came to give mankind a relationship with the God of creation in daily life, not shackle mankind with a new religion.
Christians are not bound to a new religion by following Christ. Rather, He sets us free from religion & all the rules & regs that men add to the Bible. The Old Covenant’s morality is reflected in the New Covenant, but not all the rules & regulations. The OC was given to show that man cannot save himself or change his nature by just following a list of laws.
Many who refuse Christ like to conflate the two covenants. What Elohim, the Creator had Israel do in times way past is not reflected in the Covenant Messiah established. Elohim had His reasons back then & though I also don’t understand ALL of what He had in mind, I do know that what Elohim had Israel do in those days was in part to protect the lineage of His Messiah.
Jesus’ birth brought to pass the very first prophecy ever given, as found in the book of Genesis. During Messiah’s trial & subsequent sacrificial death some 30 other promises/predictions were fulfilled.
It would be nice to see some intelligent context applied when referring to the two covenants. The two Covenants are related, but are not the same & do not have the same goal[s].
The two bozos in the article have NO Bible authority to stand on.
Thanks.
SamFox
There was a very specific list who the Old Testament Lord wanted killed as punishment, and a very defined place where He wanted them killed. And, again, He never commanded His people to commit rape. Quite the opposite.
Numbers 31:19
“Anyone who has killed someone or touched someone who was killed must stay outside the camp seven days. On the third and seventh days you must purify yourselves and your captives.”
The whole point of taking vengeance on the Midianites was that they lured the Isrealites into sexual immorality and idolatry. Raping the women would have defeated the purpose. It was against Mosaic law. Even consensual sex would have been against Mosaic law; they were commanded to purify themselves and their captives. Any sex would have rendered them ritually impure.
Anyone who thinks these passages condone rape has no idea what they’re reading. The scripture doesn’t say that; people are letting their imaginations run away with themselves.
It’s also hard to see how He invited plunder since He commanded the Israelite soldiers not to keep the plunder all to themselves.
Numbers 31:25
“Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: “Count up the plunder that was taken; of man and beast; you and Eleazar the priest and the chief fathers of the congregation; and divide the plunder into two parts, between those who took part in the war, who went out to battle, and all the congregation.”
Normal rules of Middle Eastern warfare at the time dictated that the plunder would belong to the soldiers alone as it was they who had risked their lives. But the Israelites were commanded to share half with the nation at large. This was a disincentive to wage war for plunder as half would go to the people who didn’t run the risks of battle, anyway.
Yes, it sucked to be a Midianite, a Moabite, a Canaanite, an Amorite, or anyone else on the list that Yahweh wanted the Israelites to take vengeance upon within the limits of the land He promised Abraham for his descendants. But the Israelites didn’t take vengeance into their own hands. And you can hardly call these commands to take vengeance prescriptive. Rather they are simply descriptive. They applied at a certain time, at a certain place, for a certain time. If you don’t get that, kindly point out the worldwide network of Christians and Jews using the Bible/Tanakh to justify religious wars against unbelievers.
You fancy this fellow was at war with the father of his step-daughter?….oh wait…
You should read the book. The Old Testament doesn’t ever approve of rape. The virgins could live because they hadn’t used sex to tempt the Israelite men into idolatry. It never says the Israelite men can rape them. They can marry them. But they can’t rape them.
Deuteronomy 21:10-14: “When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails; And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her.”
You need a history lesson. Having them
Means they were sexual slaves. There are lots of other passages if you want them approving of genocide, murder, sexual slavery and all manner of depravity. Let me know.
