YES!!! YES! YES YES!
You have it right there! RIGHT THERE! That’s exactly right. It is through virtue of the absurd that men live fulfilled lives, not through the dialectical perspectives that they rely on - as though their meager capacities could ever match to the bredth of knowledge in the world to be gained, that is subsequently, impossible to be gained.
This is all very old stuff that Molyneux just appears to completely ignore without any clue. The man truly is, clueless.
That’s not quite what he’s saying…
When one says the addition of X fulfills Y so that Y no longer stands as the valid principle, one does not say that Y is inapplicable - one says that Y has changed or been replaced.
Apparently, processes are also impossible in Hume’s magic park of the empirically incorrect empiricals.
No, that’s not what I said. At all. A Christian is not bound to ANY of the Deuteronomical law. The New Testament makes it clear that the law is death, and Christians are to choose life.
That analogy is horribly flawed. One can believe in the literal inerrancy of the Bible and STILL not be bound to Deuteronomical law, because there are explicit passages of the New Testament that say we are not so bound.
Secondly, a religion founded on a text that doesn’t even have advice on how to live one’s life is in a completely different class of ideas from one founded on a text that does.
Exactly! The Deuteronomical law is no longer convenient. It now looks embarrassing and savage. But once upon a time before Yashua it would have been acceptable to kill a son for disobedience I suppose.
You see, there is this sequel to Melville’s most famous novel called the Resurrection of Queequeg. It explicitly states that you still have to follow the teachings in the odd chapters but you are no longer bound by the teachings in the even ones.
Such blasphemy! Melville’s most famous novel does indeed have advice on how to live one’s life! Not only does it have advice on whaling, it is an allegory that explores the relationship between man and nature, the concept of vengence and many of the prejudices that existed at that time as well.
The pursuit of truth seems more effective, for lack of a better term. Opposition to what is incorrect would have us going around writing treatises about every unprovable absurdity that people conjur up - like spirits, elves, sprites, gods, etc. It seems you just have an emotionally vested interest in this particular area of religion, the sacred cow you can’t allow to be touched.
Thank you for the well thought out response.
What law is Jesus referring to?
You’re neglecting the context of the law: it authorizes capital punishment for incorrigible children, yes–but there is a bit more to it than that.
First, the behavior needs to rise to a level that the community deems sufficient; in the hypothetical example, the parents testify that “he is a glutton and a drunkard” (Deut 21:20), and the parents must have made sufficient attempt to correct the problem (Deut 21:18). Second, for the son to be a “drunkard,” he is presumably older than, say, seven–i.e., he is somewhere into adulthood or at the very least “young adulthood.” Thirdly, the law would only apply to dependent children, not those who had moved out of the parents’ home. Putting those three factors together, we’re talking about adult children who still haven’t moved out of mommy’s house, or teenaged juvenile delinquents. In other words, loosely what right-wing radio hosts like to call “gang-banger youts.”
But fourthly and most importantly, Deut 17:7 stipulates that, in death penalty cases, the witnesses are required to throw the first stones. In this case, the witnesses are the parents. So either we’re talking about an incredibly bad juvenile delinquent, or else we’re talking about such psychopathic parents that they’re willing for frivolous reasons to murder their children. Since psychopathic killers of their own offspring are selected against by evolution, they tend to be pretty rare.
Summing it up, the Deuteronomic law is not consistent with libertarian thinking, but it isn’t nearly as barbaric as it appears at first blush. It authorizes the parents of inner-city gang-banging delinquents to apply the death penalty to their murderous, violent dependents without specific evidence of the drug-dealing, mugging, raping and murdering that they’re out there doing with their homies.
–Len.
The law in question is obviously Moses’ law. The interesting question is what “fulfil” means here. If it means “fulfil” in the sense of a contract, and that argument can be made, then the obligation is discharged, and hence doesn’t adhere to us today.
–Len.
There’s nothing wrong with voluntary collectivism. The problem only kicks in when a Christian confuses voluntary and coerced collectivism; that confusion has caused a few falling outs for me. Opposition to coerced collectivism is mistaken for Rand’s “altruism is evil” at the other extreme.
