Is Rape just relatively wrong? Or ABSOLUTELY WRONG?

[Danus]

Exodus 21:10 and Deuteronomy 21:15
These verses do not say go marry multiple wives. They speak of the condition of those that do. It does not say do it; it says what to do IF you do it. Polygamy is not a God commandment. It's a guy thing not a God thing. Try again.

So your saying polygamy is ok today? I say it's immoral today, but wasn't immoral in the past. That is moral relativism.

That does not touch what I wrote. I think we've reached the end of your argument. Have a good one.

 

[happyjoy]

Exodus 21:10 and Deuteronomy 21:15
These verses do not say go marry multiple wives. They speak of the condition of those that do. It does not say do it; it says what to do IF you do it. Polygamy is not a God commandment. It's a guy thing not a God thing. Try again.

So your saying polygamy is ok today? I say it's immoral today, but wasn't immoral in the past. That is moral relativism.

That does not touch what I wrote. I think we've reached the end of your argument. Have a good one.

You too.

 

[Danus]

God is where this absolute morality comes from.

Yes, but that's the difficult bit. Whatever spin you put on the Abraham/Isaac story, it's wrong to demand someone prove their devotion to you by being willing to murder their own child.

Well I would not demand that of someone and I think it would be wrong of me or you or anyone else. However, the question is; is Gods morality in tact and absolute in the story and the answer is yes. God does not prove himself as a moral relativist.

The other thing I want to point out is that the whole of the OT is a beautiful prelude of things to come, In this story Issac could be seen as mankind. On the way to be sacrificed he asked Abraham about the lamb and Abraham says "God will provide the sacrifice. God does provide it and it's not Issac. In the same way he provides a sacrifice for all of mankind through Jesus Christ. So, this story illustrates how God provides a sacrifice in our place just as he did for Abraham and Issac. That is to say for those that believe in him. Abraham believed in him as the story also points out....moving on...

If God is the source of absolute morality then those who folow his orders are doing right. This means Moses was morally justified in Numbers 31 where he orders the murder of children taken prisoner and spares only female virgins (and I think we can guess why). Far from condemning this, God tells him how to divide the spoils.

You can't possibly expect anyone to accept that absolute moral values are at work here.

Yes on Gods part yes. On man's part yes and no.

Since you mentioned the book of Numbers, I will assume you are fully familiar with it. meaning I will have to assume you are aware of all the events leading up to 31. How that God's people where going to be virtually destroyed if they did not fight. How the Israelites where being subverted. With that a battle ensued and they defeated the Midianites.

After the battle they where left with women and children. Here are Moses options.
1. let them fend for themselves.
2. Kill them all.
3. Assimilate them into the camp.

3 Sound pretty good, but there is a problem. How best can we do this without the young men taking vengeance on us some day? And who will have the non-virgins? They will have to be taken care of and part of what brought this on are some of those women .

So Moses takes a combination of options 2 and 3. He kills any of them that would clearly be a problem and assimilates the ones he can into the camp. That leaves the females who are virgins. If your suggesting that they kept them for sexual slaves you can just forget that because there is not one speck of evidence to support that.

So what about the morality of it all? Who,s most culpable of being wrong? Is it Moses? Nope. He's just trying to lead the people and follow God. These people where going to destroy that and for what? fear and there own "relativism"; what they felt was important to them. So what about God? Is God the culprit in all of this? How is he? He crated man and gave man free will.

These people died because of there own fear, selfishness and stupidity. There own children suffered because of them, the Midianite leaders and the parents. Fallen world, fallen people making bad choices.

Gods absolute morality still in tact. Moses's morality in tact measured against God's, finally The Midianite leaders and the parents morality is clearly relevant only to them and it did not stand up to absolute morality at all.

For more on your argument take a look at this site. It describes this same argument, but in more detail.

http://www.apocalipsis.org/difficulties/midianite.htm

Numbers 31 is an old atheist argument that only raises questions for those that don't know the full book. If you don't know the whole book you might want to read the chapters 1 through 29 as well as 31. While you read it look for the people who are following Gods morality and those that are making up their own. If you do that you can better judge what happens and why in Numbers 31.

 

[logical bob]

Danus, whatever way you slice it you're presenting a justification for genocide and for the murder of children. I don't believe there can be such a justification. Sometimes the end justifes the means, sometimes the means is simply unacceptable.

I'd like to think that as a culture, we in the Western world learnt the lessons of the Holocaust, but it would seem not.