Steve57:
I have. Here’s just a few to get you started (compiled from EvilBible.com) approving of murder. We can quibble about the meanings but the sheer volume ought to tell you something. If you want to talk approval of rape there aren’t quite as many but enough to get the jist:
Kill the Arrogant
Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)
Kill Witches
You should not let a sorceress live. (Exodus 22:17 NAB)
Kill Homosexuals
“If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives.” (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)
Kill Fortunetellers
A man or a woman who acts as a medium or fortuneteller shall be put to death by stoning; they have no one but themselves to blame for their death. (Leviticus 20:27 NAB)
Death for Hitting Dad
Whoever strikes his father or mother shall be put to death. (Exodus 21:15 NAB)
Death for Cursing Parents
1) If one curses his father or mother, his lamp will go out at the coming of darkness. (Proverbs 20:20 NAB)
2) All who curse their father or mother must be put to death. They are guilty of a capital offense. (Leviticus 20:9 NLT)
Death for Adultery
If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death. (Leviticus 20:10 NLT)
Death for Fornication
A priest’s daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death. (Leviticus 21:9 NAB)
Death to Followers of Other Religions
Whoever sacrifices to any god, except the Lord alone, shall be doomed. (Exodus 22:19 NAB)
Kill Nonbelievers
They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)
Kill False Prophets
If a man still prophesies, his parents, father and mother, shall say to him, “You shall not live, because you have spoken a lie in the name of the Lord.” When he prophesies, his parents, father and mother, shall thrust him through. (Zechariah 13:3 NAB)
Kill the Entire Town if One Person Worships Another God
Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. “The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him.” (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)
Kill Women Who Are Not Virgins On Their Wedding Night
But if this charge is true (that she wasn’t a virgin on her wedding night), and evidence of the girls virginity is not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her fathers house and there her townsman shall stone her to death, because she committed a crime against Israel by her unchasteness in her father’s house. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst. (Deuteronomy 22:20-21 NAB)
Kill Followers of Other Religions.
1) If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst. (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)
2) Suppose a man or woman among you, in one of your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, has done evil in the sight of the LORD your God and has violated the covenant by serving other gods or by worshiping the sun, the moon, or any of the forces of heaven, which I have strictly forbidden. When you hear about it, investigate the matter thoroughly. If it is true that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, then that man or woman must be taken to the gates of the town and stoned to death. (Deuteronomy 17:2-5 NLT)
Death for Blasphemy
One day a man who had an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father got into a fight with one of the Israelite men. During the fight, this son of an Israelite woman blasphemed the LORD’s name. So the man was brought to Moses for judgment. His mother’s name was Shelomith. She was the daughter of Dibri of the tribe of Dan. They put the man in custody until the LORD’s will in the matter should become clear. Then the LORD said to Moses, “Take the blasphemer outside the camp, and tell all those who heard him to lay their hands on his head. Then let the entire community stone him to death. Say to the people of Israel: Those who blaspheme God will suffer the consequences of their guilt and be punished. Anyone who blasphemes the LORD’s name must be stoned to death by the whole community of Israel. Any Israelite or foreigner among you who blasphemes the LORD’s name will surely die. (Leviticus 24:10-16 NLT)
Kill False Prophets
1) Suppose there are prophets among you, or those who have dreams about the future, and they promise you signs or miracles, and the predicted signs or miracles take place. If the prophets then say, ‘Come, let us worship the gods of foreign nations,’ do not listen to them. The LORD your God is testing you to see if you love him with all your heart and soul. Serve only the LORD your God and fear him alone. Obey his commands, listen to his voice, and cling to him. The false prophets or dreamers who try to lead you astray must be put to death, for they encourage rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of slavery in the land of Egypt. Since they try to keep you from following the LORD your God, you must execute them to remove the evil from among you. (Deuteronomy 13:1-5 NLT)
2) But any prophet who claims to give a message from another god or who falsely claims to speak for me must die.’ You may wonder, ‘How will we know whether the prophecy is from the LORD or not?’ If the prophet predicts something in the LORD’s name and it does not happen, the LORD did not give the message. That prophet has spoken on his own and need not be feared. (Deuteronomy 18:20-22 NLT)
