Ok, in the Old Testament, a rapist is supposed to marry his victim, and a man who finds his bride isn’t a virgin on her wedding night, is supposed to stone his bride to death. Does this mean that a rapist would be within his rights to stone his victim on their wedding night?
Is this a rhetorical question? Everybody knows that rape is OK in the Bible.
Anyway, yeah, it does mean that.
Tucker,
Ok, in the Old Testament, a rapist is supposed to marry his victim, and a man who finds his bride isn't a virgin on her wedding night, is supposed to stone his bride to death. Does this mean that a rapist would be within his rights to stone his victim on their wedding night?Assuming that 'inquiry' includes 'research' and 'senior' excludes, well, the opposite: Try a major rabbinical commentary; how about The Complete Tanach with Rashi's Commentary]. That's the first thing that came up in a ten-second search for 'rabbinical commentary online'. I typed 'rape' in its search engine and got a quick answer that falsifies half of your claim. In my imagination, atheists and secularists are somehow noble, like ancient Stoics (busts of Epicurus in homes instead of a god or the family ancestors, the *Enchiridion*, all that). Cheap (and false) sophistry is unbecoming to anyone, but moreso when claiming high moral ground. Chris
Quoting Inthegobi:
I typed ‘rape’ in its search engine and got a quick answer that falsifies half of your claim.I’m confused ITG. CT listed two postulates from the bible:
- A man who rapes a woman must marry her.
- If a woman is not a virgin when wed, the man is supposed to stone her to death.
If condition one exists, the woman is not a virgin when wed. That seems to lead logically to condition two.
Could you explain what half is falsified?
Occam
Occam,
I'm confused ITG.Please, call me Chris. And I respectfully disagree. You are not confused.
CT listed two postulates from the bible: 1. A man who rapes a woman must marry her. 2. If a woman is not a virgin when wed, the man is supposed to stone her to death. If condition one exists, the woman is not a virgin when wed. That seems to lead logically to condition two. Could you explain what half is falsified?I think the article explains it. But specifically, the first proposition is false. That's just from looking up the first proposition. Taking this questions seriously assumes, however, that this isn't an exercise in puerile sophistry right from the beginning. I mean, is this the real bar between you and the Beatific Vision? This isn't mere logic-chopping based on misquotation of a document in a long-dead language for which people can't be bothered to do a ten-second search online? This whole thread isn't a mere kick at a corpse? This isn't making fun of some kid at lunch? Seriously? Chris
Tucker,1.) I've never heard of the site, and have no idea of the veracity of its claims. 2.) I prefer to ask at a non-religious site, since responders there are unlikely to respond with, "Well, it says _______, but what it really means is __________." Either it says it or it doesn't, and I'm not interested in handwaving explanations of how it could appear one way, but really means something else. If the Lord God wrote the damned thing, then it should be perfectly clear as to what it meant. If it has to be interpreted, then one can hardly trust it as being the unaltered word of God. 3.) I've claimed no high moral ground here, nor do I see how asking such a question could be seen as taking the low-ground, or even the middle ground. I make no claims as to any answer to my questions proving or disproving anything involving religion. It is merely a question about the contents of the book. 4.) Civilization would have advanced much farther if more Greeks had gone out and done experiments, instead of sitting around philosophizing to one another. Philosophy has its uses to be sure, but so do experiments. 5.) Limiting atheists and secularists to only stuffed shirts, who sit around in leather drawing rooms before a fire, while sipping brandy, is as dangerous and foolish as restricting religious texts to priests and telling the ignorant peasants not to worry what the Bible says, just do what the priest tells you to. The more skeptics and atheists there are from all walks of life, the better we all are. In case you haven't noticed, politicians thrive off of manipulating the ignorant and the foolish. I don't think that your imagined atheists or skeptics would be willing to work as garbage men, but we're all better off if the garbage man is smart enough to know that the politician who's telling him that vaccines cause autism is full of it.Ok, in the Old Testament, a rapist is supposed to marry his victim, and a man who finds his bride isn't a virgin on her wedding night, is supposed to stone his bride to death. Does this mean that a rapist would be within his rights to stone his victim on their wedding night?Assuming that 'inquiry' includes 'research' and 'senior' excludes, well, the opposite: Try a major rabbinical commentary; how about The Complete Tanach with Rashi's Commentary]. That's the first thing that came up in a ten-second search for 'rabbinical commentary online'. I typed 'rape' in its search engine and got a quick answer that falsifies half of your claim. In my imagination, atheists and secularists are somehow noble, like ancient Stoics (busts of Epicurus in homes instead of a god or the family ancestors, the *Enchiridion*, all that). Cheap (and false) sophistry is unbecoming to anyone, but moreso when claiming high moral ground. Chris
Tucker,
Why should be believe you rather than an expert, a rabbi, on the subject? Why do you think the people here will have the answer to your question, none of whom know all that much about Deuteronomy, or ancient jewish law (so far as I can see, and no reflection against them). Laws often fail to cite other laws that constrain their scope - because it’s assumed expert lawyers will be on hand. Why should ancient jewish law be any different?