 

[jasoncran]

Danus, whatever way you slice it you're presenting a justification for genocide and for the murder of children. I don't believe there can be such a justification. Sometimes the end justifes the means, sometimes the means is simply unacceptable.

I'd like to think that as a culture, we in the Western world learnt the lessons of the Holocaust, but it would seem not.

logical bob. a quick analogy

would accpept guidance from a know deffective compass that always points north. no matter which way you face.

that is what moral relativism says

if theres no absolute then we can change the moress and still be ok all the time.

ie who are we to tell the muslims that they cant kill thier wives if they commit adultery.

when we say its wrong. we have just become the standard. if we have then we must use force to make the muslims to submit to our will. we become like god.

this is what this thread is about, we want to be in control, not God.

 

[Danus]

Danus, whatever way you slice it you're presenting a justification for genocide and for the murder of children. I don't believe there can be such a justification. Sometimes the end justifes the means, sometimes the means is simply unacceptable.

I'd like to think that as a culture, we in the Western world learnt the lessons of the Holocaust, but it would seem not.

I was expecting more.

No. I'm not presenting a justification for murder as much as I am explaining why the people you brought up where killed in the book of numbers. They essentially placed themselves, and their own children, in their own perilous situation, not by mere happenstance as innocent victims. They where the aggressors and the Israelite acted in defense for themselves. That's what that story is about. If someone attempts to kill or harm you have the right to your anger and defense of yourself. So again your example does not hold water to point out or prove the relevant morality of God. What other verses do you have that show God or Christianity as a moral relativist?

 

[happyjoy]

No. I'm not presenting a justification for murder as much as I am explaining why the people you brought up where killed in the book of numbers. They essentially placed themselves, and their own children, in their own perilous situation, not by mere happenstance as innocent victims. They where the aggressors and the Israelite acted in defense for themselves. That's what that story is about. If someone attempts to kill or harm you have the right to your anger and defense of yourself. So again your example does not hold water to point out or prove the relevant morality of God. What other verses do you have that show God or Christianity as a moral relativist?

So you are saying that if they place themselves in a perilous situation then it is right to kill them, but in "normal" circumstances it isn't? Sounds like moral relativism to me.

 

[Danus]

No. I'm not presenting a justification for murder as much as I am explaining why the people you brought up where killed in the book of numbers. They essentially placed themselves, and their own children, in their own perilous situation, not by mere happenstance as innocent victims. They where the aggressors and the Israelite acted in defense for themselves. That's what that story is about. If someone attempts to kill or harm you have the right to your anger and defense of yourself. So again your example does not hold water to point out or prove the relevant morality of God. What other verses do you have that show God or Christianity as a moral relativist?

So you are saying that if they place themselves in a perilous situation then it is right to kill them, but in "normal" circumstances it isn't? Sounds like moral relativism to me.

Nope I never said that at all. I simply said you have the right to defend yourself morally by God and that's not moral relativism. And again, it does not prove that God is a moral relativist.

In the example of Numbers 31 God himself says to Moses to take vengeance on the Midianits. He is not giving Moses a special hall pass to kill for the sake of killing. He is telling Moses what to do to protect the fledgling nation of Israel. In God's law there is right and there is wrong. In this case the Midianits are wrong. Not by what Moses says or any other person, but by what God says; and not by just what God says at that time, but through out scripture. He is not deviating from his own moral standards in this example.

If you don't read numbers and only read 31 you won't see that. The Midianits are moral relativist because they follow there own standard, which includes destroying Israel out of their own ignorance. They had an opportunity to be part of a good thing but they decided not to. So the Midianits are clearly moral relativist. God is Morally Absolute. God has time for right and he does not allow wrong to prevail.

If you want to be a moral relativist yourself, God will not stop you. He will warn you, not about him, but about your own self. Moral relativist dig their own graves by doing their own thing; doing what feels right to them. They fail to understand absolute right and absolute wrong and because of that many step into wrong and often blame God for it, pr see that God was right to begin with. God is just trying to point it all out for our own benefit.

 

[Bob Carabbio]

Absolutely wrong, of course (according to the definition of rape). No discussion required.

 

[logical bob]

Danus, whatever way you slice it you're presenting a justification for genocide and for the murder of children. I don't believe there can be such a justification. Sometimes the end justifes the means, sometimes the means is simply unacceptable.

I'd like to think that as a culture, we in the Western world learnt the lessons of the Holocaust, but it would seem not.

I was expecting more.

