A Bible question!!

[Boris Godunov]

I'm just curious as to how someone can justify that a god who proclaims he'll make people eat their own children is a loving, just being.

[Berzerker]

Four cases out of tens of thousands?

How many are allowed to grow to viability? How many is irrelevant, Ben has said aborting ectopic pregnancies is not sinful.

There are other conditions where preganacy may endanger the life of the mother at a point in gestation prior to fetal viability. Certain congenital heart conditions, especially those which cause blood to be shunted away from the lungs may impair the Mother's ability to handle the extra circulatory load of pregnancy to the point that she can't carry a fetus beyond 20 weeks.

And women and their babies sometimes die

I do believe I have a right to voice my opinion on how society should be modeled, also in this case. Then it is up to democracy to decide if I "win" the argument. But I reserve my right to believe in absolutes. Wrong is wrong, even when we don't all agree.

You reserve a right when the rights of others are up to your opinion?

I won't climb any moral high ground if I can help it. I sin and I am no better than anyone else. That's what Christians are; sinful men and women who have found that God has a rescue plan. I'm saved by his grace, and I love him for that. But I am not a better man because of it.

Therein lies my problem with Christianity, not with what Jesus taught, albeit some of that stuff is hard for me to follow, but that God sent a rescue plan most people never heard of and have NO reason to accept as valid when coming from some "missionary"... Other than the actual teachings themselves, either they touch one's heart or they do not. But some people are just good people without ever hearing about a rescue plan.

Sorry, dont mean to rant on you

[Boris Godunov]

To whit, if you abrogate your moral senses when it comes to a god doing ostensibly evil acts, you can't turn around and proclaim its other acts morally good and expect to be taken seriously. It is absolutely absurd to insist a being is the embodiment of moral righteousness and yet, when confronted with actions which in other circumstances we'd consider horrific evils, throw up your hands and say that the being's methods/will are inscrutable. That is a total cop out.

[Hauldren Collider]

You don't need religion to understand that abortion is wrong.

[Jon Miller]

So why is abortion wrong, but it was A-OK for Jepthah to kill his daughter to please God?

It's not. The Bible is full of stories of people doing what is wrong. The whole point of judges is that the people of Israel were doing it wrong.

The Bible is not a simple guidebook. The fundamentalists are wrong to treat it that way. And so are you.

JM

[Jon Miller]

You don't need religion to understand that abortion is wrong.

I agree.

I am constantly amazed that so many people defend it.

JM

[Ben Kenobi]

No, it's only in some christian view (and maybe a couple of other religious beliefs) that it's wrong. Outside such, it's not ethically nor morally wrong to have an abortion.

Arguing with the wrong person. I don't see how the argument that the unborn child is a person is exclusively Christian.

[Ben Kenobi]

No it isn't.

If the unborn child is a person, then every day in Norway, you have a massacre just like Brievik. Except it's not in the news, and you don't see them behind bars.

There are grey areas.

No, there aren't grey areas, Nikolai. The unborn child is a person and ought to be treated as such.

Abortion as a general rule is wrong, but life is not easy

That doesn't justify killing another person just because, 'life is hard'. Yes, life is hard. Yes, life is suffering. Even the Matrix touches on this, when it talks about how people rejected the perfect world. Avoiding suffering by killing another person is a sin.

Like if there is a choice between the kid's life and the mother's.

There is no choice here, Nikolai. That's what you are not seeing. In an ectopic pregnancy the mother will die. The choice is not between killing the child and saving the mom, but between letting the child die and letting the mother die. Doing nothing kills two people. There's no choice here, Nikolai. You do what you can to save the life of the mother. You do not choose to kill the child, you save the mother when there is no other choice.

You can't honestly believe it is as easy as the woman should die for the kid to survive?

Nikolai. One, no I do not believe it is an 'easy' decision. Nor do I believe that Christianity is an 'easy' religion. The way is narrow and few find it, but broad is the road the lies to destruction.

Two, that doesn't make it any less stark. Yes, there is a right decision and a wrong decision, and abortion is on the other side of the line.

She is a God's child as much as it! Life isn't always black and white, few rules are without exceptions.

So is the child. The child is God's just as the mother.

[Ben Kenobi]

My understanding is that any form of contraception is a sin. from condom to abortion.

Couple things here. Some forms of contraception are actually abortifacients. Things like condoms are not, they are barrier methods. Catholicism says that the barrier methods are wrong, because they divide the unitive from the procreative aspect of sex. Abortion is wrong because it kills a person, the child in the womb. So, very different rationales for both.

[Ben Kenobi]

But some people are just good people without ever hearing about a rescue plan.

Well, what makes a person good, Berz? If we add up the evil deeds and it balances out well to the good, does that make a person good?

[Ben Kenobi]

To whit, if you abrogate your moral senses when it comes to a god doing ostensibly evil acts, you can't turn around and proclaim its other acts morally good and expect to be taken seriously.

Actually, Boris.

Couple things. How do you know what is Good and what is Evil. What you are doing here is condemning people for doing things that you believe are evil. How do you know that you are right?

If one sincerely believed that all cultures were equal and that Good and truth was relative, then you could not condemn these actions.

[Jon Miller]

Anyone with an iota of moral clarity would see the Old Testament depiction of God as monstrously evil. It amuses me to see people try and defend it.

You miss the entire point of judges. Most likely because of bias.

The Bible is about morality being more than white/black. Jepthah was trying to do what was right, but did wrong. This is true of old testament people, over and over again. And it is true today as well.

It doesn't surprise me that you think the way you do, given the above.

Think about it. David is one of the greatest heroes of the old testament (maybe the greatest). It is clear enough for everyone that he did wrong (it should also be clear about Jepthah, but you don't see it, so maybe you don't see David either). Heroes does not mean 'does not do wrong' or 'knows when they sin' or anything else. Both testaments are full of flawed people in complicated and flawed situations. That is why it is such a great spiritual book.

If the Bible was meant to be just a set of instructions, it wouldn't work, but it would also be like leviticus or something but much much larger.

JM

[Kidlicious]

To whit, if you abrogate your moral senses when it comes to a god doing ostensibly evil acts, you can't turn around and proclaim its other acts morally good and expect to be taken seriously. It is absolutely absurd to insist a being is the embodiment of moral righteousness and yet, when confronted with actions which in other circumstances we'd consider horrific evils, throw up your hands and say that the being's methods/will are inscrutable. That is a total cop out.

It's actually human to be offended by God, because we can never understand Him. But Christians love love and obey Him so no harm ever comes to us. "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline."

[Nikolai]

Then why is it in the Bible at all? If God wasn't involved, what's the message? The depiction doesn't paint Jepthah as evil or wrong, it depicts him as a righteous hero.

And "his daughter somehow thought it okay and he sacrificed her." --so suicide is OK then? Why else would you use this as an argument?

And God commands the Israelites to slaughter the babies of other nations. They dash the babies against rocks. How does that jive?

Probably because the Bible is not the story about perfect superhumans. It's a book that dead honestly tells the story about flawed human beings, many which was used by God.
Think of Abraham: He lied and risked his wife becoming a concubine of foreign kings to not risk his life, instead of trusting God. God still used him for great things.
Or Jacob: He cheated his brother by deceiving his father and steal his blessing and inheritance. He later got the name Israel and was called the friend of God.
Or Moses: He was a hothead and murderer, who cowardly fled when discovered. He became the biggest prophet ever.
Or David: He was called a man after God's heart, but he ordered the killing of one of his most trusted and loyal warriors, to have sex with the man's wife. Why was he a man after God's heart? He repented and humiliated himself before God.

Or a completely different example, Judas Iskariot: He betrayed Jesus, and he took his own life rather than trusting God's mercy and love. He did not repent, but he is part of the Bible, because the Bible doesn't only tell about the good and successful guys.

[Boris Godunov]

It's not. The Bible is full of stories of people doing what is wrong. The whole point of judges is that the people of Israel were doing it wrong.

The Bible is not a simple guidebook. The fundamentalists are wrong to treat it that way. And so are you.

JM

Where does the OT condemn Jepthah for what he did? Nowhere. In fact, in Hebrews in the NT he's praised as a Man of Faith. Not a child-killer. You'd think the fact that he wrongfully killed his own daughter would be pointed out somewhere. At any rate, you're avoiding the point of the story, which is that that it was considered more immoral to break a promise to their god than to kill one's own child. *That's* what makes him praise-worthy as a man of faith, according to the Bible itself. Of course, we have the problem that their god ostensibly could have intervened at some point to tell Jepthah not to do it. There is, after all, precedent for him doing so. He didn't let Abraham knife his own kid.

And the Bible isn't a guidebook? Really? Do you not take your moral views from the information relayed in the Bible? Would any other Christian here agree with that?