Infidels and Gays Should Die
So God let them go ahead and do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God, they deliberately chose to believe lies. So they worshiped the things God made but not the Creator himself, who is to be praised forever. Amen. That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relationships with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men and, as a result, suffered within themselves the penalty they so richly deserved. When they refused to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their evil minds and let them do things that should never be done. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, fighting, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They are forever inventing new ways of sinning and are disobedient to their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, and are heartless and unforgiving. They are fully aware of God’s death penalty for those who do these things, yet they go right ahead and do them anyway. And, worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too. (Romans 1:24-32 NLT)
Kill Anyone who Approaches the Tabernacle
For the LORD had said to Moses, ‘Exempt the tribe of Levi from the census; do not include them when you count the rest of the Israelites. You must put the Levites in charge of the Tabernacle of the Covenant, along with its furnishings and equipment. They must carry the Tabernacle and its equipment as you travel, and they must care for it and camp around it. Whenever the Tabernacle is moved, the Levites will take it down and set it up again. Anyone else who goes too near the Tabernacle will be executed.’ (Numbers 1:48-51 NLT)
Kill People for Working on the Sabbath
The LORD then gave these further instructions to Moses: ‘Tell the people of Israel to keep my Sabbath day, for the Sabbath is a sign of the covenant between me and you forever. It helps you to remember that I am the LORD, who makes you holy. Yes, keep the Sabbath day, for it is holy. Anyone who desecrates it must die; anyone who works on that day will be cut off from the community. Work six days only, but the seventh day must be a day of total rest. I repeat: Because the LORD considers it a holy day, anyone who works on the Sabbath must be put to death.’ (Exodus 31:12-15 NLT)
2) God’s Murders for Stupid Reasons:
Kill Brats
From there Elisha went up to Bethel. While he was on his way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him. “Go up baldhead,” they shouted, “go up baldhead!” The prophet turned and saw them, and he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two shebears came out of the woods and tore forty two of the children to pieces. (2 Kings 2:23-24 NAB)
God Kills the Curious
And he smote of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of Jehovah, he smote of the people seventy men, `and’ fifty thousand men; and the people mourned, because Jehovah had smitten the people with a great slaughter. And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able to stand before Jehovah, this holy God? and to whom shall he go up from us? (1Samuel 6:19-20 ASV)
Killed by a Lion
Meanwhile, the LORD instructed one of the group of prophets to say to another man, “Strike me!” But the man refused to strike the prophet. Then the prophet told him, “Because you have not obeyed the voice of the LORD, a lion will kill you as soon as you leave me.” And sure enough, when he had gone, a lion attacked and killed him. (1 Kings 20:35-36 NLT)
Killing the Good Samaritan
The ark of God was placed on a new cart and taken away from the house of Abinadab on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab guided the cart, with Ahio walking before it, while David and all the Israelites made merry before the Lord with all their strength, with singing and with citharas, harps, tambourines, sistrums, and cymbals.
When they came to the threshing floor of Nodan, Uzzah reached out his hand to the ark of God to steady it, for the oxen were making it tip. But the Lord was angry with Uzzah; God struck him on that spot, and he died there before God. (2 Samuel 6:3-7 NAB)
3) Murdering Children
Kill Sons of Sinners
Make ready to slaughter his sons for the guilt of their fathers; Lest they rise and posses the earth, and fill the breadth of the world with tyrants. (Isaiah 14:21 NAB)
Lots more for your reading pleasure if you’d like.
Oh, yeah, EvilBible.com. There’s an honest broker. They deal with these verses extremely dishonestly.
To start (and pretty much end) with the last one on your list, you really have to start at the beginning of Isaiah 14 to figure out what is going on:
“1 When the Lord will have compassion on Jacob and again choose Israel, and settle them in their own land, then strangers will join them and attach themselves to the house of Jacob. 2 The peoples will take them along and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess them as an inheritance in the land of the Lord as male servants and female servants; and [a]they will take their captors captive and will rule over their oppressors.