No. I'm not presenting a justification for murder as much as I am explaining why the people you brought up where killed in the book of numbers. They essentially placed themselves, and their own children, in their own perilous situation, not by mere happenstance as innocent victims. They where the aggressors and the Israelite acted in defense for themselves. That's what that story is about. If someone attempts to kill or harm you have the right to your anger and defense of yourself. So again your example does not hold water to point out or prove the relevant morality of God. What other verses do you have that show God or Christianity as a moral relativist?

We discuss these things with the security of knowing they happened long, long ago. Tell me, can you imagine a situation in which you would be willing to kill a child who was a prisoner? Is there any set of circumstances in which you could actually pick up a sword and kill them feeling that what you were doing was a justifiable act of self defence? If the answer is no then you shouldn't defend these killings in the Old Testament. If the answer is yes then you disgust me.

You want to make this complicated, but it isn't.

 

[LostSoul]

Rape is NEVER right. Be it done to a slave, child, adult, or the elderly. In doing so any of us breaks one of the commandments in which Jesus strongly preached. That being that we are to love our neighbors, enemies, bretheren as we love ourselves. More importantly He taught us that we are to love God with ALL our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls. How can we do that if we are hurting others? The answere here is: YOU CANNOT.

 

[Free]

[quote="logical bob":1gks1x4e]Danus, whatever way you slice it you're presenting a justification for genocide and for the murder of children. I don't believe there can be such a justification. Sometimes the end justifes the means, sometimes the means is simply unacceptable.

I'd like to think that as a culture, we in the Western world learnt the lessons of the Holocaust, but it would seem not.

I was expecting more.

No. I'm not presenting a justification for murder as much as I am explaining why the people you brought up where killed in the book of numbers. They essentially placed themselves, and their own children, in their own perilous situation, not by mere happenstance as innocent victims. They where the aggressors and the Israelite acted in defense for themselves. That's what that story is about. If someone attempts to kill or harm you have the right to your anger and defense of yourself. So again your example does not hold water to point out or prove the relevant morality of God. What other verses do you have that show God or Christianity as a moral relativist?

We discuss these things with the security of knowing they happened long, long ago. Tell me, can you imagine a situation in which you would be willing to kill a child who was a prisoner? Is there any set of circumstances in which you could actually pick up a sword and kill them feeling that what you were doing was a justifiable act of self defence? If the answer is no then you shouldn't defend these killings in the Old Testament. If the answer is yes then you disgust me.

You want to make this complicated, but it isn't.[/quote:1gks1x4e]
Actually, it is complicated, if one really tries to understand the Law and how it applied to a specific people, in a specific time, for a specific purpose.

 

[happyjoy]

Actually, it is complicated, if one really tries to understand the Law and how it applied to a specific people, in a specific time, for a specific purpose.

So the law depends on the specific people, time, purpose. That is what I have been saying. Morality is relative to the situation, people etc at hand.

 

[Free]

Actually, it is complicated, if one really tries to understand the Law and how it applied to a specific people, in a specific time, for a specific purpose.

So the law depends on the specific people, time, purpose. That is what I have been saying. Morality is relative to the situation, people etc at hand.

No, that is not what I am saying. Rape is wrong and always has been wrong. Morality is not relative. My point was that pulling examples from the OT, out of their context, without fully understanding the Law and its purpose, may make it appear as though morality is relative when it is not; it is not so simple.

 

[happyjoy]

Actually, it is complicated, if one really tries to understand the Law and how it applied to a specific people, in a specific time, for a specific purpose.

So the law depends on the specific people, time, purpose. That is what I have been saying. Morality is relative to the situation, people etc at hand.

No, that is not what I am saying. Rape is wrong and always has been wrong. Morality is not relative. My point was that pulling examples from the OT, out of their context, without fully understanding the Law and its purpose, may make it appear as though morality is relative when it is not; it is not so simple.

Complicated just means things depend on the circumstances at the moment. Meaning things are relative. We are just having a semantics argument.

Certainty the words us the bible haven't changed other than translation, but our understanding has for sure, and in that as well means our morality has changed.

 

[Free]

So the law depends on the specific people, time, purpose. That is what I have been saying. Morality is relative to the situation, people etc at hand.

No, that is not what I am saying. Rape is wrong and always has been wrong. Morality is not relative. My point was that pulling examples from the OT, out of their context, without fully understanding the Law and its purpose, may make it appear as though morality is relative when it is not; it is not so simple.

Complicated just means things depend on the circumstances at the moment. Meaning things are relative. We are just having a semantics argument.