–Len.
Len,
In my experience there is an awful of lot of back-peddling, apologetics, cherry-picking, and rationalizing going on when Christians try and make their faith seem reasonable. With those methods of reasoning I could turn Mein Kampf into a divine message.
There’s a reasonable way to look at this from the atheist’s perspective: Christians are basically decent people clinging for emotional human reasons to a barbaric relic, but they choose to reinterpret their religion consistent with their basic decency, rather than throwing decency to the wind and embracing the original barbarism from whence it sprang. With that perspective, the most efficient thing for atheists to do is to encourage this process, and help religious people become reasonable freedom-lovers who will eventually drop the crutch of religion. Kicking the crutch out from under them first, and then demanding they get up and walk without any physical therapy, is inefficient at best and coutnerproductive at worst.
From my perspective, of course, the teachings of Christ were always wise and humane, but humans have consistently distorted it in their ignorance and evil. Properly understood, it is almost perfectly compatible with non-aggression; in particular, there’s no reasonable argument that Jesus’ teachings directly authorize aggression. Therefore, encouraging Christians to embrace non-aggression is synonymous with making them better Christians, and there is no cognitive dissonance.
Your comment above, when viewed from my perspective, is rather insulting. The Bible is a big complicated book. You contemptuously cite that as reason to throw it away; I on the other hand cite it as the reason to study it, and to refrain from making overly pontifical assertions about what it says. I don’t intend to coerce you to read it, and I expect you not to coerce me to throw it away. That being the case, I dont see how your belligerent comments help either of us. Instead, they alienate two individuals who have considerable common ground: a love of liberty and a devotion to non-aggression.
–Len.
If Yahweh is the party who is owed in this contract why would he consider the contract fulfiulled by paying the price himself? Just to be nice? Why didn’t he think of that before instead of killing almost the entire human race in a flood?
It isn’t as barbaric as it may seem because it is only OK to kill SOME disobedient children and not all of them. Ok, thanks for clearing that up.
There are enough assumptions in your question to make a short answer impossible. Most of your assumptions are compatible with Catholic theology, but not with the Bible. For starters, Yahweh didn’t die on the cross in any sense; His son did. He and His son are distinct individuals. I think it’s clear that from that starting point, we’ll have a hard time even discussing the question. Each of the assumptions in your question represents a lengthy argument when I contradict it.
–Len.
Your scorn serves no purpose. I point out merely that your cartoonish notion of the law is false: it has nothing to do with murdering your own children because they didn’t feed the dog. It’s about delinquents incorrigible enough to pose a serious potential threat to life. Libertarian law only allows one to deal with present threats to life; i.e., they must be let alone until their would-be victims kill them in self-defense.
However, considering that the likelihood of a parent consenting to kill his child with his own hand is virtually nil, the purpose of the law is clearly as a deterrent rather than a remedy.
You can disagree with that all you want, but please don’t bother with childish caricatures.
–Len.
What part of what I said insults you and what would you deem belligerent? Do you deny that this sort of faulty reasoning occurs when defending the seemingly infinite contradictions in the Bible? It seems moreover that you are insulted by the truth. And you needn’t coerce me to read the Bible; I have read and studied it. I grew up Southern Baptist and am quite familiar with the Bible.
You claim the Bible is a big complicated book. When looked at rationally and empirically, I do not think it is complicated at all. Its no more complicated than any other mystical book. Its only complicated if you wish to take its violent inconsistencies and turn them into loving statements of reason and truth. That is indeed, complicated.
Well, you’re not interested in having a respectful discussion, so I won’t bother. But the question whether Christians can be anarchists is much less interesting to me than the question whether atheists can avoid being obnoxious jerks. Can they? Have you ever met a counterexample in your travels? If so, can you introduce him to this forum so we can meet him? If you can’t, because he doesn’t like you, I’ll understand perfectly.
–Len.
Abraham was willing to and his child was not disobedient.
Jephthah DID and his daughter was not at all disobedient.
OK, for the sake of the non-Trinitarian Christians why would he consider it fulfilled by his son paying it when it was not his son who signed this contract?
obnoxious jerk = person who points out faulty reasoning