3 And it will be in the day when the Lord gives you rest from your pain and turmoil and harsh service in which you have been enslaved, 4 that you will take up this [b]taunt against the king of Babylon, and say,…”
Nowhere in the Old Testament does it say “kill the sons of sinners.” Again, a gross misrepresentation of the verse. This chapter is about God punishing the Babylonians for oppressing and enslaving the Israelites. The verse you cited out of context is about the punishment that will be meted out against the Bablyonians, not a command to ill the sons of sinners. In fact nowhere in chapter 14 does it ever say even the Babylonians should be killed for sins. It uses the word guilt, as in guilty of crimes.
That’s what you get for using biased sources. This site misrepresents every single one of these verses. Your use of the quote from Romans is particularly comical. Paul is talking about God’s judgement in the afterlife, and there’s a whole host of sins you’re leaving out that are also worthy of death; those who commit them will not receive everlasting life. These are just two examples, and I’m not going to waste all day going through your list showing how ridiculous these misrepresentations are.
“If you want to talk approval of rape there aren’t quite as many but enough to get the jist”
Yes, I do want to talk about the parts of the Bible that you say approves of rape. I’m till waiting for the verse that commands or even allows the Israelites to rape their female captives. I noticed it isn’t in your list. And I’ll be waiting forever, as it’s not in the Bible; I suppose that’s why you’re trying to change the subject to all that other stuff that can be misrepresented. You know there’s no verse in the Bible that allows rape under any circumstance, just as there’s no verse that allows homosexual acts. As verses 1 and 2 say, they can make their male and female captives servants. Not use them sex slaves. By your logic if they can rape the female servants, a crime and a sin under any and all circumstances, they can also commit homosexual rape of the male servants, another crime and a sin under any and all circumstances.
If an Israelite wanted to sleep with a captive woman he would have to marry her first, after giving her a month to mourn her family.
You can dispute the motivations of the source but the Bible passages are verbatim. Here’s the rape approval part:
(Deuteronomy 21:10-14 NAB)
“When you go out to war against your enemies and the LORD, your God, delivers them into your hand, so that you take captives, if you see a comely woman among the captives and become so enamored of her that you wish to have her as wife, you may take her home to your house. But before she may live there, she must shave her head and pare her nails and lay aside her captive’s garb. After she has mourned her father and mother for a full month, you may have relations with her, and you shall be her husband and she shall be your wife. However, if later on you lose your liking for her, you shall give her her freedom, if she wishes it; but you shall not sell her or enslave her, since she was married to you under compulsion.”
Once again God approves of forcible rape.
8) Rape and the Spoils of War (Judges 5:30 NAB)
They must be dividing the spoils they took: there must be a damsel or two for each man, Spoils of dyed cloth as Sisera’s spoil, an ornate shawl or two for me in the spoil. (Judges 5:30 NAB)
9) Sex Slaves (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)
When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl’s owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment. (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)
10) God Assists Rape and Plunder (Zechariah 14:1-2 NAB)
Lo, a day shall come for the Lord when the spoils shall be divided in your midst. And I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem for battle: the city shall be taken, houses plundered, women ravished; half of the city shall go into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be removed from the city. (Zechariah 14:1-2 NAB)
Mespo, You are reading between the lines about rape. Male infidelity was unlawful for the Hebrews (unlike other nearby cultures), and, there were strict laws governing the treatment of slaves (sexual abuse was not okay).
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/305549/jewish/Torah-Slavery-and-the-Jews.htm
The Bible cannot be taken verse by verse, context and history are both extremely important to understand the whole picture.
Also, your source is unfairly biased. Try a Biblical scholar like Nahum Sarna or Bart Ehrman for a more complete and fair discussion.
Yes, that’s the point I’ve been making. For some reason Mespo is so biased he reads rape into verses where it does not exist. The text can’t support his conclusion, but he barges ahead anyway.
