Originally posted by twhitehead
Implicit, but not explicit. This suggests he had political reasons for not being explicit.

i would say he was easing people into it and being diplomatic. one doesn't brutally change the core of ones belief over night, maybe it would have done more harm than good to ridicule those previous beliefs.


if he would have said those rules were created by men as well as given by god, he would have had to prove that, then argue on the validity of other stories, like noah, genesis, etc.

we have examples here in the forum of people arguing that because jesus didn't explicitly denied adam and eve, that story must be true.

i still argue that jesus had a very limited time in which he was to impart as much "christianity" as possible. he didn't have time to explain every little detail.

Originally posted by CalJust
I think they can, and should.

If I remember correctly, the discussion was about Jesus not upholding the stoning law for the woman caught in adultery. Jesus told her to "go in peace, and sin no more". So it appears that he accepted that adultery was sin, but that the punishment was not appropriate.

My point was that it seemed that the Law should be int ...[text shortened]... at reason was wrong.

That was my distinction between the PRINCIPLE and the Letter of the Law.

Side note, and one which I consider to be more than just a minor point.

Prior to sending her on her way with the admonition to cease her adulterous life as well as to enter into a perfect one, He first acknowledged the perfection of the Law--- by not setting the Law aside in the eyes of the group of legalistic hypocrites which had lynch-mobbed the scene in the first place.

He was allowing them to follow through with the Law... provided they could stand the test of the Law themselves.

He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

Finding no one who could rightfully uphold the Law (despite their alleged expertise, they clearly did not understand the Law, let alone the PRINCIPLES of the same), He set the Law aside (took her purposeful acts of disobedience onto Himself and under His own authority), forgave her and ushered her into the life originally intended for her.

Originally posted by twhitehead
CalJust made this claim in another thread. This is not an attack on CalJust, just an invitation to others for discussion of the idea.

What are the worst laws (morally) of the OT ?
If we ignore for a moment the exact prescribed punishments, can we say that all OT laws were morally correct?
Does anyone believe that the punishments themselves were reasonable for that day and age and thus were also morally 'not wrong'?

Threads such as this are far too common and obvious.

Self-described atheists challenge some aspect of religious thought (ninety-nine times out of one hundred, Christianity) under the guise of 'reasoned thinking,' with a painfully obvious subtext of their wish to expose the absurdity and/or self-contradictory nature of the whole thing.

You guys will do it to pit one group against another (tell us why fill-in-the-blank is wrong, according to doctrine) with the sole purpose of putting the information in your arsenal for your next confrontation with any person so affiliated.

It's pathetic.

Any jackass can take a snippet here or a passage there of any document, view it from within the prism of their own perspective and self-righteously declare the former reprehensible.

You lack the fortitude of your own efforts and demand the conclusions of another's academics while arrogantly assuming that your Clif Note™ approach to Scripture yields anything other than distortion.

A tree does not make a forest and without the common sense to consider all of them in their relation to another as well as their relation to the whole, the results you stumble upon are the very ones you deserve.

Originally posted by yoctobyte
What do you use to judge whether something is morally wrong or not.

In this particular case, common sense.

Let's not forget, we live in the 21st century and 'our' laws have changed significantly since the Jewish Law of the OT. Different culture, different time... we cannot super impose what we do today on something from the past, it just doesn't work.
Why doesn't it work?

What's interesting? The Law was given by God and should be treated with respect.
That is interesting. The fact that you believe such laws were given by God despite how obviously horrible they are.

The 'problem' with OT Law as I see it with some posters is a lack of understanding of the times of the OT Law and the culture. We try to look at the past through our 21st century glasses, can't do that.
Do you have this 'understanding' or are you just assuming that if someone had this understanding, they would see the morality in the laws?
Again, I think you need to justify your claim that such understanding is required.

Why would the OT Law be morally wrong, because you say so?
Notice the 'if' in my sentence?
Also, I said they were 'obviously morally wrong' but apparently it is not obvious to everyone.

Jesus is the most moral man that waked the earth, he was/is sinless. He is the most compassionate man to have walked the earth, he was/is sinless! He is the Word and he is God, you make too many assumptions. Jesus was/is not about man's petty politics, it is something much greater.
But for some reason he chose not to explicitly criticize the OT laws. Possibly for the same reasons why you refuse to do so.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Threads such as this are far too common and obvious.