Certainty the words us the bible haven't changed other than translation, but our understanding has for sure, and in that as well means our morality has changed.

No, complicated does not mean that. By complicated I mean that a proper study of the Law, it's purposes, how it applied then and how, if at all, it applies now, requires a depth of study that apparently hasn't been done by many, if any, in this thread. Theology is hardly ever simple.

Our understanding having changed does not mean that morality is relative. If the words of Scripture haven't changed but our understanding of them has, then there is a problem with our understanding, not morality.

 

[jasoncran]

the more i think i know about the law and the bible as a whole , i realize i dont know.

one can study the bible for one's entire life and never reach the depths it, yet it is so simple that a child can swim the shallow parts.

 

[Danus]

[quote="logical bob":3l3e0ldo]Danus, whatever way you slice it you're presenting a justification for genocide and for the murder of children. I don't believe there can be such a justification. Sometimes the end justifes the means, sometimes the means is simply unacceptable.

I'd like to think that as a culture, we in the Western world learnt the lessons of the Holocaust, but it would seem not.

I was expecting more.

No. I'm not presenting a justification for murder as much as I am explaining why the people you brought up where killed in the book of numbers. They essentially placed themselves, and their own children, in their own perilous situation, not by mere happenstance as innocent victims. They where the aggressors and the Israelite acted in defense for themselves. That's what that story is about. If someone attempts to kill or harm you have the right to your anger and defense of yourself. So again your example does not hold water to point out or prove the relevant morality of God. What other verses do you have that show God or Christianity as a moral relativist?

We discuss these things with the security of knowing they happened long, long ago. Tell me, can you imagine a situation in which you would be willing to kill a child who was a prisoner? Is there any set of circumstances in which you could actually pick up a sword and kill them feeling that what you were doing was a justifiable act of self defence? If the answer is no then you shouldn't defend these killings in the Old Testament. If the answer is yes then you disgust me.

You want to make this complicated, but it isn't.[/quote:3l3e0ldo]

I can't say that I could kill a child, but let's go back to your original question for just a bit.......You asked

Aren't all Christians moral relativists? After all, God gave commands to the Jews that he didn't give to the Gentiles. Later, he repealed these commands for Christians.

In the OT, he commanded acts of violence that Christians would condemn today. Abraham was judged good for being willing to sacrifice his son, something that would get your kids taken into care today.

For God, it seems the same action is right in some times and places and wrong in others. If that's not moral relativism I don't know what is.

To answer your question...No. God is not a morel relativist and neither are the teachings of Christianity.

You filtered your own understanding of the OT through your own belief in moral relativism, but failed to prove that God or the teachings of Christ are relative to how one feels about certain situations.

This is not about how you feel, or I feel about killing kids or rape. It's about Right and Wrong. It's a question of weather right and wrong are absolute or relative to what one just thinks.

 

[jasoncran]

the problem with moral relativism is chiefly this in a nut shell.

It is I feel what is right or wrong.
and he who has the biggest army makes the rules.

that will stir things up.

 

[Danus]

Complicated just means things depend on the circumstances at the moment. Meaning things are relative. We are just having a semantics argument.

Certainty the words us the bible haven't changed other than translation, but our understanding has for sure, and in that as well means our morality has changed.

Is it complicated?
Wrong is unrighteous anger, envy, jealousy, miss placed sorrow or regret, greed,arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, pride,superiority, or ego.

Right is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.

I'm sure you could add to either list. One is right and one is wrong absolutely. God and Christianity teaches us that.

Is there any time you can trade anything in that list that is wrong fro anything in that list that is right and still be right? Can you replace generosity with greed and be right for example. Does God teach in any part of the bible that wrong is OK under certain circumstances? Find that in the bible. Find where God says kill people out of anything in that list of wrong.

The problem with the idea of moral relativism is that it is in constant flux. It's ever changing and that is a fact about it by the relativist own definition. However, the relativist wants to prove he is right by saying "there are no absolutes!" What kind of poppy-cock it that? Isn't that an absolute statement in and of it self? YES! So, how can you make an absolute statement and say there are not absolutes?

There is Right and there is Wrong. The bible teaches the difference between the two and even teaches you why it's so, yet the relativist can't see it. You may not like what the bible says, but you have not proven that what it says is relative to what you think and feel. If anything it is not. If anything it screams absolute.

So again show me where the bible crosses itself out some place. Show me where God simply makes up the rules as he goes along depending on how he feels or thinks. Show me where the bible contradicts it's own teachings.


I'll wait