So, now you’re citing the verses I’ve been citing for the past few days. That a man can’t take a captive woman as a sex slave, but an Israelite soldier could marry a captive woman after a suitable mourning period. And if for any reason he was displeased with her she could go where she wished because the Israelite couldn’t make property of her.
Glad to see you’re finally admitting defeat. A wife isn’t a sex slave, she had rights, although you’re still misrepresenting the verse because you can’t honestly admit defeat.
There is not verse in the Bible that permits the Israelites to commit rape. You just read the word “rape” in where you willfully please, even though it’s not there.
“A day of the Lord is coming, Jerusalem, when your possessions will be plundered and divided up within your very walls.
2 I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city. 3 Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights on a day of battle. 4 On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south. 5 You will flee by my mountain valley, for it will extend to Azel. You will flee as you fled from the earthquake[a] in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.”
The Israelite women may be raped by the gathered nations, but God never allows the Israelites to commit rape.
And I see by your quote #8 you don’t know who Sisera was. He was the general of the Canaanite army who came against Israel. It was the Canaanites, it was thought, who were dividing up the damsels and other spoils.
Judges 5
““28 Through the window peered Sisera’s mother;
behind the lattice she cried out,
‘Why is his chariot so long in coming?
Why is the clatter of his chariots delayed?’
29
The wisest of her ladies answer her;
indeed, she keeps saying to herself,
30
‘Are they not finding and dividing the spoils:
a woman or two for each man,
colorful garments as plunder for Sisera,
colorful garments embroidered,
highly embroidered garments for my neck—
all this as plunder?’”
So once again you fail to provide a verse or verses where Yahweh permits Israelites to use captive women or slaves for sexual pleasure.
#9 Has nothing to do with sex. The Hebrew is more properly transliterated as “servant” rather than “slave.” No man would have sexual rights to her, unless he wished to marry her. You’re reading “sex” and “rape” into the text where it just isn’t there. Again.
Your attempts are getting increasingly pathetic, Mespo. You really should give it up, unless you enjoy degradation. There is not a single verse in the Bible which permits the Israelites to rape their female captives. I thought you knew this, but maybe I’m wrong. Since you don’t know when the Bible is talking about Canaanites and Israelites.
I suppose taking a captured woman as your wife by the sword is some quaint dating ritual to you. “Pathetic,” that’s the middle name for most Biblical apologists.
Mespo,
“I suppose taking a captured woman as your wife by the sword is some quaint dating ritual to you.”
The point is that the Israelites did not simply rape and toss women aside like other neighboring cultures often, if not typically, did. Also, some of the passages you cited indicated that the virgins (meaning unmarried, young girls) were simply captured and became slaves. In Biblical times that was in most cases better than being alone as a woman (the story of Ruth and Naomi, while not associated with warfare or slavery, points to the extreme poverty endured by famliless women).
The direct stories of rape in the Bible lead to the comeuppance of the perp (to be fair, it was usually vigilante justice–the rapes of Dinah and Tamar come to mind). These stories should cause us to not throw the baby out with the bathwater, but to wrestle with the questions of what is just. Abraham himself asked God, will not the Creator of all the Universe do what is right?
Micah 6:8 says “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”
With these in mind, one should wrestle with the stories in the Bible. They are not all warm and fuzzy, but we can learn to understand what being warm and fuzzy and kind means by reading them. Your visceral reaction against injustice speaks well of you. The Bible is full of goodness and wisdom, though. It is not to be followed literally or blindly.
Mespo, Steve, and others,
I have enjoyed the discussion immensely, but if we choose to continue, we should consider beginning from a main, new post because these one word per line posts are getting difficult to read, type, and review.
I will ask here for continuity, but the answer can be a fresh post in lieu of a reply for the sake of readability.
Mespo, I think we can agree that the OT is full of violence and bloodshed, but that we are not in agreement as to the purpose of those stories.
Why do you think the verses you quoted about violence and captive-taking are in the Bible? What is their purpose?
Sorry. But I have several motivations, some of which have to do with this Pope and what he has said and done to doubt my Catholicism, but not my Christianity. Also, Muslims think Christians are weak and unable to defend their faith.
Bushido teaches that you can not figure on being brave on the battlefield if you are not prepared to be brave on the tatami mat. The tatami mat being your own living room. If I am not prepared to defend Christianity in the very friendly environment that Professor Turley has so kindly provided, where am I prepared to defend it?
This was, what, 3500 years ago? What is pathetic is that you think the Bible should speak in language that reflects your 21st century AD sensibilities. I hear this same objection from Muslims, who demand in EXACT language where in the Gospels Jesus said, “I am God, worship me.” This is easy enough to turn around. But that’s neither here nor there for the purposes of this discussion.
What would you, 3500 years ago, have the Israelites do? Die? Not marry the women they were forced to war with? It’s very simple from your nice, safe perch, isn’t it?
Steve,
I am really perplexed as to what the heck you are talking about and to whom you addressing.
I wanted someone to go to the bottom of the page to reply instead of replying to my last post. They are impossible to read and follow on a phone when there is one. Word. Per. Line. Continuing the conversation would be nice. But I am tired of typing in an itty-bitty box.
Steve,
“Your attempts are getting increasingly pathetic, Mespo. You really should give it up, unless you enjoy degradation.”
This is impeding the discussion.
I was under the impression that there should be no further discussion. As it’s off topic.
Of course there can be further discussion. The discussion was on violent passages of the OT. The choice of words alone was getting in the way of discussion. Conversations can stray, but it seemed that what we had been discussing had not yet been resolved, which is fine. I just did not want to leave the topic prematurely.
So all those death sentences for “crimes” give you the warm and fuzzies for the Abrahamic God of Love, eh? You need to do standup.
There are a lot of death sentences in the New Testament. The difference between the Old and New Covenants are that Christians are forbidden from carrying them out, in this life or the next.
Luke 19
“The Parable of the Ten Minas
11 While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once. 12 He said: “A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. 13 So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas.[a] ‘Put this money to work,’ he said, ‘until I come back.’
14 “But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, ‘We don’t want this man to be our king.’
15 “He was made king, however, and returned home. Then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, in order to find out what they had gained with it.
16 “The first one came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has earned ten more.’
17 “‘Well done, my good servant!’ his master replied. ‘Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.’
18 “The second came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has earned five more.’
19 “His master answered, ‘You take charge of five cities.’
20 “Then another servant came and said, ‘Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. 21 I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.’
22 “His master replied, ‘I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? 23 Why then didn’t you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?’
24 “Then he said to those standing by, ‘Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.’
25 “‘Sir,’ they said, ‘he already has ten!’
26 “He replied, ‘I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 27 But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me.’””
This parable is about Christ going away and then executing judgement upon His return. And, yes, I’m comfortable with it. Far more comfortable with it than all the murders committed by commies. Atheists have killed far more people than religious people, and I count the theoretically or nominally religious people with the atheists. I have to say theoretically or nominally because, in the case of Christians and Jews, when they commit their evil acts they have to violate (among other things) the 3rd Commandment.
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.”
If you say you’re a Christian but you really aren’t in your heart, you’ve taken the Lord’s name in vain. If you do evil in the Lord’s name, like this pair who committed kidnapping and serial rape, and try to hide behind the Bible, you’ve taken the Lord’s name in vain.
They’ll find out.
I suppose Jesus was lying when he emphasized that he was there to fulfill the Old Testament law that you say couldn’t be executed:
Matt 5:8: “For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” That “Law” was Moses’ law of the Old Testament where all those orders to kill came from. Let’s see the sophistry you employ to walk away from this New testament verse.