Self-described atheists challenge some aspect of religious thought (ninety-nine times out of one hundred, Christianity) under the guise of 'reasoned thinking,' with a painfully obvious subtext of their wish to expose the absurdity and/or self-contradictory nature of the whole thing.

You guys will d ...[text shortened]... well as their relation to the whole, the results you stumble upon are the very ones you deserve.

it is very fragile the philosophy system that can't accept criticism.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Threads such as this are far too common and obvious.

Self-described atheists challenge some aspect of religious thought (ninety-nine times out of one hundred, Christianity) under the guise of 'reasoned thinking,' with a painfully obvious subtext of their wish to expose the absurdity and/or self-contradictory nature of the whole thing.

You guys will d ...[text shortened]... well as their relation to the whole, the results you stumble upon are the very ones you deserve.

Very nice!

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
it is very fragile the philosophy system that can't accept criticism.

It is a shallow mind which offers criticism on topics not understood.

Originally posted by twhitehead
In this particular case, common sense.

[b]Let's not forget, we live in the 21st century and 'our' laws have changed significantly since the Jewish Law of the OT. Different culture, different time... we cannot super impose what we do today on something from the past, it just doesn't work.
Why doesn't it work?

What's interesting? The Law wa ...[text shortened]... not to explicitly criticize the OT laws. Possibly for the same reasons why you refuse to do so.

But for some reason he chose not to explicitly criticize the OT laws. Possibly for the same reasons why you refuse to do so.

You need to understand the purpose of the OT law and what God was achieving through it. Incidentally, what law of the OT are you taking issue with?

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
It is a shallow mind which offers criticism on topics not understood.

So you are admitting to having a shallow mind? (you offered criticism on the topic of my motivations which you quite clearly did not understand).

Originally posted by yoctobyte
You need to understand the purpose of the OT law and what God was achieving through it.

And presumably nobody who criticizes the law has correctly understood said purpose?

Incidentally, what law of the OT are you taking issue with?
Why would that matter if I have not understood it anyway? You are essentially claiming that I have not, and can not, understand OT law nor its purpose, so why bother discussing specifics?

Originally posted by twhitehead
And presumably nobody who criticizes the law has correctly understood said purpose?

[b]Incidentally, what law of the OT are you taking issue with?
Why would that matter if I have not understood it anyway? You are essentially claiming that I have not, and can not, understand OT law nor its purpose, so why bother discussing specifics?[/b]

I have made no such statement with regards to you, why make such a claim? If you don't want to state what part of the OT Law you have an issue with, that's your decision... I will respect that.

Originally posted by twhitehead
So you are admitting to having a shallow mind? (you offered criticism on the topic of my motivations which you quite clearly did not understand).

What is there to understand that, according to you, eludes me?

Within the first page of the thread you created, you've latched upon Deuteronomy 25:11 (no pun intended, of course), practically hyperventilating over how disproportionate the punishment is to the trespass... which, in turn, is intended to show exactly what you set upon to do in the first place:
the principles of many of the OT laws were wrong and still are?

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
What is there to understand that, according to you, eludes me?

If you have to ask, you didn't understand.

Within the first page of the thread you created, you've latched upon Deuteronomy 25:11 (no pun intended, of course), practically hyperventilating over how disproportionate the punishment is to the trespass... which, in turn, is intended to show exactly what you set upon to do in the first place:
the principles of many of the OT laws were wrong and still are?
I am fairly sure I never once mentioned Deuteronomy 25:11 much less 'latched on to' it. I think you have me mistaken for someone else.

Maybe you should think twice before calling people 'shallow minded' for lack of understanding.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
It is a shallow mind which offers criticism on topics not understood.

there can be no understanding if one accepts something without question.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
there can be no understanding if one accepts something without question.

Here is one question: How can you accept the concept of a god that just happens to have human attributes?

For instance, as I have said before, we postulate a god capable of creating entire universes but it is worried about humans (who didn't come on the universe scene for nearly 14 billion years) not worshiping this god?

So 13 odd billion years goes by and all this time your god does not seem to worry much about being worshiped but then as soon as humans appear on the scene, well into the aging universe time scale, THEN it is demanding attention?

Doesn't that strike you as just humans attributing human aspects to a made up god?