-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Do bible gods moral laws ever change?
- Thread starter Firenze
- Start date
Yes, but this applies to relative moral theories, like consequentialism or utilitarianism. Many religious fundamentalists believe in immutable, deontological systems like Divine Command morality.
Is deontology even morality? I just don't see how it could possibly work in the Real World (TM).
Anyone breaking the Sabbath (Saturday),or failing to report someone breaking the Sabbath must also be stoned. A newlywed bride found not to be a virgin must be stoned to death on her father's doorstep.
The 613 Mitzvot don't change, but the application is always changing to reflect current sentiments. Laws are cherry-picked, ignored or cleverly interpreted to mean what the interpreter wants.
In my opinion, it's an abdication of morality and, as you say, unworkable. It's a facile way to avoid moral choice.
ppp
Well-Known Member
That's an interesting analogy. I don't see the aptness of the comparison.
Paul insists that there was sin before the law, but without the law there were no consequences. It’s hard to square that with the garden of Eden story he refers to though, in that text Adam and Eve are pictured as being in a state of innocence, from which they passed to some other state of enhanced awareness. According to Paul’s argument they were doing things that were later considered sinful but without the law those actions were not actually sinful, so that seems to be saying whether or not the law is moral depends on human awareness of it. Read it the most basic way there was in any case only one possible sin for Adam/Eve to commit, eating from the tree of knowledge. Read that way there were no other laws before that one was broken.
One passage in Genesis seems to describe sin as a kind of entity, although probably that’s just for effect sin does get talked about in various places as if it has its own distinct identity, as if it were waiting in the wings for the whole ‘fall of man’ thing.
Other than that various things have changed. Not all of them have to do with laws you’d actually find in the bible, but some of them yeah. One argument is that, as Jesus is recorded as saying, the NT ‘laws’, like the beatitudes, fulfil the OT laws, e.g. purity is now about the right motivation rather than about ritual cleansing and so on, and your attitude towards the food you eat is what determines whether it is pure or not. So the idea is that it’s the principles that matter, not how these are expressed through specific practices or laws.
There are definitely changes in attitude, though. In the wording of the 10 commandments, for example, wives are categorised as property, lumped together with the man’s other possessions. There are some particularly nasty fundamentalist groups, in parts of the US for example, who still have that same attitude but I think most modern Christians wouldn’t subscribe to that.
Last edited:
I hope they do. It would be suboptimal, today, to allow the rapist of a teenager to get away with it by marrying her, without any possibility of divorce.
Ciao
- viole
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
None of this matters. The fact is, if you get rid of societal justice, people will resort to vengeance -- two eyes for one eye. So take your pick which you prefer.
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
You do understand what figurative language is, do you not?
Like I said, if my car's brakes stop working, I have to take it off the street so that it doesn't threaten innocent people. It's not a punishment. It's just how things have to be.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
First degree murder is no accident.
ppp
Well-Known Member
A second death won't help.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
ppp
Well-Known Member
Ah. Based on the context, it seemed like you were calling for like for like.
Sometimes necessary, but never appropriate.
Whether or not any god exists, that usage of "justice" is purely performative.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Whether the death sentence is appropriate or not is only a matter of personal opinion.
Can you tell me why we think that society has the obligation to feed and house murderers for their entire lives when there is absolutely no question as to their guilt and no chance of rehabilitation? What purpose does this serve?
"Justice is mine sayeth the Lord" is a part of the Bible I believe.
I'm not arguing for getting rid of societal justice, I'm arguing for replacing vengeance based justice which results in an ever escalating cycle of violence with rehabilitative justice which is based in compassion and understanding of why people infringe in the first place.
It serves the purpose of compassion since there is no such thing in my view as free will. Therefore they were simply unlucky to draw the short straw to become murderers. And also because you don't know there is no chance of rehabilitation since neuroscience is a developing field in my view.
Appealing to an authority neither of us believe in makes little sense in my view.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
The entire justice system all over the world is based on the assumption that humans have free will to choose, unless they are mentally incompetent to stand trial, mentally ill, mentally challenged, or unless they have a physical brain defect. Such is not the case for the vast majority of first degree murderers. They are often very intelligent and they know exactly what they are doing and why. Some kill just for the thrill of killing but most kill for insurance money or so they can be with a lover other than their spouse. These murders are committed for purely selfish reasons, and they leave behind devastated families, many who never recover.
Do you watch any true crime programs on TV? I watch more than I care to say and have been watching them for as long as I can remember since I am very interested in law and justice. Most murderers are not from broken homes where they were unloved and uncared for, but even if that was the case, why didn't their sisters and brothers commit crimes? Why were they able to overcome their childhood issues and go on to lead normal lives?
It is very often the case that murderers and other criminals came from good homes where they were loved by their parents and they had all their needs met in childhood. Their sisters and brothers had the same upbringing and they have led normal lives. What causes people to commit crimes is a complex issue but I think that some people are just evil. There is no rehabilitation for people who cannot even admit they committed the crime even after it has been proven by forensic evidence. Of course there are others who are remorseful and I think they can be helped by the prison system.
Ad populum fallacy in my view.
Citation required for the part about the vast majority of first degree murderers having no brain defects nor up-bringing issues
None of that requires free will
Care to list the dramas you are implying are documentaries that you watch?
Different brain wiring/structure and or brain chemistry.
way to oversimplify "a complex issue"
What you are simply saying here is there is no currently known way, but you dont know what the future holds, as neuroscience is a developing field in my view
Good.
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Eye for an eye IS societal justice.
Vengeance is two eyes for an eye.
So which do you prefer?