And sorry - I’m afraid that when you implied that the Bible makes a hash out of immoral acts, you assume higher moral ground than the Bible. Obviously.
It is merely a question about the contents of the book.Oh, pull the other one. You were taking a whack, and didn't expect someone to object. You were caught cherry-picking verses - proof-texting it's called. One can do that with any large body of laws. In fact not even mathematics is complete and consistent. Finally: 'Noble' does not mean 'highbrow'. The Enchiridion was written by a slave, Epictetus. By all means, have people from every walk of life. As people, they will be able to reason well and avoid manipulation, *if they do due diligence*. They also need practice in knowing important objections from trivial ones. This is not a trivial exercise. And careful: I've washed dishes, waited tables, and worked in factories. Garbage men can reason, and they need to read and research too. The mere fact they do not usually do these things does not mean they are exempt from it. Just so, the garbage man and the ditch-digger has to read up on healthcare reform, abortion rights, etc etc. And if he's going to be a *freethinker*, he has to have something to think over - unless freethinker is to merely mean free of any rigor. It's no shame to start with what others have thought before you, in fact it's the right way to start. No less than Socrates started that way. Plato borrowed Pythagoras. Aristotle riffed on Plato. Arguments need research too. Chris
Tucker, Why should be believe you rather than an expert, a rabbi, on the subject?A rabbi is biased to paint religion in a positive light. It is, after all, his job.
Why do you think the people here will have the answer to your question, none of whom know all that much about Deuteronomy, or ancient jewish law (so far as I can see, and no reflection against them). Laws often fail to cite other laws that constrain their scope - because it's assumed expert lawyers will be on hand. Why should ancient jewish law be any different?Given that I've seen a number of good discussions on the subject of religion here, I see no reason to think that raising this subject would prove a fruitless task. And would you not say that by asking my question I am seeking "expert lawyers"?
And sorry - I'm afraid that when you implied that the Bible makes a hash out of immoral acts, you assume higher moral ground than the Bible. Obviously.By that same logic, you're implying that the Bible is a highly moral document, which it clearly is not.
Sorry to disappoint you, but it was, in fact, something that I was genuinely curious about. I have seen both items raised separately, but never together, and wondered why this was so. I assumed that this was something that had been covered by folks here before, and that my answer would be met with a, "No, there's this provision here which specifically addresses this." Or, "Yeah, you're right it does allow for such a thing." I did not expect to be lectured on why I chose this place to ask my question, or that I shouldn't use levity in my inquiry.It is merely a question about the contents of the book.Oh, pull the other one. You were taking a whack, and didn't expect someone to object. You were caught cherry-picking verses - proof-texting it's called. One can do that with any large body of laws. In fact not even mathematics is complete and consistent.
Finally: 'Noble' does not mean 'highbrow'.Says the guy who mentions "noble" and "Stoic Greeks." Clearly, you were attempting to paint a certain image, one that evoked a certain status for individuals. It is better to accept people for who they are, rather than who you wish them to be.
The Enchiridion was written by a slave, Epictetus.And in ancient Greece, slaves were often highly educated individuals who's role in society was educating the upper classes. It is comparable to slavery practiced in America only in the sense that human beings were owned by other human beings, and that some of them had wretchedly awful experiences at the hands of their masters. Indeed, some slaves were of royal birth, or otherwise upper levels of society who wound up as slaves due to misadventure.
By all means, have people from every walk of life. As people, they will be able to reason well and avoid manipulation, *if they do due diligence*. They also need practice in knowing important objections from trivial ones. This is not a trivial exercise.This is a message board on the internet, a medium who's primary function is to allow people to slander one another anonymously and exchange porn.
And careful: I've washed dishes, waited tables, and worked in factories.Good for you. Of course, all I know about you is what you've posted in this thread, so your claims are essentially meaningless. I've known plenty of people who've worked similar jobs, but still treat people who hold them with contempt.
