Method of Madness: post-hoc reasoning and confirmation bias.

MTW,you didn't answer my question: Instead you dodge the question and imply that I am incorrect claiming God advocated murder because I quoted the OT.Are you telling me that you do not think the OT is the word of God? Are you saying that the events described in the OT are not accurate?I honestly don't know your personal position regarding this, so these are sincere questions.This message has been edited by custard, 06-17-2004 08:55 PM

Good question. I cannot possibly know the answer though. I think things would rapidly fall apart without God, but I mean, I dunno......Things are kinda "set-up" or in place with the nature of the universe. Maybe the natural cannot exist without God's maitenance.

Sincere questions eh? Ahahaha, these children that I suffer.The women were taken for wives. They were not raped. Even their own law wouldn't allow rape and murder, so hy - what must I be saying. You see, things like "thou shalt not murder" kinda makes it the hunan's fault.Remember Abraham, and how he argued with God over Sodom and Gomorrah? Asking that if even a few there were righteouss, that God would spare them. Yet the key here is that God wanted rid of the wicked.

IMHO, bad things are not the fault of or result of a GOD or particular religion.People don't always behave very well. In fact, we seem to screw up about equally regardless of which religion we belong to, or even if we follow no religion at all.GOD provides us with an ideal. It is something to reach for and try to get as close to as possible, but also something we are unlikely to attain.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Dude, I am being sincere and I'm not sure what I did to warrant your sarcasm. Wait. So if I kill you, take your virgin daughter, marry her, then have sex with her, that isn't rape? Eh? The Hunan? The Chinese? Dude, not following you at all here.This message has been edited by custard, 06-17-2004 09:28 PM

Jar,right, but, correct me if I'm wrong, you don't think that the OT is necessarily the exact word of God right? So if you read that the Lord commanded, through Moses, that all the male Midianites be killed and their virgin daughters taken as booty (heh heh), then you do you believe that God wanted them to rape and murder, or that men raped and murdered then used God as an excuse?

I meant humans.I don't have a virgin daughter. But by your logic, I should blame God and not you anyway. Cos your just a robot who cannot possibly know good or evil. Oh no, I forgot, humans do know good and bad, and also there's these things called Commandments which make it impossible to justify our actions, aswell as new teachings from Christ. Did God rape anyone? Should the rapist go free? It's you who' making the rapist innocent remember, so I guess you would justify the rape by blaming God eh?

Hold Your Horses Batman!I didn't say god raped anyone. Let's slow down a bit.I understand what you are saying about humans being responsible for their actions, I agree with you.You said that the actions of taking virgin Midianites for the purposes of marriage, by killing off their mothers, fathers, and brothers, was not rape because the Midianite women were married.I think that since they were taken by force, that does constitute rape. It certainly doesn't seem like they had any choice in the matter.So I'm asking you, given the same set of circumstances, does killing a virgin girl's father and marrying her without her consent constitute rape? If you don't think it is rape, why not?

That's a great issue for arguments around the bar table. Person with the worst answer buys the next round.You also know I can only speak for myself and so what you get is worth almost as much as you pay for it.I've said that I do not consider the Bible something that should be taken literally. It is primarily a religious text. But it also served to help identify and connect a people, to teach history as seen by the tribes themselves (note that is history as seen by the people at the time and not at all necessarily as it really happened) and to build a community.If you look at that story it should be examined within the framework of the period. So I need to ask you, within the context of the story, is there some behavior that would have been out of the norm? Is there behavior that would have been seen as immoral or even unusual back then?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Absolutely, I think the OT gives us an example of what Jewish morality was like. I also think the laws that were 'published' (etched in stone, clay tablets, what have you) also give us some insight to ancient morality. For instance, you just couldn't murder your neighbor because you wanted his stuff or his wife.And, much like the laws regarding murder today, I think these laws were suspended and did not apply when dealing with an enemy. Today we prosecute soldiers who commit rape, but back then women were considered spoils of war.So yeah, I believe that the Midianites were murdered and raped, that the Jews attributed their success to god - and I say 'success' because I'm sure they didn't suffer any moral equivocation performing those deeds because the Jews probably didn't consider their acts immoral.

I asked "Is there behavior that would have been seen as immoral or even unusual back then?" and you responded... But then you went on to say... So if the rules were suspended (actually, they never even applied. One thing we tend to forget is that the Jews did not think their rules applied to others anyway), then their behavior was not immoral. And if, as it seemed, the rules did not apply to those outside the family, then they were not in effect regardless and there was no immorality.What do you think?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Hmm, what I am trying to express is that while I think the Jews did not consider their actions immoral, they indeed were.I think if it is considered immoral to murder your Jewish neighbor and take his wife, it is just as immoral to murder your Midianite neighbor and take his daughter.Because the Jews didn't see it that way didn't make it any less immoral from my point of view; I merely understand why they don't think their own actions weren't immoral: they were inflicting this perfidy upon other people.Something else that complicates my point is that I am trying to point out the hypocrisy of both ancient times and today: the claim that war isn't the same thing as murder and is exempt from the accepted rules of morality. I disagree, war, except possibly in self-defense, is murder; and if murder is immoral, then so is war. Today, yesterday, and six thousand years ago.This message has been edited by custard, 06-18-2004 12:43 AM

You might be right so let's try to follow your line of reasoning.You have said that you are expressing your idea of morality. But at the time, you most likely would not have felt that way. You are reflecting a current cultural bias on a population that lived thousands of years ago.Next, you get into the issue of War and whether it is murder or immoral. But eveb there, you add the qualification except possibly in self-defense.So right there you move away from absolutes, Thou shall not kill to a more tentative you should only kill in self defense.Whe you add the qualifier you change the equation. Would you agree that self defense is appropriate when you believe your life is being threatened?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Well, yeah. I didn't realize I was supposed to imagine what my morality would have been thousands of years ago. If I were a Jew thousands of years ago I suppose I might think committing genocide was all right but I can't say that with any certainty since if 'thou shalt not kill' is a dilemma for me now when it comes to engagin in war, why would I think it wouldn't be a dilemma for me back then? (I'm sure I would have been killed as a heretic for asking too many questions anyway).What if I were a Midianite? Then I would certainly think what the Jews did to me and mine was immoral. Yeah, I admit that. I don't think 'thou shall not kill' or 'murder' depending on your interpretation is an absolute. If my life were threatened I would protect myself and have no reservations about using deadly force. Yes.

If self defense is acceptable if your believe you life is threatened, can we also apply the same logic to a Nation State? If a Nation State belives that its existence is threatened, would it be moral for it to defend itself?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion