Posted on 12/10/2014 7:43:34 AM PST by SeekAndFind
This agnostic hits FR’s imaginary “LIKE” button
So murder, theft, perjury and adultery were permitted before the revelation and codification at Sinai?
Religion reserves some things, for believers, to the Province of God. There is a Final Authority men cannot use or bend.
Dismiss God and you MUST replace Him...except that mere mortals are not competent to do so. And that is how we wind up with tens and even hundreds of millions dead.
8. Atheists like Mao, Stalin, and Pol Pot are responsible for the deaths of millions of people.
No, it was religion that told the people it was wrong.
Wonder how may atheists think UFO’s are real?.
“So murder, theft, perjury and adultery were permitted before the revelation and codification at Sinai? “
Yes. Child sacrifice, confiscation of land and temple prostitution were mainstays of early societies.
I believe that the bible has a LOT of cautionary tales, like how the tower of babel story is a warning about Rampant Multiculturalism and balkanisation, and how the story of Jacob and Esau is about selling your freedom for security.
Close, they were required* after mad mo crawled out of a cave with the hissings of The Serpent in his ears...
*see also al taqqya, hudna, the actions of al qaeda, boko harum, and the actions of any other number of devout followers of islam
Agreed.
So before the Hebrew exodus from Egypt, nobody knew murder was wrong because they hadn't been told?
No, evil and good were obvious. The Great Flood was to rid the world of the evil that existed. The Commandments of God just codified it.
There’s a Bible verse in Romans that states “Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.”
So people by instinct tend to know what’s right and wrong. The commandments articulate what our conscious already knows.
Exactly my point.
I have nothing against the codification mind you. Every religion does it. But it's the priests and scribes of the religion that are commenting on what already exists and what is already known in the heart of humans. There is no revelation. The religion follows. It's not the staring point.
Natural Law. Those things which we cannot NOT know.
Religion Is the Foundation of All Morality, Not Merely an Expression of It
The first assertion is so wrong, and the second so right, that it's hard to believe they're from the same person.
Good and evil are inherent in the human heart because it was put there by God. Without God in the law, there are no moral absolutes. There is only a general agreement of good and bad, which can change with time. Mosaic law was to protect the people, not control them.
Yes
because it was put there by God. Without God in the law, there are no moral absolutes.
By 500 BC, Confucius was preaching the "Golden Rule" exactly as we find in the Jewish/Christian tradition. In fact, his wording is almost verbatim to ours. He did not follow or worship any god in the Western sense. The God of Sinai is completely absent from that tradition.
You think that God’s influence was restricted to the area of ancient Israel?
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