Mespo,
You and Steve are not on the same page. The line you cite is very likely one of the reasons the Tanakh is paired with the New Testament in the Christian Bible. Steve is talking about the Christian view of Jesus executing judgment on people’s lives once he returns. Both can be worthy of discussion, but they are different discussions.
We are straying off topic, too.
I agree. We are getting off topic, I suppose. It’s just that we are confronted with an ideology that poses a threat. And as much hurt as they have certainly caused one girl in this case, that ideology is not Christianity or Judaism. All the wasted effort into trying to draw false moral equivalencies among religions is not merely wasteful, it’s destructive. I just have to throw up my hands when I hear the words, “All religions have their extremists.” Yes, well, which extremists are following their religions and which are not. It’s up to both Christians and Muslims to define their doctrine. But once they do we have to speak about it honestly as it effects us all. And pretending they’re both the same, equally violent and/or equally peaceful, is not honest.
This atheist triumphalism is unearned and given the body count entirely unwarranted. Yet the atheists seem only interested in coup counting. That tells me they’re not taking the threat seriously, as if the threat of Lutherans not hiring lesbian Bible teachers is somehow equivalent to the threat of a dirty bomb in Times Square.
Umm, how do you get to this conclusion, since I said the difference between the Old and New Testaments is that God will carry out the punishments and not the Christians?
Mespo quoted Matt 5:8: “For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”
I think he is saying (clarify if I misunderstood, Mespo) that all the orders for Jesus (God) to execute come from the OT and they are not going away til everything has disappeared, though Jesus says he has come to fulfill the OT.
You are talking about the judgments on people’s behavior based on those laws being executed upon Jesus’ return. The law still exists; it is the judgment that is not only postponed, but it is meted out by God, not by humans (as it is quite often in OT examples). Clarify if I misunderstood, Steve.
Those are two different points of discussion, hence my response above.
No, I think you have me accurately calibrated.
Jesus came to fulfill and validate every jot and tittle of the OT by his very words.
“These two probably think that the earth is flat and claim that the Bible tells them that, as well. It simply doesn’t make it so.”
Also true of every sentiment justified by the bible, ever.
Every one? Should I cure your daughter with a dose of lead?
Perhaps the prosecutor can read Leviticus 18 to them and see if they change their defense strategy.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus%2018
Regardless of their guilt or innocence, their defense plan does not bode well for them.
File under “stranger than fiction…”
Let them do it. They will get hung a lot faster. Unless they are trying to avoid the death penalty due to mental deficiencies. the only use a Bible has in courts is to make witnesses and juries swear an oath to do stuff like give the whole truth etc before the Judge demands they do otherwise.
I will never swear on a bible; that’s just stupid since I don’t recognize the book or the authority the book is meant to represent. Give me a copy of the Constitution, the dictionary, or a Playboy magazine; they all have far more meaning than the bible.
If they are allowed to be their own consul and question the witnesses whom they terrorized, won’t that be more of the same torture for the witnesses?
They are constitutionally entitled to represent themselves and cross-examine witnesses against them. However, judges generally keep perpetrators questioning witnesses on a very short leash. Often the general trial orders are also adjusted. For example, both the perpetrator representing himself and the prosecuting attorney may be required to remain seated at counsel table while questioning witnesses. As long as the rules are even-handed and don’t interfere with the questioning or view, they are generally permissible.
The Father, The Son, are Totally Toast.
LOL!!!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Good one!
I am with Squeeky! :-D.
Let me sort this out in my head. These fools blatantly do a vile deed that the Old Testament defines as a crime, then think they can use the Book as a defense? People like these are a huge blot on history, the human race, & are a shame & disgrace to the Book they now want to hide behind it.
To say the least, I don’t think the Author of the Book is happy with their misuse of HIs Word.
No true Bible believer would do what these idiots did. Maybe the Judge should sentence them to the punishment outlined in the Book regarding this heinous crime. That would be fitting.
SamFox