New testament vs old testament

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Vesayen
It is not an apple tree in Judaism, one of many mistranslation by illterate monks who never thought to just copy Hebrew texts , there is no concept of original sin in Judaism either.... and there are certainly no satantic influences.

At first, it's kind of difficult to discuss when Christians and Jews interpret your writing in different ways. I was originally talking to Nikolai, so I didn't especially address the Jewish point of view. Anyway, I'm not too strict about whether it's an apple or a pear tree, and my post contains nothing about sin but is about the capability to discriminate good from evil. And why no satanic influences. I know that the concept is different in judaism, but God uses satanic angels to tempt people to act against God. Personally, I find it hilarious that he has to do so. Otherwise, playing with the creation would be no fun.

Anyway back on track, all I meant was if there is a god he must by defintion be "good" since he is god, he defines morality. If the rules are unclear to us and appear to make him seem bad, this must by definition be some failing in our comprehension of them.

And I repeat that we can throw ethics and reason overboard, then.

That is not the real argument I would make, the Torah stands on it's own merits and the god of the Torah is not the wrathtful lunatic some Christians or some unreligious people try to make him out to be.

Yet you don't give me arguments why I should consider, say, sweeping the own creation - mankind - from the earth not to be lunatic.
As to the jewish mitzvot, like in other religions, the sense of most of them is obvious even to the unbeliever or at least acceptable, even though unnecessary (Not to slaughter an animal and its young on the same day ). A few should be forfeited for being anachronistic (To keep the Canaanite slave forever), but well, nevermind. God should have been capable to subsum the incest and sodomy laws to a smaller number, though.

But since you claim that God is the ultimate source of morality, those laws could state whatever they wanted; no need to proof their merits, explanation or justification, as you put it.

[Vesayen]

Originally posted by Elok


Psst...if you're referring to Jesus, he's in the NT only. If he were in the OT Jews wouldn't be Jews.

MrFun, what are the Sodom and Gomorrah passages about if not homosexual sex? Mind you, I don't think the fact that they want to have sex with men is quite so significant in context as the oft-overlooked facts that the men in question are A. guests of Lot's and B. angels, but "bring out the young men with you, that we might lie with them" (from memory, possibly not 100% accurate) seems unambiguously gay.

Vesayen, I'd be careful about saying "the Jewish view of this is" or "the Christian view of this is." There is a fair diversity of opinion in both, no? Much of the CyberShy quote you responded to is alien to the Orthodox Xian understanding, for example. But generally I give your posts the (if that's worth anything to you)

Sodom and Gomorah are not about homosexuality. They are about societies which are just plain bad. Baseless malice or hatred is a sin in Judaism. In Judaism, the people of the cities are just plain bad and hateful and commit many sins, there is no special focus on homosexuality, there is no mention of homosexuality in relation to the cities. Treating strangers well is a big thing in Judaism and housing strangers was a BIG deal at the time, if you had to pick a single sin to focus on in Judaism for the cities, it would be the mistreatment of strangers. The homosexuality emphasis was adopted later by Christians.

Originally posted by Wernazuma III
At first, it's kind of difficult to discuss when Christians and Jews interpret your writing in different ways. I was originally talking to Nikolai, so I didn't especially address the Jewish point of view. Anyway, I'm not too strict about whether it's an apple or a pear tree, and my post contains nothing about sin but is about the capability to discriminate good from evil. And why no satanic influences. I know that the concept is different in judaism, but God uses satanic angels to tempt people to act against God. Personally, I find it hilarious that he has to do so. Otherwise, playing with the creation would be no fun.

Most Jews today write off the first half of Genesis as parable, alegory or a text for people with less understanding of science anyway .

Originally posted by Wernazuma III
Yet you don't give me arguments why I should consider, say, sweeping the own creation - mankind - from the earth not to be lunatic.

The flood as written never happened. It may refer to the break of the caspian sea into the black sea, which caused one hell of a flood. It is not lunatic because IF we take the book at it's word that most of mankind was drowned, something which is impossible, we should also take it at it's word that most of mankind really was so incredibly immoral to deserve it.

Is it more plausible that all of mankind was wiped out by a flood which never happened, or that most of mankind was bad enough to merit it? Both are so implausible to not matter but one is much more plausible then another.

Originally posted by Wernazuma III
But since you claim that God is the ultimate source of morality, those laws could state whatever they wanted; no need to proof their merits, explanation or justification, as you put it.

That is not an argument I would like to make, but, yes. If there is a god who made mankind and the universe and cares about us, then morality is defined as whatever he says it is. We could say there is divine morality and mortal morality, but how could mortal morality be superior to that of an all knowing being?

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Vesayen
The flood as written never happened. It may refer to the break of the caspian sea into the black sea, which caused one hell of a flood. It is not lunatic because IF we take the book at it's word that most of mankind was drowned, something which is impossible, we should also take it at it's word that most of mankind really was so incredibly immoral to deserve it.

Is it more plausible that all of mankind was wiped out by a flood which never happened, or that most of mankind was bad enough to merit it? Both are so implausible to not matter but one is much more plausible then another.

I bolded the important part.
Caspian Sea into Black Sea? Did I miss something? I was under the assumption that the biblic tale of the deluge was closely related to that of the Gilgamesh Epos and refers to some nasty Mesopotamian flooding. Anyway, it's half the fun to argue with someone who actually thinks himself that things didn't happen as written.

[Arrian]

I thought the theory, such as it is, was Black Sea -> Med (edit: or Med -> Black Sea), not Caspian -> Black.

-Arrian

[Elok]

Originally posted by Vesayen
Sodom and Gomorah are not about homosexuality. They are about societies which are just plain bad. Baseless malice or hatred is a sin in Judaism. In Judaism, the people of the cities are just plain bad and hateful and commit many sins, there is no special focus on homosexuality, there is no mention of homosexuality in relation to the cities. Treating strangers well is a big thing in Judaism and housing strangers was a BIG deal at the time, if you had to pick a single sin to focus on in Judaism for the cities, it would be the mistreatment of strangers. The homosexuality emphasis was adopted later by Christians.

Yes, but in the post you quoted, I acknowledge that the homosexuality as such is not the main issue in the whole story. What MrFun said was

I get a chuckle out of Chrisitans who think the Sodom passages are concerned with homosexual sex acts.

I understood "concerned" in context to mean "relate to" or "have something to do with," not "are worried about." Perhaps MrFun meant differently, but there's no way of knowing until he shows up to tell us as much.

[Straybow]

In the story all the cities of Canaan are abominable but only those two were so bad God decided to make an example of them. In the test, the angels were to go and find ten righteous men to save the cities.

Instead they found a bunch of hostile and violent men who happened to like violating visitors' anuses with their penises. But they weren't gay, no... that's just this thing they did. Whenever possible. And maybe with each other when no strangers were around to violate. But just for practice, in case strangers wander into the city they wouldn't want to forget how to violate them.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Straybow
... Instead they found a bunch of hostile and violent men who happened to like violating visitors' anuses with their penises. But they weren't gay, no... that's just this thing they did. Whenever possible. And maybe with each other when no strangers were around to violate. But just for practice, in case strangers wander into the city they wouldn't want to forget how to violate them.

Cite?

[Jon Miller]

Aren't you a bit focused on the violation of anuses and not paying attention to the fact that they couldn't find 10 righteous men in the city?

JM

[Japher]

IMO, if you only read one testament you should read the new. They are not exclusive, though Jews would tell you different. A Jew will tell you that the New is blasphemy and all that. I'm a Christian, so I like the part with Christ in it and do not find that the two contradict each other. In fact they play on each other very well. The Old shows Gods patience as well as his wrath. The New shows Gods love and mercy. Without the Old you really wouldn't be able to understand how much the New, Gods love, means.

[McCrea]

The sequel is never as good as the original. Well, unless it ends with a good cliffhanger.

[Kidlicious]

As stated in this thread already, the OT is a tool for keeping people under control, to increase the effectiveness of the law and the govt. The NT is just an improvement on that, which allows the powerfull to extent their power beyond the tribe.

Also, why is there exactly 10 commandments? Think about it. Sounds good, doesn't it. Exactly 10, must be divine. But do we really need 10?

http://www.geocities.com/bobmelzer/gc10cx.html

GEORGE CARLIN ON THE 10 COMMANDMENTS
from "Complaints and Grievances" (HBO special)

Here is my problem with the ten commandments- why exactly are there 10?

You simply do not need ten. The list of ten commandments was artificially and deliberately inflated to get it up to ten. Here's what happened:

About 5,000 years ago a bunch of religious and political hustlers got together to try to figure out how to control people and keep them in line. They knew people were basically stupid and would believe anything they were told, so they announced that God had given them some commandments, up on a mountain, when no one was around.

Well let me ask you this- when they were making this **** up, why did they pick 10? Why not 9 or 11? I'll tell you why- because 10 sound official. Ten sounds important! Ten is the basis for the decimal system, it's a decade, it's a psychologically satisfying number (the top ten, the ten most wanted, the ten best dressed). So having ten commandments was really a marketing decision! It is clearly a bull**** list. It's a political document artificially inflated to sell better. I will now show you how you can reduce the number of commandments and come up with a list that's a little more workable and logical. I am going to use the Roman Catholic version because those were the ones I was taught as a little boy.