Garbage men can reason, and they need to read and research too. The mere fact they do not usually do these things does not mean they are exempt from it. Just so, the garbage man and the ditch-digger has to read up on healthcare reform, abortion rights, etc etc. And if he's going to be a *freethinker*, he has to have something to think over - unless freethinker is to merely mean free of any rigor. It's no shame to start with what others have thought before you, in fact it's the right way to start. No less than Socrates started that way. Plato borrowed Pythagoras. Aristotle riffed on Plato. Arguments need research too. ChrisHow very condescending of you to say all of that.
I think that the point that can be drawn from Tucker’s question is that nobody takes, and is not even able to, follow the bible literally. However, there seem to be a lot of Christians who say they do. They do not seem to realise they don’t, and they use their own selective criteria which parts to take literally (funny enough e.g. Genesis), which parts to take metaphorically, and which parts to omit completely. In this respect, like everybody else, they take their own moral conception as orientation. At most the bible is an inspiration for them.
The only person I know that really tried to live according the bible is A. J. Jacobs]. The book is more serious than it seems, even if it is fun.
GdB,
I think that the point that can be drawn from Tucker's question is that nobody takes, and is not even able to, follow the bible literally. However, there seem to be a lot of Christians who say they do. They do not seem to realise they don't, and they use their own selective criteria which parts to take literally (funny enough e.g. Genesis), which parts to take metaphorically, and which parts to omit completely. In this respect, like everybody else, they take their own moral conception as orientation. At most the bible is an inspiration for them.Well, first, I don't see it as a literalism issue: no-one's even shown that the relevant passages are as Tucker and Occam claim it to be. Take the first proposition, that a rapist is *supposed to* (Tucker) or *must* (Occam) marry his victim. We haven't even gotten to *whether it needs interpreting*. We might find (upon actually reading) that we can take it literally while avoiding the bad consequence Tucker and Occam try to screw from it. (All laws that aren't foundational have implicit constraints on them from the other laws in the set.) Okay, so this is making heavy weather out of a more general claim. Well, we can slay the more general claim by correcting one apparent inconsistency at a time. Advancing knowledge is not *easy*, though it's not necessarily complicated and only for brandy-sipping leather armchair-sittin' fancy-pants wearing, uh, where were we? As for 'a lot of Christians' - well, why do you care about *them*? Seriously. I'm not ready to sit on an Internet rocking chair muttering 'some people'. I want to respond to Tucker, or you, not 'some atheists', 'some secularists' - OMG, *some* people believe all kinds of weird-ass things. (I still have trouble believing there are real flat-earthers. All those websites *can't* be serious. It's just a stick in the eye of scientism, right? Please?) Finally: Does anyone here even *know* what verse the first proposition misquotes? I haven't searched for the second proposition. Chris
Tucker,
Let’s go back to the beginning.
Ok, in the Old Testament, a rapist is supposed to marry his victim, and a man who finds his bride isn't a virgin on her wedding night, is supposed to stone his bride to death. Does this mean that a rapist would be within his rights to stone his victim on their wedding night?To answer your question directly: No it would not. To go a little further. You should find the verse for your first claim, and read the verses immediately following. When you do: You'll discover that the law does not say he 'must' or 'is supposed to' (was Occam correct to turn your phrase into 'must'?) - my translation says only that he 'shall', which doesn't *exactly* say what you or Occam imply (tho' what it *does* entail, I don't know); you'll discover that the first law does not say that *she* must marry *him* (that would imply more than the law says); you'll discover that he cannot divorce her upon marrying her (while in more regular marriages this is possible), because then he could get tricky and just divorce her immediately; you will briefly pause to consider that these old lawyers weren't as dumb or wicked as some people want to make them out to be; you'll *fail* to discover that she cannot divorce him (again, that would imply more than the law says); you'll discover that the rapist must pay fines - basically, he can't 'pass' on giving gifts to the woman's family as custom demands in more regular marriages; you'll recall your social history, and that this is in the context of village life - everybody knows everybody's business, nobody likes a rapist not now, not then, women (unfortunately) require protection, a rapist (again unfortunately) makes his victim practically unmarryable. You'll ponder the difficulties of life way back when, and their rough wisdom. You'll get an inkling that I suspected, not without evidence, that you didn't think there was really a good answer to your 'question'. But perhaps you'll please accept my apology for not taking you seriously the first time. Chris
Ok, in the Old Testament, a rapist is supposed to marry his victim, and a man who finds his bride isn't a virgin on her wedding night, is supposed to stone his bride to death. Does this mean that a rapist would be within his rights to stone his victim on their wedding night?Most likely. Patriarchal societies are like that. They put women in impossible situations, blame them for everything they don't like and keep them sidelined (often veiled, uneducated and locked up) so they can't be heard. Oh, yes, and they also claim it is what their god requires, always a good move for those in charge. Lois