Balerion the Black
New member
Pick any capitol crime. When God prescribed the death penalty for that crime did He do that because he wanted people to die, or because He wanted people not to commit acts worthy of death?
He really didn't want people to do those things, we get the idea. But if he told them that the punishment for certain acts was death, he would have to have figured that people actually would take it to mean that those people should in fact die. (Although it was in fact understood that the death penalty was pretty much unenforceable as the standards for actually being allowed to put someone to death were so high as to be virtually unattainable. It should be noted that for all of George W. Bush professing to be a Bible-believing Christian he had no problems signing death warrants even in cases where the defendant was convicted by the testimony of a single witness, when the Bible expressly forbids the carrying out of a death sentence under such circumstances).
I would say that more than likely God simply told people, don't do this thing, don't do that other thing, and so on, and somewhere along the line someone who was just a bit overzealous decided that if God told people not to do certain things, if someone did those things than they were directly defying God and therefore deserved to die for it. (Whatever part of the Bible may have been "divinely inspired", it was invariably edited numerous times along the way by unscrupulous individuals seeking to advance their own political or social agendas).
Good way of putting an initial vibe. These however, are not definitive. There are good reasons for OT happenings if one isn't just looking for excuses to continue rejection. I will assert against your initial observation that God is good, even in the OT. Such needs discussion, but only if one isn't looking for excuses to believe otherwise. There are good reasons why the OT is the way it is.
And equally good reasons why the laws of the OT should not be applied today. One good example is the law that states that a rapist must marry his victim. A victim of rape was considered 'defiled' and her prospects for marriage after that were virtually nil, so it was decided that the one who went and defiled her would be required to provide for her after that. Their cultural values were rather uncivilized by today's standards (and if you think that the Israelites were uncivilized, their neighbors were absolutely barbaric.) These days not being a virgin hardly affects a woman's marriage prospects any, and more importantly women are quite capable of providing for themselves, so there is no reason to ever apply such an outdated rule (especially when rapists rightfully belong in prison.)
The eating of pork - it was due entirely to health reasons, as especially back then there was a good risk of getting sick from it, especially if the meat wasn't cooked enough.
And so on.
Warnings and bannings. You seem intelligent enough to use better terms and descriptors without offering purposeful offense. You can prove me and all of TOL wrong and continue the mundane, low-brow, and offensive if you like but I thought I'd be friendly about it and see if honey works better than vinegar.
I didn't think it was that vulgar. I figured that a certain word that rhymed with the word I used but started with a 'd' (that also happens to be - quite appropriately I might add - the first name of a certain ex-Vice President) would be considered profanity. (Perhaps "Cheney" would be a more acceptable word to use. Or how about "Nixon" instead?)
What is quite vulgar, on the other hand, is the view spouted by Lighthouse and genuineoriginal that homosexuals ought to be put to death.