Let's start with the first three:

I AM THE LORD THY GOD THOU SHALT NOT HAVE STRANGE GODS BEFORE ME

THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN VAIN

THOU SHALT KEEP HOLY THE SABBATH

Right off the bat the first three are pure bull****. Sabbath day? Lord's name? strange gods? Spooky language! Designed to scare and control primitive people. In no way does superstitious nonsense like this apply to the lives of intelligent civilized humans in the 21st century. So now we're down to 7. Next:

HONOR THY FATHER AND MOTHER

Obedience, respect for authority. Just another name for controlling people. The truth is that obedience and respect shouldn't be automatic. They should be earned and based on the parent's performance. Some parents deserve respect, but most of them don't, period. You're down to six.

Now in the interest of logic, something religion is very uncomfortable with, we're going to jump around the list a little bit.

THOU SHALT NOT STEAL

THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS

Stealing and lying. Well actually, these two both prohibit the same kind of behavior- dishonesty. So you don't really need two you combine them and call the commandment "thou shalt not be dishonest". And suddenly you're down to 5.

And as long as we're combining I have two others that belong together:

THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTRY

THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR'S WIFE

Once again, these two prohibit the same type of behavior. In this case it is marital infidelity. The difference is- coveting takes place in the mind. But I don't think you should outlaw fantasizing about someone else's wife because what is a guy gonna think about when he's waxing his carrot? But, marital infidelity is a good idea so we're gonna keep this one and call it "thou shalt not be unfaithful". And suddenly we're down to four.

But when you think about it, honesty and infidelity are really part of the same overall value so, in truth, you could combine the two honesty commandments with the two fidelity commandments and give them simpler language, positive language instead of negative language and call the whole thing "thou shalt always be honest and faithful" and we're down to 3.

THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR"S GOODS

This one is just plain ****in' stupid. Coveting your neighbor's goods is what keeps the economy going! Your neighbor gets a vibrator that plays "o come o ye faithful", and you want one too! Coveting creates jobs, so leave it alone. You throw out coveting and you're down to 2 now- the big honesty and fidelity commandment and the one we haven't talked about yet:

THOU SHALT NOT KILL

Murder. But when you think about it, religion has never really had a big problem with murder. More people have been killed in the name of god than for any other reason. All you have to do is look at Northern Ireland, Cashmire, the Inquisition, the Crusades, and the World Trade Center to see how seriously the religious folks take thou shalt not kill. The more devout they are, the more they see murder as being negotiable. It depends on who's doin the killin' and who's gettin' killed. So, with all of this in mind, I give you my revised list of the two commandments:

Thou shalt always be honest and faithful to the provider of thy nookie.

&

Thou shalt try real hard not to kill anyone, unless of course they pray to a different invisible man than you.

Two is all you need; Moses could have carried them down the hill in his ****in' pocket. I wouldn't mind those folks in Alabama posting them on the courthouse wall, as long as they provided one additional commandment:

Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself.

[Elok]

I'm going to repeat what somebody else said recently: are there any portions of your philosophy of life NOT derived from comedians, Kid?

Oh, and it seems Carlin didn't pay much attention as a kid, or while he was writing the shpiel. There are nine commandments on that list--he left out "no graven image."

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Also, why is there exactly 10 commandments? Think about it. Sounds good, doesn't it. Exactly 10, must be divine. But do we really need 10?

There aren't. Do a little research.

[Slade Wilson]

One-post-sniper-job as i wander about

Rapists marrying their victims, instead of imprisonment or the death penalty:
"If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her."
Deuteronomy 22:28-29

Modern day meanings of rape and forced sex is not what this is referring to, i think. This passage brings to mind say a 18 year old with 17 year old, which is also a ''rape'' in modern day, no matter how consensual. This is saying that if you have sex outside of marriage(rape?) you are now obligated to marry and carry your responsibility.

IMO to get the meaning requires studying the social aspects of life at the time and what the words mean then\now. Also people seem to like referring to parts of bible that say women are subservant and not the parts where men are equally\more responsible to do certain things.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Elok
I'm going to repeat what somebody else said recently: are there any portions of your philosophy of life NOT derived from comedians, Kid?

Sure there are, but they aren't that funny.

Oh, and it seems Carlin didn't pay much attention as a kid, or while he was writing the shpiel. There are nine commandments on that list--he left out "no graven image."

What about "Thou shalt not forget the commandments?"